Headwaters

In 2021, Headwaters is Going Virtual! OUR 9TH NEW PLAY FESTIVAL, OUR 1ST VIRTUAL FESTIVAL!

9th Annual Headwaters New Play Festival

1PM MST / AUGUST 27 & AUGUST 28 OUR VIRTUAL THEATRE / $25 This year, our two staged readings will be virtual. Like March’s presentation of To the Moon by Beth Kander, an online setting gives us the opportunity to use artists from all over the world. Get a front row seat (in your own living room) to the process of bringing new plays to life: readings of brand-new work, a peek into the process, and an engaging and interactive talk back with festival playwrights and directors. World Premiere of El Guayabo/The Guava Tree

11AM / AUGUST 27 & AUGUST 28TH VIRGINIA CHRISTENSEN MULTI-USE FACILITY Though our staged readings are virtual this year, Headwaters weekend gives you the chance to see the World Premiere of our Young Audience Outreach Tour live and in-person before it hits the road. See both casts of El Guayabo/The Guava Tree at the Virginia Christensen Multi-Use Facility at 408 LaGarita Ave in Creede. Not in Creede for Headwaters? A performance of El Guayabo/The Guava Tree will be available to stream over festival weekend. See page 27 for more about YAOT .

Jeff Carey

Scruff Turbo and the Children of the Future (2008) by Jeff Carey

AND INTRODUCING!

THE T. JEFFERSON CAREY MEMORIAL PLAYWRIGHTING AWARD Awarded to one of the two Headwaters selections that most embody Jeff’s spirit of writing . Jeff Carey may have only been half human. In fact, spit-balling, he was likely about 68% bear. He had an ursine shape and was covered in lots of grizzly hair. He shambled when he walked. He was a consummate hibernator and scrounger. He liked dark places like theatres and haunted houses and basement apartments and caves. Ensconced, he would dream and cogitate and imagine and draw and write and create, and when he came forth from these dark places, sometimes of his own psyche, battling zombies and demons and internal organs and femme fatales, he emerged with a most human and archetypal and whimsical art. His art wasn’t the type depicting, as Hitchcock accuses Disney in his play, Dangerland, “a world without nuance, a one-dimensional world, scrubbed clean of what makes us human”. Jeff wrote kid’s plays for grownups and grownup plays for kids. He didn’t try to shield kids from the fact of their mortality, neither from monsters or stolen mothers or pirates or any of their deepest fears. He had already navigated those places and knew their worth, and knew kids were curious about such things so he could lead kids on worthwhile adventures. He didn’t make them the false promise they wouldn’t encounter fear or loss, but in his stories, they could discover something true and dangerous and valuable to know. His heroines could face difficult things and survive. His plays were intended for brave children. His grownup plays could be scary and insightful and weird and funny. They could also be revelatory, uncovering hidden marvels to stubborn, habituated, grown-up sensibilities. This award helps us heal from the loss of Jeff, and the loss of his work never accomplished, by treasure hunting for similarities and intersections in the words and themes of other talented playwrights. We’re grateful for the work of others to peer under the page, behind the words, into the shadows, in order to catch a glimpse of our old dear friend. –MAURICE LAMEE CRT Artistic Director 2001-2012