The Seven: New Works Festival 2010
 

Walton Beacham
Nokomis, FL

An Interview with the Playwright

How did you hear about “The Seven”?

Insight for Playwrights.

What was the impetus/basis/inspiration for writing the piece?

A piece in the NY Times about the ventriloquists museum in Cincinnati.

Is this play representational of your writing style? Is it similar to or different from your other plays?

I’ve written three plays about American icons: Playboy’s Centerfold, Barbie, and Charlie McCarthy.

What is the role of the short work in your playwriting career?

Short works festivals are popular with audiences and therefore popular with playwrights, but all of my short works are part of longer works.

What is your favorite play? Who is your favorite playwright?

Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?

What is your next playwriting venture?

Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln (born on the same day in the same year) meet at the Celestial Zoo in heaven to discuss choices the Texas School Board is making about deleting them from textbooks.

Is there anything you would like to add?

It is a great privilege to write for the stage and interactive audiences. Having written novels in solitude for thirty years, the interaction with audiences is compelling and inspiring.


Walton Beacham
Walton Beacham (Other Voices) holds degrees from Georgia Tech (B.S.), Georgia State University (B.A. Literature), and the University of Arkansas (M.A. Literature, M.F.A. Fiction). He has taught math, physics, literature, and creative writing at the University of Arkansas, University of Richmond, and Virginia Commonwealth University where he was Associate Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing. He was Book Editor of the Sunday book section for the “Richmond Times Dispatch,” contributor to the “Richmond Mercury,” and contributor to “The Nation.” He left his position as Associate Professor of English to become vice president of Salem Press, and then founder and president of Beacham Publishing Corp (1985-present). His two-act play Blood Sunday was selected through a juried competition for a reading on the main stage of The Players Theatre in Sarasota, Florida in July 2007. His short play, Stormy, won Theatre Odyssey’s 2009 short play festival and in 2010 Theatre Odyssey produced the first scene from his full length play Barbie as part its short play festival. The full play about Barbie has been accepted for production by the Main Street Theatre/Houston in the fall of 2010.