BY MELISSA LEILANI LARSON Please click here to help us match our anonymous $10,000 gift by December 31! Mel is a mixed-race Filipino writer based in Salt Lake City  whose award-winning work has been seen on five continents. Her previous work at Plan-B includes MESTIZA, or MIXED, THE POST OFFICE, THE EDIBLE COMPLEX, PILOT PROGRAM, the monologues "Gluten" and "Erasers" as part of (IN)DIVISIBLE and "Little Karl" as part of RADIO SLAM, and the Script-in-Hand Series reading of MOUNTAIN LAW. She is proud to be a part of Plan-B’s THE LAB. Mel’s PRIDE AND PREJUDICE has been seen recently ..read more

BY DEBORA THREEDY Please click here to help us match our anonymous $10,000 gift by December 31! Debora has premiered six plays at Plan-B: ALLI AND #3 (statewide Free Elementary School Tour, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts), ONE BIG UNION and THE END OF THE HORIZON (both developed at Utah Shakespeare Festival), THE THIRD CROSSING (winner, Fratti-Newman Political Play Contest, Castillo Theatre, New York), "Where I Come From" as part of WALLACE (developed at the Wallace Stegner Symposium), and the monologues “The Wall, Parts 1 & 2” as part of (IN)DIVISIBLE. Other plays include ..read more

BY LAURA MUNTS Laura Munts is a Utah-based writer. Her first-ever play, "Whose To-Do's to Do," is a family love story highlighting the challenges and humor of aging. A graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, Laura also practices conflict resolution and mediation. Up until sitting down to write this post, I did not like the name of Plan-B’s Creative Aging Playwriting Workshop. Although “Creative Aging” is a term of art encompassing important policy ideas for older adults, it seemed to me like jargon for “Playwriting for Old Folks.”  Another version of a senior discount twofer ..read more

BY TITO LIVAS Tito is an actor, educator, playwright, and member of Plan-B's Theatre Artists of Color Writing Workshop, where he has created his plays "Organic" (which was produced as part of LOCAL COLOR, Plan-B’s series of audio plays during the pandemic), "American Dream," "Shine A Light" (commissioned for the Play at Home initiative and part of the COVID-19 Response Collection housed in the Library of Congress), and SQUEAK. Regional acting credits include Plan-B, National Theatre for Children, TheatreWorks USA, Walt Disney World, Princess Cruises, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Salt Lake Act ..read more

BY JACQUELINE MORASCO Jacqueline Morasco created her short play "The C Word" as part of Plan-B's Creative Aging Playwriting Workshop. An artist, author, healer, retreat leader, science nerd, and teacher, she is the author of the bestselling book "Wake Up" and creator of Mantra Oracle Cards, SOUL Sound, and Spirited Practice. Visit her blog. I have been writing in one form or another most of my life. While going through treatment for breast cancer this last year, I was intrigued when I saw the opportunity to take a playwriting class withPlan-B Theatre. I applied to the Creative Aging Playwrit ..read more

WE'RE KICKING OF AAPI HERITAGE MONTH WITH A CONVERSATION BETWEEN JERRY RAPIER AND BRANDAN NGO Brandan Ngo is an actor and writer who graduated from the University of Utah with a BA in Film & Media Arts. He has been writing and performing for the stage and the camera since 2017, and is currently back at the University of Utah studying ecology and conservation. His short play "Where Are You From?" was read by Plan-B at the Edward Lewis Theatre Festival in 2020 and his short play "Stranded" was commissioned by Plan-B for the national Play at Home initiative at the onset of the pandemi ..read more

A 2021 CHAT ABOUT FIRE! In the fall of 2021, we were invited to present a Zoom reading of FIRE! as part of the Utah Humanities Book Fair and Salt Lake County's Welcoming Week. The response to that reading led to the revival of FIRE! opening next week. Following is section of the post-reading discussion, led by Willy Palomo. Jenifer Nii, playwright: I got the sense that he struggled with wanting his work to be better, you know, to be poetic in a [Langston] Hughes kind of way. He never quite got there, he felt it, and it hurt. Some of his collaborations were well recei ..read more

A CONVERSATION BETWEEN JERRY RAPIER AND JENIFER NII Versions of this post also appear in the current issue of QSaltLake and on The Blocks SLC blog. Our 2010 world premiere of FIRE! launched Salt Lake City's most prolific collaboration between a theatre company and a playwright in recent memory: Jenifer Nii has since premiered her plays THE SCARLET LETTER, SUFFRAGE, RUFF!, KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, THE WEIRD PLAY, and THE AUDACITY; her short plays "PDA," "Whiplash," and "Control_Alt_Delete" as part of SLAM; her monologues "Damned If I Do" and "Spam" as part of (IN)DIVISIBLE, and "Influencer" as part o ..read more

AN ANNUAL PARTNERSHIP WITH SALT LAKE CITY PUBLIC LIBRARY Saturday, February 18, 2pmICYMI - it's available to stream, free!, here Given all the wackiness with closures of the main branch of the Salt Lake City Public Library + the complications of the NBA All-Star Weekend, this year's Edward Lewis Theatre Festival has gone virtual on Vimeo! Founded by People Productions and Plan-B Theatre 14 years ago, ELTF honors the memory of Edward Lewis, a dedicated Utah educator and artist. Each year several local theatre companies provide a scene from a either a recently produced, curre ..read more

BY DARRYL STAMP This post also appears in the current issue of QSaltLake. Darryl Stamp's latest play, GO HOME COME BACK, centers on Will, a sales manager, and James, who is in disaster management. They meet while shuffling off their mortal coils. A heartwarming ‘what if’ of missed opportunities, first impressions, and second chances. My play GO HOME COME BACK grew out of my fears during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Reading and hearing about patients whose final conversations took place via FaceTime prompted me to reflect upon my life and my health. Being asthmatic and using i ..read more