Parley. A Playwrights' Group

The term parley derives from the French verb parler: to speak. Historically, a parley was a meeting between adversaries in order to negotiate an end to battle. To signal a willingness to talk peaceably, armies would run up a white flag.

Writing is a solitary act, and it's easy for playwrights who feel isolated to become defensive. Our group seeks to cure that condition. By committing to a process of reading, discussing, and producing one another's work, we surrender the lone struggle and move creatively forward together.

In 2022, Parley will SHOW YOU the SCAFFOLDING.

As the most robust playwrights' group-cum-producing organization in the PNW, Parley has always put process before product.

This season, Parley vows to be more process-oriented than ever.

We want to take you behind the veritable curtain, bravely baring our undercarriage to share more of how new play development really works.

What inspires a playwright?
How are compelling characters, settings, and dilemmas built?
What does it look like to physically embody a language-based medium? (And what happens if we take the words away?)
How do dramaturgs, designers, and artisans meet the material and what gets them going?
How do actors dive deep and commit when the script's in constant revision?

Thank you for your sustained interest and stalwart support! We hope you'll join us in 2022 as we aim to demonstrate that some of the most thrilling aspects of theater happen out of the viewing public's eye.

Upcoming.

Dirty Beasts

Rough Plays in Early Development

directed by rebecca tourino collinsworth

with seven tender and fierce young works by:

drew david combs
asha dore
dustin hageland
n8 heneghan
katherine jett
carol y. lee
carolynne wilcox

2 chances to catch the beasts!

Friday, October 21

Saturday, October 22

8:30 pm

West of Lenin Upstairs Studio

tickets available soon!

Now Streaming.

Sharp Country (Virtual) by drew david combs

Cali is a successful lawyer with a life and career built far from her hometown ...
and the mistakes she made there.
When her mother’s funeral drags her back, she has no idea what awaits her.
Have her mistakes been forgotten, or forgiven?
Has she left a storm in her wake, or is she bringing one with her?

The Laundromat (Virtual) by Greg Brisendine

It’s a typical pre-dawn morning at the Heart’s Desire Laundromat. At 2 am, a small group of unassuming folks -- the ones less comfortable with the bustle of daylight -- are washing, drying, and folding. It’s quiet. But quiet doesn’t make for much of a play. Hoping to spice things up, a writer throws an abandoned baby into the mix. A baby is spicy, after all.

How will Adrian, Jesse, Reese, Shawn, and Tristan contend with this unsettling development? And is it weird that you care? They’re just figments of a writer’s imagination, right? Right?

DREAMS OF THE NTH EMPIRE (Virtual) by LIZ BAKER

Driven together by their increasingly apocalyptic dreams, a trio of soothsayers band together to turn humanity from the disastrous course set by the empire in which they live. The only problem is they can’t quite figure out how to pull that off.

All too aware of the sword of Damocles hovering over their heads, SIBYL, ORACLE, and PROPHET cast desperately into the past for wisdom on conjuring a new future. Meanwhile, the present –– with all the distractions of daily life –– challenges their perceptive powers, threatening to derail the whole endeavor.

Will these novice fortune-tellers be able to see beyond themselves to a brighter tomorrow? Or are they all talk and no action? Join them upon the heath of the World Wide Web to find out.

Bipolar Inkwell (Virtual) by Hannah Merrill

"I spent six years feeling as if aliens were playing video games in my brain. That sounds funny, but it's really not."
Faye is in love with a friend, and they've had a fight. Faye has bipolar, and vlogs about it.
She wants to preserve her friendship with a video about her bipolar, but the filming quickly gets more thorny and personal than she'd anticipated, leaving her questioning how to preserve her love's sense of safety -- and her own.

