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“We never produce,” says Mahoney. “Because I think it’s
a human thing—if you’re going to produce eventually, then
you’re looking for plays that you can produce.”
What this means, though, is that in the current theatrical
landscape it’s hard for a playwright just starting out to get the
kind of help they need to really develop as an artist. If every
theatre is judging a play based on how produceable a show it
may be, then that play is never truly evaluated on its own merits
as a piece of art. And in order to keep the focus on the art
side of the equation, Seven Devils doesn’t produce, because
the sense of where they believe they are,” says Mahoney. After
10 years she says she’s gotten a good sense of what they are
able to accomplish in the time they have to work on a play,
and what they can offer a playwright.
“We don’t want to do plays where the problem is so big
we’re not going to help, where we’re just going to make it
worse,” explains Mahoney. “Sometimes you have to talk for
a little while to get a sense of what they really believe about
the play—not what everybody else told them they should do.
And that’s difficult, because people tell you how to fix your
Sara Jessup
Daveed Diggs (left) and Nicole Lungerhausen in Greg Beuthin’s A Time
Upon at the 2008 Bay Area Playwrights Festival.
Mary Portser and Bobby Moreno in the staged reading of Idaho/Dead Idaho at the Seven Devils Playwrights Conference
they don’t want to get caught up in the idea of having to sell
something. During the conference they offer four fully-staged
readings (props, lights, etc.), and between two to four table
readings. All the readings are completely free to the public—
no tickets are sold.
“It’s all free of charge,” says Mahoney. “This is how serious
we are about not producing—everything’s free.”
Such an attitude is only possible thanks to the strong support
of the McCall community. While the Conference receives
support from the N.E.A. and the Idaho Commission on the
Arts, as well as from the A.K. Starr charitable trust, they receive
most of their support from the town of McCall itself.
“They house everybody,” explains Mahoney. “We have
our theatre space for free, all our rehearsal space is free.
Community businesses give us coupons for food. They really
take good care of us and that helps a lot.” In turn, Mahoney
passes this altruism on to every playwright that comes in
contact with Seven Devils. Full scripts are read cover to cover
multiple times; a low submission fee makes the festival more
accessible to playwrights and goes directly and completely
to the readers. When the pool is down to 16-20 finalists,
Mahoney and McDevitt hash out what can physically be done
in order to best serve the plays. While this is going on they
are also interviewing the playwrights, asking them what they
want to get out of the Conference.
“We ask them to basically tell us what they’re interested in
working on, and usually by asking them that we kind of get
play. What we really try to do is try to not tell people how to
fix their play, but try to actually figure out how to talk to them
about what they want the play to be, and how to get it to that
place.” Once they know the destination, they can help the
writer get there.
That destination is reached through an intense period of
rehearsals. The staged readings have a week of rehearsals:
(two days on, one day off, two days on) and they move fast.
The sit down readings will share actors—one group of actors
for two plays, generally—and these readings are shaped more
like getting ready for a rehearsal as opposed to being a show.
“We try and do it as if—for the actors and the director and
everybody—we’re talking about it as if the next day is going
to be the first ‘on their feet’ rehearsal.”
Playwrights are encouraged to rewrite as much as they like
and new pages are brought in constantly.
Even within this intense environment, though, Mahoney
says that the idea is to take the pressure off of the playwright.
“We don’t want them to feel like they’re going to be judged
by a bunch of literary managers, people looking for plays to
do,” she says. (They have a reading series in New York City if
that sort of exposure is what a writer wants.) “We try to make
it really like a dialogue with the community of the conference
and the community of McCall, Idaho.”
That dialogue leads to an improved play, which should be
able to generate good word of mouth all on its own.
www.stage-directions.com • November 2009 31