Bryan Harnetiaux
Playwright
Bryan is currently serving as the Eastern Washington Dramatist Guild Ambassador for the Northwest Region, on behalf of Regional Representative Kate Danley.
I’m delighted to be the regional ambassador working with our representative, Kate Danley. I’ve been writing plays since 1977 and am principally a product of community theatre, having served as the Spokane Civic Theatre playwright-in-residence since 1982. I’ve been lucky enough to author over 40 plays, 13 of which have been published, and have been produced in community, educational and equity-waiver theatres, along with one Equity production. For almost all of my career, I’ve functioned without an agent, with many of my productions resulting from “over the transom” submissions. I love playwrights and hope I can be of some use as the ambassador for this neck of the woods. BPH
Highlights
Bryan has been a Playwright-in-Residence at Spokane Civic Theatre in Spokane, Washington, since 1982. Thirteen of his plays have been published, and his short play The Lemonade Stand is also anthologized in More One Act Plays for Acting Students (Meriwether Publishing Ltd., 2003). These works include commissioned stage adaptations of Ernest Hemingway’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro and The Killers, and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s Long Walk to Forever, all published by The Dramatic Publishing Company.
Bryan’s work has been performed throughout the United States. His play National Pastime, about the breaking of the color line in major league baseball in 1947, has received many productions, including an Equity waiver production at Fremont Centre Theatre in South Pasadena, California and an Equity production at (former) Stamford Theatre Works in Stamford, Connecticut. National Pastime is published by Playscripts, Inc. of NYC.
The one-man play York, done in collaboration with David Casteal, which tells the story of the only Black man on the Lewis & Clark Expedition (1803-06), has been performed throughout the country and is being revived for a limited tour in 2018. (Bryan did the book for York, and David developed the Djembe drum rhythms used to tell the story.)
Bryan has a cycle of plays on end-of-life, Vesta, Dusk, and Holding On ~ Letting Go. Vesta was workshopped at Lark Theatre Company in NYC, and has been performed throughout the United States. Vesta received an equity-waiver professional production at Seattle’s Capitol Hill Arts Center (CHAC) in February, 2008, with Megan Cole in the title role. Dusk premiered at Spokane Civic Theatre in Spring 2007, and Holding On ~ Letting Go premiered at Fremont Centre Theatre (FCT) in 2012. The FCT production was featured as a main stage production at the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston Salem, North Carolina in Summer 2013. It was produced by Spokane Civic Theatre Studio Centre in Spring, 2017. All of these end-of-life plays (Holding On ~ Letting Go in abridged form) are licensed in clinical settings addressing end-oflife issues (medical and professional conferences, etc.) through Hospice Foundation of America (www.hospicefoundation.org).
In 1999, Bryan was a Fellow at the Hawthornden International Retreat for Writers in Lasswade, Scotland. He has also been a guest writer for a number of theatre programs, including a guest at the Lark Theatre in NYC in 1999.
A number of Bryan's short plays have been featured in festivals throughout the country. In July 2010, his short play Antipasto was selected for the 35th Annual Samuel French Off- Off Broadway Short Play Festival. For an extensive interview with the playwright search Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festivals/Bryan Harnetiaux, click on "Links on The Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festival," and scroll to Harnetiaux Interview (40 DAYS TO 40 PLAYS).
Bryan is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.
Spring, 2019