Kristen Coury is Gulfshore Playhouse’s Founder and Producing Artistic Director. She will be blogging on Saturdays throughout the 2014-2015 Season.

It’s been quite a season (and not over yet!)  I have just finished directing three shows in a row, the last of which was our World Premiere production of The Butcher by Gwydion Suilebhan.  What a journey it was.  At once challenging, stimulating, confusing, clarifying, position-expanding, and eye-opening, it is such a gift to be able to work on a brand new play.

Gwydion’s play first came to my attention in a pile that was handed to me by Cody Nickell, who’d read every entry we’d received for our inaugural New Works Festival.  I loved The Butcher from the moment I first read it.  I’m fascinated by plays about faith: lack of faith, conflicts of faith, new perspectives on faith…so this play resonated with me deeply.  I was also quite intrigued by the relationships and dynamic of the two married couples, and therefore knew that it held a gift for our thoughtful, interested, curious audiences.

Gwydion Suilebhan speaking to the cast prior to the first rehearsal of THE BUTCHER

We proceeded to choose it to be in the New Works Festival.  Then decided to produce it.  We workshopped it in New York City last July, and now here we are.  Just about two years from the time I first set eyes on it.  The production has opened and closed and what happened over the course of two years seems to have happened in an instant.

This morning, I arrived at my office, and in the mail was a script from Weston Playhouse.  We’re co-producing The Glass Menagerie with Weston next season.  And here is the play, waiting to be worked upon.

Coming out of the haze of having just directed three shows in a row (see above), I have 1058 emails in my inbox.  The top email is from Suzanne Bradbeer.  Remember her?  The playwright of our very first world premiere, The God Game?  Well, we have commissioned her to write her next incredible play that will most assuredly amaze, stimulate and provoke.  More than that I cannot tell you, because I haven’t even laid eyes on this one yet.  But her email is asking for a time for us to chat, so I hope to learn more soon.

Keep you posted…