This is the first volume of Plays from New River, showcasing a place where gifted writers of plays and screenplays are paid and nurtured to write whatever they most want to write. These three very different plays are among the results. Wendy Hammond’s Absence considers the American mindset of the Cold War by focusing on the intensely human story of a Mormon couple suffering the damage wreaked upon those involved in intelligence during that era. American Girls by Hilary Bettis shows us the hilariously terrifying results when teenage girls grow up in a culture that simultaneously reveres Christian ideals and celebrity. And M.Z. Ribalow’s Masterpiece, by considering forged paintings in World War II Europe, raises timeless questions about the nature of creativity, the relation of reality to illusion, and how we judge art. Each play has a distinctive voice, subject and style; all were developed in the unique setting of New River Dramatists in Ashe County, North Carolina.

Wendy Hammond is the playwright of both The Ghostman and Julie Johnson, which was made into a feature film starring Lili Taylor, Courtney Love and Spalding Gray.
Hilary Bettis is the first recipient (2010) of the Abingdon Theatre Cherry Jones Playwriting Fellowship for a female playwright under the age of thirty.
The late M.Z. Ribalow served as artistic director of New River Dramatists. He was an award-winning poet, author and playwright, whose plays received some 180 productions worldwide.

Edited by M.Z. Ribalow
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 198
Bibliographic Info:
Copyright Date: 2011
pISBN: 978-0-7864-6502-6
eISBN: 978-0-7864-8637-3
Imprint: McFarland
Series: Plays from New River

WHAT IS NEW RIVER?      1

NEW RIVER DRAMATISTS PLAY DEVELOPMENT PROCESS      7

INTRODUCTION      9

Absence by Wendy Hammond      11

American Girls by Hilary Bettis      79

Masterpiece by M.Z. Ribalow      129

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS      189