A.P. Andrews to Lead Writing Workshop

When famed novelist Willa Cather received the advice to write about the part of the world she knew best, she turned for inspiration to the Nebraska prairie that impacted her youth. The eighth in an annual series, Prairie Writers' Workshop will provide participants with the rare opportunity to gain valuable writing experience while visiting the town that inspired Nebraska’s Pulitzer Prize-winning author.

New York-based playwright A.P. Andrews will teach a four-day workshop in drama writing July 9-12 in Red Cloud. This workshop is sponsored by the Willa Cather Foundation and made possible with the support of the Nebraska Arts Council and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment. The event is open to all ages and experience levels. It will culminate in a staged reading at the Red Cloud Opera House, on Sunday, July 12, at 4:00 p.m.

Registration for the workshop includes twenty hours of direct instruction from Andrews, a tour of seven historic sites related to Cather’s life and work, and time on the 612-acre Willa Cather Memorial Prairie for reflection and writing. Advance registration is required and can be made by calling the Willa Cather Foundation at (402) 746-2653 or by visiting www.WillaCather.org. The price of registration is $100 for adults or $60 for students.

A native of nearby Superior, Nebraska, Andrews serves as artistic director of Superior Community Theater, though his work has been performed and developed in Nebraska, New York, Idaho, and Great Britain. He is teaching assistant in the playwriting program of New York University's Playwrights Horizons Theater School, as well as producing associate for Seven Devils Playwrights Conference.

Andrews' Nebraska Cycle is a series of ten plays about life in the rural Midwest, and includes Abby in the Summer, Burning Barn, The Girl with the Red Balloon, Tailgates, Three More Sundays, Meth and Kisses, Cecil and Marie, Homesteads, Maria Barone Comes Home, and Winter Visits. Other works include Constantin, Higher, Tommy and His Stars and Stripes, Jolly the Christmas Walrus, This Might Hurt a Little, Optimism Or, and a collection of six one-act plays entitled Awake and Dreaming.