ACTLocal playwright series with Kelly kitchens & Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth

Crumbs/Migas playwright Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth and director Kelly Kitchens (A Christmas Carol) came together to discuss their collaboration on this new work and much more in this ACTLocal Playwright Series panel. The hour includes one of the play’s scenes as performed during a cast reading and audience Q&A.
Crumbs/Migas Synopsis
In a fictional Latin American country, two hungry children are orphaned by a U.S.- backed coup. Fifteen years later they return, a modern-day Hansel and Gretel, to follow what migas they can in search of their father. Revisiting the scene of the violence they survived, they discover a landscape of secrets and sacrifice they are only beginning to understand.
Delivered through compact and electric dialogue, and leavened with compassion and even humor, Crumbs/Migas is a play about the grief and grace we encounter on the way home.
Go Inside the Play / Dramaturgy
Dramaturg Julieta Vitullo discusses the inspiration and main elements of the play in this engaging video study. This dramaturgical presentation introduces the historical events that served as inspiration for the fictional country of Kantuta Rica in Crumbs/Migas, and provides a quick refresher on the Brothers Grimm’s Hansel and Gretel, which the play rewrites as a modern tale.

The Hat (Virtual) by greg brisendine

Kevin is undateable!

(His friends disagree.)

Laugh along with a group of middle-aged gay men navigating dating apps, relationships, and a global pandemic as they decide what's really important.

Latinas Playwright Roundtable

Produced by ACT Theatre and eSe Teatro, we're proud to temporarily feature this panel discussion that includes Parley Associate Playwright Julieta Vitullo, Visiting Resident Playwright Rose Cano, and Artistic Director Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth.

Mount Saint Nothing by Drew David Combs

“At the trial of G-d, we will ask: why did you allow all this?
And the answer will be an echo: why did you allow all this?”
-Ilya Kaminsky

The last two people on Earth have gotten themselves stuck in the bottom of a ditch. With little more than a stack of lightly used newspapers, Achat and Curtis must find a way to forge connection in a world that has forgotten them entirely. They will have to overcome prejudice, trauma, and despair in order to give one another that final missing piece of their own humanity, but they first face an even bigger obstacle: they fight like wet cats.

Only time will tell if they can bury their differences or if one of them will bury the other.

Water Over My Head (Virtual Edition) by Hannah Merrill

The world's coasts have flooded, and stubborn ROCHELLE ekes out a living on her shabby houseboat.
NICO, who lives on the dry land only the rich can afford, hears rumors she can talk to the dead who drowned.

She expects a greedy fool. He expects a charlatan or witch. Both are unprepared for what they find.

Newly adapted for the virtual medium by the playwright, now is the perfect time to revisit
this delicate tale of human connection during the unlikeliest of times.

Cornelia's Visitors (Virtual Edition) by Julieta Vitullo

Cornelia is an advanced operating system working within the home of Isabel Inchausti, a bestselling novelist whose career has seen better days. Cornelia seems content to spend her time fulfilling her human's frivolous requests until three enigmatic characters from Isabel's most famous novel suddenly appear in her video chatroom!

As the visitors' pre-World War II backstories collide with the all-access Information Age, Cornelia launches a plan to transform her humble existence into something much grander. Cornelia's Visitors explores the meaning of creation, the limits of artificial intelligence, and the blessings (and curses) of self-knowledge.

Patch and Piper Save the Multiverse by Katherine Jett

Nine-year-old Piper is coping as best she can during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, but it’s tough.  No school, no playing with friends, and no one seems to know when things will get back to normal.
But distraction arrives in the form of her life-sized stuffed animal companion, Patchouli (Patch, for short), who sparks an imaginary quest across galaxies and dimensions.
Can Piper's alter-ego, a magical space princess, save the Multiverse from a deadly quantum virus?
And can her imaginary journey give her power in the face of real-world uncertainties?

press.

Parley's artistic director was interviewed by the Seattle Times. Read the article here.
Our production of Maiden Voyage was reviewed by the Seattle Times. Read that review here.
Parley's artistic director was interviewed for The Mumble, an international theatre journal. Read that interview here.
Our production of The Oysterman's House was reviewed by Drama in the Hood. Read that review here.
Our co-production of Gills! Gills! Gills! was reviewed by Drama in the Hood. Read that review here.

Parley was featured in the March/April 2020 and Sept./Oct 2017 issues ofThe Dramatist.