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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.

Who knew a play about a fractured society in post-World War, post-pandemic London would feel so timely in 2022?
​

An adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s 1925 novel, Clarissa Buys the Flowers Herself tells the story of one day in the life of a woman as she prepares to host a party. Clarissa Dalloway recalls memories of her life as an adventurous, free-spirited young woman. Thirty years later, the 1918 pandemic  has taken an enormous toll on her both physically and mentally. Meanwhile, Septimus Warren Smith, a shell-shocked veteran, is constantly haunted by flashbacks of World War I.

With this script-in-hand workshop, Parley returns to in-person performance with an accomplished cast of beloved Seattle actors.
We are not charging admission
​to this performance ...

... But ...
If you are able to contribute something in exchange for your ticket, we'11 gratefully accept any amount at the door.
​
You can also donate that amount by clicking here.
Parley presents
the world premiere workshop
of a new play.


Clarissa Buys

the Flowers

Herself

an adaptation of
Mrs. Dalloway


by Kate Schwartz


Directed by
Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth
Stage managed by Jaime Shure


Featuring
Janet Hietter
Terry Edward Moore*
Sarah Overman
Sam Turner
Katherine Jett
Kelly Johnson
Brandon Collinsworth

​*Appearing courtesy of
Actors Equity Association

Sunday, June 12 at 7 pm

West of Lenin


Content advisory:
Subject matter relating to mental health and suicide.
COVID SAFETY POLICY. 
Please note the following guidelines for joining us in-person.

​Proof of vaccination will be required for entry into the venue. 

Face coverings are required while not eating or drinking.

All venue staff and performers are fully vaccinated and will be masked when not performing. ​

Next.

At the start of a new H1N1 pandemic, three working class femmes (and their elders) are preyed upon by a strange group of capitalists who fetishize death by luxury cars. With no other option, the three femmes vow to steal their abusers' resources so they and their families can live.

​Can the girls find tenderness in the bloody wreck of late capitalist life?

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.

The Cuckoo Clock  by Julieta Vitullo

We were lucky to participate in Penguin Productions' festival of new short plays.  Enjoy them below!
Brand-new stories both comic and poignant, spun into a moment in which many of us are both stuck in space yet emotionally adrift, having lost a sense of direction and seeking paths forward.
To learn more about Penguin Productions, visit their website here!
​
Finding Trails is an ongoing series commissioning new works of theater bringing artists and audiences together to ask - as access to the outdoors becomes simultaneously more vital and more threatened, how can we uplift our collective need for public lands and spaces?

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.

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.
We're proud to have been featured on the
​ Theatrical Mustang podcast.  

fan mail.

"We discussed [the play] all the way home last night as your words had a lasting effect … It reminded both of us of something you would experience at the Huntington Theatre in Boston. I'm a huge fan!!!" 
"A beautiful story told with great humor and empathy."
"WONDERFUL ... the performances were pants droppingly good. . . . a delight, a triumph, and truly original."
"Extremely interesting storytelling and really wonderful acting. The female take on The Odyssey was awesome! Hats off for such a courageous piece of work!"
"Your ability to skewer religion while remaining kind and respectful to the humans involved is an astounding skill. I look forward to many more engaging plays."
"The production was smart, and told the story well. Most of all, I wanted to say how impressive it is that you've accomplished 30 world premieres! That really is a contribution to the Seattle theater scene. I look forward to future productions." ​
"I could, honest-to-God, see that play making its way out into theaters around the country.​"
​"Spectacular.  Truly. ... I was crying from Act I, Scene 1. Kudos to everyone involved." 
​"Super thought-provoking play ... I am still thinking about it today. And my friend could not stop raving ... We are glad we came."
"I wanted to thank you all for such a powerful and brave night of theater. I won't be able to stop thinking about tonight's show for quite a spell. Beautiful work you all."
"The play was so touching from start to finish, so personal and very intimate."
"The play, the actors - wonderful. There were four of us, not used to the particular format for a play, that were stunned with the power and beauty of it.  Thank you, thank you!:"
"Amazing production in so many deep, intense ways. Really appreciate the writing by Hannah Merrill and the presence, energy, and interpretation of Marlena McHenry.  There is so much help, education, and understanding that can come from this."
"Get thee to Fremont's West of Lenin Theater before the show closes ... ! The acting is superb, the minimal staging is clever, and the play raises interesting questions." 
"I watched this play with an open, naive mind and a whole range of emotions came through. It was an amazing experience, with every word and inflection filtering through me.  Hannah's writing is amazing, vivid and real.  It was fascinating to feel the character as she was speaking directly to the audience.  Marlena's performance took me on the roller coaster ride along with her."
"The birth scene, both in the writing and the playing, is one of the most powerful I've ever experienced. I especially enjoyed the different perspectives on truth." 
"Go and see this show! It's awesome and unexpectable ... yeah ... new word ... deal with it."
"A beautiful play that I'm still thinking about days later ... simply stunning ... I have so much love for Parley and the work that they do."
"A sly and beautifully wrought love triangle that kept my head spinning long into the night, even in my dreams. The acting, writing, directing and audience engagement were so welcome in these times of seeing theater that’s mainly 'good for you."
​"There was tremendous love and energy from that audience. Quite extraordinary for a staged reading, and really fun for the performers."
"We enjoyed your play SO much last night. I replayed it in my head and your play 'stuck' with me like a good book or movie. Subtle plot twists, the exploration of love and trust... made me really THINK and the more I thought about it, the more I LOVE this play."
"I just wanted to tell you all how much I loved both the engaging play and the emotionally charged acting.  You've all got a great thing going with Parley!"
"An existential truth-telling gem. Thank you for the deeply poignant writing and the brilliant performances."
"Your play was excellent. You really have something there that a lot of people will identify with. Thank you for telling the story."
"It was everything I expected it to be and more! Wonderful!"
"Glorious, thoughtful, important work."
"It felt like a very brave story to tell. Such beautiful writing."
"The story [was] rich with piercing insight into the frailties of humanity while simultaneously reflecting love, respect, and hope for our species."
"I left the theater so happy yesterday, my heart was full. What a magnificent play!" 
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© 2022, Rebecca Tourino Collinsworth