STORY BY KAREN BOSSICK

PHOTOS BY KIRSTEN SHULTZ

Stephen Karam won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Play for his play “The Humans,” which also was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Now, he’s spending the month of October living in the Ernest and Mary Hemingway House in Ketchum, hoping to write another award-winning play as the 2025-2026 Sun Valley Playwright’s Resident.

Shonda Royall, Billie McBride, Jeremy Shamos and David Janeski and Shonda Royall participated in an engaging play reading of Max Posner’s “The Treasurer”—about a man trying to rein in his elderly mother’s spending--a year ago at The Argyros.

While in Ketchum Karam will show and discuss the movie version of “The Humans” and present a play reading of his play “Speech and Debate.” And he’ll discuss his work at The Community Library.

"I’m thrilled to develop a new play at the Sun Valley Playwright’s Residency,” says Karam. “At a time when opportunities for new play development are disappearing, it feels vital to be part of an organization committed to fostering wholly original work from living writers.”

While Karam works on a three-character play, last year’s Resident Max Posner is returning to share a play reading of Hanukkah Spectacular, which he wrote while in Ketchum last year, said John Baker, artistic director of Sun Valley Playwright’s Residency.

“It’s a really incredible play about modern Jewish identity that he recently workshopped in partnership with Lincoln Center Theater. We’re really excited for this to be the next step in the journey,” Baker said. “He was really embedded with the community last year, spending time with the Wood River Jewish Community. He and Stephen have very different voices so we’re excited for both of them to be tin the community together at the same time.”

Adults and teens took part in a monologue writing workshop taught by Max Posner and Sarah DeLappe last year.

A free monologue writing workshop for local high school students on Saturday will kick off numerous programs offered for the community by the Sun Valley Playwright’s Residency in October. Other programs include a double feature screening of two movies, two play readings and a conversation with Karam.

FREE MONOLOGUE WRITING WORKSHOP FOR LOCAL HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

Saturday, Oct. 4

Award-winning playwright Marisela Trevino Orta will lead a workshop for local high school  on Saturday.

Tony Award-winning playwright Stephen Karam is the Sun Valley Playwright Residency’s 2025-26 resident. COURTESY: The Community Library

THE STORIES WE SHARE: AN EVENING WITH AWARD-WINNING PLAYWRIGHT MARISELA TREVIÑO ORTA & LOCAL STUDENT WRITERS

Sunday, Oct.  5 at 6:30 p.m. at Liberty Theater, 110 N Main St, Hailey

National Latino Playwriting Award Winner Marisela Treviño Orta (The River Bride) chats about her process of creating a new bilingual (Spanish/English) shadow puppet play for The Liberty Theatre Company that will run in December.

Orta, who grew up in Lockhart, Texas, studied poetry at the University of San Francisco. She became an accidental playwright while working as the Resident Poet of El Teatro Jornalero!, a social justice theatre company comprised of Latinx immigrants.

Her first play Braided Sorrow won the 2006 Chicano/Latino Literary Prize in Drama and the 2009 Pen Center USA Literary Award in Drama. Her other plays include: A Girl Grows Wings, A Place to Belong, American Triage and Ghost Limb. In 2011, she began writing her cycle of grim Latinx fairy tales—fairy tales for adults inspired by Latinx mythology and folklore, which includes The River Bride (2013 National Latino Playwriting Award Co-Winner, 2016 Oregon Shakespeare Festival world premiere).

The evening will be moderated by Sun Valley Playwright’s Residency Artistic Director John Baker and Emily Meister, artistic director of the Liberty Theatre Company.

Local high school students will also share monologues they wrote under Orta’s mentorship.

Presented in partnership with Wood River High School and The Liberty Theatre Company. Tickets are free; reservations recommended at www.sunvalleyplaywrights.org.

A CONVERSATION WITH TONY AWARD WINNING PLAYWRIGHT STEPHEN KARAM

Tuesday, Oct. 14 at 5:30 p.m. at The Community Library, 415 Spruce Ave, Ketchum

Tony Award Winner, two-time Pulitzer Prize Finalist, and 2025-2026 SVPR Resident Playwright Stephen Karam will be in conversation with Aly Wepplo, The Community Library’s Collection Manager. He will discuss his process of writing for stage and screen before taking questions from the audience.

Karam is the Tony Award-winning author of The Humans and Sons of the Prophet and a two-time winner of the Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play and a recipient of an Obie Award for Playwriting.

He wrote a film adaptation of Chekhov’s The Seagull, starring Annette Bening, and his adaptation of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard premiered on Broadway in 2016.

