Day 18 -- Thank you to all the mentors!

Our work with the high school playwrights wouldn't be possible without all the conference playwrights, actors, directors and dramaturgs who sign on to serve as mentors for these young writers. So today we're sharing our gratitude for all of you!!!

Tira Palmquist and David Garrison, a joyful and hilarious moment from a rehearsal in the Alpine Playhouse (2012) Photos by Sarah Jessup

My first year at the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, I was asked if I'd be up for mentoring a high school playwright. Since I teach regularly, I agreed -- though I was secretly kind of afraid I would not know exactly what I was doing. I was paired up with David Garrison, a funny and talented young writer. (In fact, all of the young writers really surprised me with their plays -- some funny, some dramatic, and some absolutely heartrending.) I had a really terrific time working with him and -- as it turns out David has become one of those artists who returned to the conference time after time -- as a high school writer, then as an intern, then as assistant technical director -- and now David is a teacher himself. The idea that what we do has reverberations far beyond the workshopping of a 10-minute play is not lost on me. And that's just one of the reasons that the work means so much.  - Tira Palmquist, Ten Mile Lake (2012), The Way North (2018), ​and conference dramaturg/director/superfan

AMAZING MENTORS!

A few mentoring highlights from the past 20 years:

• When one of our student playwrights ended up in the hospital and said he wanted to keep working from his hospital bed, his mentor Mara Lathrop was right there at his bedside.
• Dano Madden mentored a student who lived in Donnelly (the next town over) who had no way to get to and from rehearsals, so Dano became his ride every day and then - when an actor fell through at the last minute, ended up playing the role of dog in his mentee's play.
• Most folks in town had never heard Elise Forier's mentee, a special needs student, speak but boy could he write! With Elise's support, many heard this students voice for the very first time. Afterward, his mother said, "I didn't know he could write, they just kept telling me he couldn't spell."
• David Garrison, himself a former McCall-Donnelly student who was then studying Directing at University of Idaho, stepped to mentor a special needs student whose mother was concerned that her son might be overwhelmed and shut down. David, who has a brother with special needs, made it possible for this very bright and funny playwright to participate fully. He made it through every rehearsal, made it through watching his play with audience, watched everyone else's play and sat on stage with his class at the talkback!
• When a student playwright was feeling pressure to withdraw a play that his family didn't understand, his mentor Tom Coash encouraged him to keep working and to find a way to communicate his intentions. At the talkback, the playwright's mother stood up and in front of everyone, apologized to his son for not understanding what he was trying to do.
• When Samuel Brett Williams discovered that the student he'd be working with didn't own a computer, he reached out and got a theater in New York to donate a computer to him.

We hope you'll join us thanking all the generous artists who share their artistry, expertise and wisdom with the student playwrights of McCall-Donnelly High School.
Your donations make it all possible: ​https://www.sevendevils.org/support.html