Gary Strapp Honored

Eldridge playwright Gary Stapp has been named a recipient of a $500 mini-fellowship award from the Kansas Arts Commission. Stapp, 45, is a founding member of the Chamber Players Community Theater, and was bitten by the playwriting bug while working in numerous local productions, either as an actor, director or set designer. In 2003 Stapp added playwright to his resume when his first playwriting endeavor, "Love Thy Neighbor," was performed by the Chamber Players for a run which broke the group's previous attendance record by fifty-percent and required an unprecedented two-performance encore. Eldridge also publishes another play of his,“Family Ties and Little White Lies.”

Readings Scheduled

Playwright Dennis Bush will have selections from his new collection book, “Never the Same,” presented at the Dramatists Guild in New York on April 27 as part of an evening featuring his work. “Never the Same” is a compilation of monologues and scenes chosen from several of his plays. Eldridge will release this collection in May. An earlier collection, “Life and Death, Laughter and Love,” was published in 2005.

Drama Award

Eldridge playwright R. Rex Stephenson, Professor of Drama at Ferrum (VA) College, was recognized recently during the 58th Annual Southeastern Theatre Conference (SETC) in Atlanta, receiving the prestigious SETC Sara Spencer Child Drama Award. Stephenson is considered one of the most published children's playwrights in Virginia. Jeffrey M. Revels, Education Director, and Associate Artistic Director for the Orlando Repertory Theatre, presented the award. He talked about the broad range of themes Rex has dramatized in his plays, from the historical and religious to adaptations of great literature, as well as the innovative methods he has used to create engaging drama. He highlighted Rex’s influence on children’s drama as the founder and artistic director of America’s longest, continuously running children’s theatre troupe, The Jack Tales. Most recently Eldridge has published Rex’s adaptation of Kipling’s “Just So Stories,” available both as a musical and straight play.