‘Plays happen between the lines’: Spokane Civic Theatre’s Playwrights’ Forum Festival puts number of Spokane writer’s work on stage

Since 1982, Bryan Harnetiaux’s name has been connected to Spokane Civic Theatre as the playwright in residence.

Over the years, a number of his works have premiered at Civic, including “National Pastime,” a play about Jackie Robinson and Wesley Branch Rickey, the white president and general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, “York,” a show about William Clark’s slave, the only Black member of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, and a trio of plays about the end of life: “Vesta,” “Dusk” and “Holding On, Letting Go.”

But before he ever picked up the pen to write these pieces, Harnetiaux spent some time on stage at Civic.

After completing law school, Harnetiaux auditioned for, and received, a part in the theater’s production of “The Importance of Being Earnest.” Harnetiaux said it wasn’t uncommon for his large family to put on skits after dinner, and he did a little theater in high school, but that was it as far as pre-Civic acting experience went.

A few more Civic productions followed before he wrote his first theatrical work, having previously only some “bad poetry and short stories” to his name.

“I was just hungry to find a medium to write in, but really hadn’t turned to that as yet,” he said.

“That only happened after I started acting and reading plays that I thought, ‘Huh, this is maybe where I belong, if anywhere.’ ”

Through his time on stage, Harnetiaux got close to many Civic staff and volunteers. One of these volunteers suggested Harnetiaux try his hand at writing for the stage, which led to Harnetiaux’s one-act “Caution: The Surgeon General Has Determined,” about his father’s attempts to quit smoking, premiering at Civic in June 1977.

Harnetiaux said he received some positive feedback about the show but that he wouldn’t wish the script on his best enemy now.

A year or so later, Harnetiaux wrote three one-acts that were produced in the studio theater, which at the time was essentially just the basement. In 1980, Civic produced a full-length play from Harnetiaux on the main stage.

Two years later, “largely by default,” as Harnetiaux likes to say, he was asked to be the playwright in residence at Civic. Harnetiaux was delighted by the offer but also knew he still had to support his family, so he made his living working at a “very unorthodox law practice” while writing as often as he could.

“People would say ‘How do you divide your time?’ And I say, ‘Two thirds law, two thirds writing.’ I was never any good at math. Fortunately, I’ve always had a lot of energy, and my wife Sue Ann was very supportive.”

A year into his residency, Harnetiaux and a few others in the Civic community were thinking of ways to bring alternative theater to Civic to broaden its base. After returning from a playwrights’ festival in Seattle, Harnetiaux, actor/playwright Pam Kingsley and others asked Civic if that was something they could try.

The theater said yes, and they’ve been championing works from playwrights from around the region ever since. This year’s Bryan Harnetiaux Playwrights’ Forum Festival runs Thursday through June 22 at Civic.

The festival features two rotations of six works.

Rotation A features “Intro to Greek Theater” by Burcu Seyben (Twin Falls, Idaho), “Sex in the Middle Ages” by Barbara Lindsay (Shoreline, Washington), “Living Doll” by David Golden (Seattle), “The Fabulists” by Paul Lewis (Bainbridge Island), “Blackout” by Lee Lawing (Bainbridge Island) and “Goodbye Cecile” by Molly Allen and Steven Wylie (Spokane).

Rotation B features “The Note” by Bryan Harnetiaux (Spokane, playwright-in-residence noncompetitive entry), “A. Lee” by Pam Kingsley (Spokane), “Brain by Committee” by Abby Burlingame (Spokane), “The Nearest Far Away Place” and “TEOTWAWKI” by Aleks Merilo (Tacoma) and “Terminal Turmoil” by Ella McQuaig (youth division.)

Rotation A will be performed 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday. Rotation B will be performed 7:30 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. Saturday and 6 p.m. Sunday.

The year’s festival features directors Tom Armitage, Karen Brathovde, Elise Forier Edie, Sara Edlin-Marlowe, Blake Edwards, Jamie Flanery, Matthew Harget, Pam Kingsley, Juan Mas, Jerry Sciarrio and Ladonna Wojtowicz.

The company of actors includes Logan A. Anderson, Carrie Bostick, Barry K. Brathovde, Austin Caramanico, Skyler Carsten, Abby Constable, Destiny Daniels, Melody Deatherage, Keith Edie, Maren Forsnes, Jason Fowler, Jean Hardie, Claire Herrmann, Tracy Hirt, Mark Hodgson, Presley Hodgson, Tim Linton, Jess Loomer, Jared McDougall, Lea McGlothlen, Steve Lloyd, Kylie Mukai, Simon Nelson-Smith, Anna Newbury, Lacey Olson, Patrick Piper, Sarah Plumb, Abi Renner, Molly Elizabeth Robbins, Fenris Robinson, Egara Aragoness Ruiz, Joshua Schulz, Jennifer Simmons, Alexei Snow, Cecilia Sutton, Robyn Urhausen, Emma Woodward and Jason Young.

In the festival’s early days, plays were accepted from around the country and were featured in one rotation, as many of them were up to 30 minutes long. After a brief hiatus in the mid-’90s, the festival returned with a focus on regional writers and was able to showcase more plays as 10-minute play festivals started to grow in popularity.

Unlike many playwrights’ festivals, Civic’s doesn’t require pieces to be unproduced.

“That is a theater caring more about itself and having its fingerprints on something than serving a playwright, because I think anybody who really knows the art of playwriting would understand that plays evolve,” Harnetiaux said. “That may be that first primitive production, but if the playwright gets a good look at it, it can be enriched, and sometimes it can grow. It can start as a kernel of a one-act, and it may end up a full-length.”

Harnetiaux himself took a noncompetitive entry he wrote for the Playwrights’ Festival several years ago called “Exile” and went on to rework it into a full-length play that was included in Civic’s 2022-23 season.

The opportunity to see a piece “on its feet” as part of the Playwrights’ Forum Festival is invaluable, Harnetiaux said.

“This is true of other creative writing forms, but plays happen between the lines,” he said. “The written word is one thing, but it’s all the subtleties that are laid in by directors and actors who know their craft, who discover other things that enrich the written word. What’s marvelous for us as playwrights is we can see that in real time in rehearsal and we can see where there’s things that need to be fixed and rewrite during the rehearsal process.”

The time to notice what needs to be changed, as well as reviews by a learned theater critic after the play is produced, are important to a playwright’s growth and can help them see what direction the play needs to take and develop thick skin, Harnetiaux said.

But before something can be perfect, it simply has to exist. Those playwrights, actor and directors who dedicate time to creating and working on the rough drafts, as well as the theaters that celebrate those rough drafts, before the larger audience sees the perfected version help keep theater alive.

“I will say this, and I don’t mean this in a bad way, but this is such a lovely place to live, and there’s so many outdoor attractions, and we live now in a virtual world, to still be able to have a constituency for live theater, that’s a tall order.” Harnetiaux said. “It really is, and yet, the Civic has been able to do it time and again and redoubled its efforts, and I think it’s largely because it attracts the kind of people who are willing to make that kind of effort to make good art.”