Karam’s “The Humans,” played on and off Broadway as it shared the fear and disappointments of an aspiring composer and her student boyfriend who are hosting Thanksgiving dinner for her Irish-American family. Not only does Bridget’s family disapprove of her career choice and decision to live with Richard before marriage but her father is terrified by the disintegration of his life after being fired from his job as a janitor at a Catholic school. Did we mention that strange thumps are heard, lights are flickering and mysterious stains are appearing on the ceiling?

Tickets: Free; reservations recommended at https://thecommunitylibrary.libcal.com/event/14922768. The conversation will also be available to watch online at https://vimeo.com/event/5372562 and recorded for the Library Archive.

POPCORN & PLAYWRIGHTS! A FUNDRAISER FEATURING TWO A24 FILMS & TWO OF AMERICA’S MOST ACCLAIMED PLAYWRIGHTS

Thursday, Oct.  16 at Merlin’s Magic Lantern, 100 E 2nd St., Ketchum

Join Sun Valley Playwright’s Residency for a double-feature of movies from indie film powerhouse A24 that redefine horror for the 21st century followed by a Q&A with the screenwriters.

The evening kicks off at 4:30 p.m. with a screening of “The Humans,” adapted and directed by Tony Award Winner and 2025-2026 Resident Playwright Stephen Karam. The film looks at the way we cope with our biggest fears and process the big existential horrors of life.

The evening concludes with a 6:30 p.m. screening of Gen Z whodunit slasher “Bodies Bodies Bodies” written by Pulitzer Finalist Sarah DeLappe, a Brooklyn playwright, screenwriter and television writers best known for The Wolves, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2017. This new cult classic is a hilarious and crackling look at backstabbing, fake friends, and one party gone very, very wrong.

Between screenings, Karam and DeLappe, who has written to HBO’s The Regime, will be in conversation with Aly Wepplo, The Community Library’s Collection Manager, to discuss their process of writing for the screen before taking questions from the audience.

This event is a fundraiser for Sun Valley Playwright’s Residency, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. A portion of each ticket sale is tax-deductible.

Tickets at www.sunvalleyplaywrights.org.

HANUKKAH SPECTACULAR

Monday, Oct. 20, 7 p.m. at The Argyros in Ketchum

Former Sundance Fellow and three-time MacDowell Fellow Max Posner (The Treasurer) returns to Sun Valley to workshop and share the new family reckoning-showbiz comedy mash-up about contemporary Jewish identity that he has been writing as Sun Valley Playwright’s Residency’s 2024-2025 Resident Playwright.

Set over a three-day workshop of a new play in a conference room at a talent agency in midtown Manhattan, a handful of Jewish artists are grasping at straws. On the threshold, at an inflection point, they weather unprecedented storms of ambivalence. Against their better judgment they go head-to-head with buried family traumas, New York City, God of the Old Testament, nuclear tribalism, and the power of theatre. Will they make it out in one piece? And should they?

The Brooklyn playwright’s upsetting comedies of family life have pushed buttons off Broadway. His plays include Judy, Sisters on the Ground and Snore. He also has written for The Characters on Netflix.

Tickets are free but reservations are required at www.sunvalleyplaywrights.org. A limited number of pre-show VIP reception tickets are available to mix and mingle with the artists. These tickets also include VIP reserved seating for the reading.

The reception is a fundraiser for Sun Valley Playwright’s Residency, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization.  A portion of each ticket sale is tax-deductible.

SPEECH AND DEBATE

Saturday, Oct.  25, at 7 p.m. at Liberty Theater, 110 N Main St, Hailey,

Sunday, Oct. 26, 7:30 p.m. at Boise Contemporary Theater, 854 W Fulton Street, Boise

Sun Valley Playwright’s Residency teams up with Boise Contemporary Theater and Boise

State University theatre arts majors and faculty to present a reading of one of 2025-2026 Resident Playwright Stephen Karam’s early plays that put him on the map as a major voice in the American theatre.

The evening begins with a conversation between Tony Award Winner and Pulitzer Finalist Stephen Karam and Sun Valley Playwright’s Residency Artistic Director John Baker. It will be followed by a reading of Karam’s play, Speech and Debate, which tells the story of three teenagers in Salem, Ore.

When one of them discovers the truth about a sex scandal in their town, secrets become currency, blogs are belted and the trio’s connection grows deeper in this dark comedy with music. Directed by Benjamin Burdick.

Tickets are free, but reservations are required at www.sunvalleyplaywrights.org.

The Sun Valley Playwright’s Residency is a non-profit organization that gives playwrights time and resources to write while staying at the Ernest and Mary Hemingway House in a partnership with The Community Library. While here, the playwrights share their creative processes with the community.

Resident Playwrights include David Cale in 2021-2022, Martyna Majok in 2022-2023, Rajiv Joseph in 2023-2024, Max Posner in 2024-2025 and now Stephen Karam in 2025-2026.