Molly Allen and Steven Wylie, Goodbye Cecile
Molly Allen is so excited to be back at the Playwrights Festival and this time partnering with Steven Wylie. Steve and Molly started writing together during Covid, they hope that you enjoy this offering. As for Molly, after decades as Co – host of the Dave Ken and Molly show she suddenly found herself jobless, radio is a cruel business. So in September Molly and Dave Sposito launched the Dave and Molly show. It’s live Mon-Fri 6-10 am through the Non Stop Local app then anywhere you get your podcasts. It’s going well! Never been happier. Molly is a Mom, Grandma, Rv’er and a gambler. She likes to spend time with her boyfriend Ken and pup Meesa. This play was inspired by a conversation with her Mother the great and powerful Ellen Travolta!

Steven James Wylie is an award winning screenwriter, filmmaker, and recording artist based here in Spokane. His music—introspective and cinematic—often parallels the themes he explores in his screenwriting and stage work. He also hosts his own podcast that features commentary on life, art and spirit along with special guests. Steven frequently collaborates with his dear friend and writer/entertainer Molly Allen, bringing heart, humor, and humanity to the stories they create together.

Abby Burlingame, Brain by Committee
Abby Burlingame is an actor, director, and playwright. She’s had several short plays staged locally, including Bureau of Empty Spaces (Eastern Washington University) and May and Ash (Stage Left Theatre). Her full length play A Revolution in Five Acts received a music stand reading with Spokane Playwrights Laboratory this past fall. In addition to writing, you may find her onstage, most recently as Lady Capulet in Romeo and Juliet (Civic), or directing, most recently with a staged reading of The Winter’s Tale (self-produced) and As You Like It (Spokane Shakespeare Society). Outside of theatre, she spent a decade working with the National Park Service and, after years of exploring the country and moving often, she has now happily put down roots in Spokane.

David Golden, Living Doll
David Golden is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter who lives in Seattle. He has had more than 70 productions of his plays performed in theaters in New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and throughout the United States.

Bryan Harnetiaux, The Note
Bryan Harnetiaux has been a Playwright-in-Residence at Spokane Civic Theatre in Spokane, Washington, since 1982, and his new full-length play, EXILE, will premiere this month. 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 one at the Fremont Centre Theatre in South Pasadena, California and the Stamford Theatre Works in Stamford, Connecticut. National Pastime is published by Playscripts, Inc. of NYC.

Pam Kingsley, A. Lee
Pam Kingsley is a playwright, actress, and director. She was last seen on stage as “Dottie” in Good People here in the Studio Theatre and she is directing The Fabulists for this year’s Festival. Pam’s own plays have been produced by theatres internationally and throughout the U.S. Her one act plays have been selected to appear in more than fifty theatre festivals. A. Lee is Pam’s sixth play to appear in the Bryan Harnetiaux Playwrights’ Forum Festival. Mother’s Day (2019) and Boxes (2022) both won an “Audience Choice Award.” Pam was commissioned to write and perform a solo piece, Sleepwalking for Stage Left Theater (2022). The solo piece was then featured online as part of Irondale Ensemble’s On Women Festival (2022) and on stage for the Invisibility Project: Women on the Verge (2024) both in NYC. Pam’s full-length Minster of Sorrow won top prize at the Appalachian Playwriting Festival (2023) and opened the 76th season at Parkway Playhouse N.C. (2024). It then had a three-week sold out run at Stage Left Theater. Pam’s full-length Boxes was just featured in Stage Left’s “New Works Showcase” (April 2025).

Lee Lawing, Blackout
Since 2018, I have had a renewed passion for writing and telling stories when I participated in the 2018 William Inge Playwright’s Festival with my one act play Crashing Through Kauai and my short Play Eve Addam’s Tearoom was a part of the BUA Takes 10: Stonewall Edition in Buffalo June 2019. My short play, Alien Lovers and Friends Anonymous was produced in Virginia and London. The past few years has graced me in ways I had never expected with several publications and performances. I am truly thankful that I am still writing and still telling stories.

Paul Lewis, The Fabulists
Paul Lewis is very excited to be back for this year’s festival. His full-length work includes The Names (Theatre 33); Lost in the Hills, A Musical (Theatre 33); musical adaptations of two iconic children’s books, The Runaway Bunny and Caps for Sale, both of which premiered at Boston Children’s Theatre; The Crossing, A Musical (Theater Schmeater); Jill Trent Science Sleuth (Cayuga College); Oblivion (Driftwood); and The Hours of Life (Theatre22). His musical adaptation of the bestselling middle-grade novel Wish won the 2023 AATE Distinguished Play Award. His new musical The City and the Sea premieres at Theatre 33 later this summer.

Barbara Lindsay, Sex in the Middle Ages
Barbara Lindsay’s first full length play, Free, won the NY Drama League’s 1989 Playwrighting Competition and was given its premiere production in London in 1991.  Since then there have been more than 400 national and international productions of her plays and monologues in 35 States, 13 countries, and on every continent except Antarctica.  She is a fifth generation Californian living in Seattle, WA, married to an amazing man, and ridiculously happy.

Ella McQuaig, Terminal Turmoil
Ella McQuaig is an aspiring playwright and actor who is very excited to work with Civic for her first time. Starting theater in her sophomore year of high school, her play Terminal Turmoil was made in an afterschool scriptwriting class of no more than 5 people. She’s very excited to be presenting that play with the amazing actors and directors of Spokane Civic Theatre.

Aleks Merilo, The Nearest Far Away Place, TEOTWAWKI
Aleks Merilo is an award-winning playwright from Palo Alto, CA. His script, The Snowmaker, was winner of the Playwrights First Award, The Chameleon Theatre Circle New Play Contest, Playhouse on The Square’s New Works @ The Works Festival, and was a finalist for the Oregon Play Prize. His play The Widow of Tom’s Hill played off-broadway at 59E59, where BroadwayWorld called it “A truly distinctive piece of theater.” His play Exit 27 was called “The best original play to be produced this season” by The Houston Chronicle, was voted best new play by BroadwayWorld, Houston, and played most recently at the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. He has an MFA in playwriting from UCLA, lives in the Pacific Northwest, and is represented by the Robert A. Freedman Dramatic Agency. Aleksmeriloplaywright.com.

Burcu Seyben, Intro to Greek Theater
Burcu Seyben is an academic, playwright, writer, and theater director from Türkiye. Since 2017, she has been rebuilding her life and pursuing her writing in the United States. Her creative nonfiction works have been published in The RavensPerch, Synkroniciti, and Door is a Jar Literary Magazine. Her play, The American Letter, was also selected for the Pitch-Your-Play Showcase at the Mid-America Theatre Conference. Seyben enjoys discovering new works, focusing particularly on themes of authoritarianism, women, language, and exile. The intersection of these themes is her favorite.