When Farmers Alley Theatre introduced the first ever Lumen Playwriting Competition at the conclusion of 2024, Gordon Bolar had just the submission for it. He submitted his play for youth, titled “Animals of North America,” and he won first prize. We talk about his prizewinning play as well as plays Bolar brings to the Senior Readers Theatre. After retiring as General Manager in 2016, Bolar has continued to review theater for WMUK.
“I’ve seen theater, I’ve reviewed theater,” Bolar says. “Here in this town, we have a great theater scene for the past 20 years that I’ve been going. There is no place—until now, maybe—for script submission of new plays from playwrights. Happily, I’ve been the beneficiary of two opportunities.”
Bolar’s interest in theater began in his college years, during grad school. He earned his master’s degree in fine arts with a focus on theater and directing at Ohio University and his PhD in theater at Louisiana State University. Always with an interest in writing plays, Bolar says he has had more time to devote to the art form since he retired from WMUK a little over eight years ago.
“There’s just nothing really locally that a local playwright could go to and have a chance to get in except for the Lumen Playwriting Competition,” he says. “When I went to their website, the first thing I saw was—write the story you needed to hear when you were young. So I could of took that to heart. Although the story I tell isn’t my story, it’s about kids that I knew or some experiences that I had. It is about a 15-year-old boy’s search for guidance, spirituality, and self-acceptance. There’s some body image things in there, some bullying kinds of things in there, and there’s some grief and depression.”
The prize-winning play was given a staged reading at Farmers Alley Theatre and will be presented at local elementary and middle schools. The Lumen Playwriting Competition is focused on plays written for young audiences of marginalized populations and on underrepresented issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
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