Playwright Sara Jean Accuardi is about to set sail on her world-premiere production of The Storyteller. Accuardi has had her plays produced in Portland at Shaking the Tree Theatre, Theatre Vertigo, and more recently Artist Repertory Theatre. She’s had productions in other parts of the country, such as North Carolina’s PlayMakers Repertory Company, Idaho’s Seven Devils Playwrights Conference, and Victory Gardens in Chicago, to name a few.
She received the 2023 Oregon Book Award for The Storyteller, which after several preview performances opens Saturday, April 26, at Artists Repertory Theatre and continues through May 18. Her other awards include the Drammy award, the Leslie Bradshaw Fellowship for Drama, and the inaugural international Thomas Wolfe Playwriting Competition. More recently she’s received a James F. and Marion L. Miller Spark Award of $25,000 for Oregon artists.
Dmae Lo Roberts had a chance to talk with Accuardi during tech week of her world-premiere production at Artists Rep to talk about playwriting and hear about the highlights of her career, as well as some helpful playwriting advice. In this podcast episode you’ll hear Sara Jean Accuardi gives advice to new playwrights, and tals about the magic of working with artists to see her world premiere come to life …
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Her start in playwriting: “I thought I wanted to be an actor for a while when I was in high school. But I didn’t like acting. I just loved watching a play come together and, when I was in high school, I wrote a short play for an English assignment, and that play ended up being selected … it was the first year the JAW Playwrights Festival (at Portland Center Stage) had young playwrights involved with the festival. So I was one of the first young playwrights to be in JAW. And that was my first little taste of the playwriting world. As a playwright, you basically just create the container that a bunch of other artists are going to put pieces of themselves and their experience into. So it’s going to become something new and magical each time. And so my first little taste of that when I was a young playwright in JAW.”
How she was inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest: “I’ve always loved the story and I’ve always loved the part of the story that it’s about this man raising his daughter away from the rest of the world on this island. And I think it’s that part of, part of this that inspired, or at least was the jumping off point for this play. It was the thought of setting The Tempest in an encampment and people living off the grid, people living in makeshift housing and, that being the island of The Tempest in this world, and what is it to raise a child in this world, just on the edge of society, but not connected with society. And that was my original. My original spark … my doorway into the play.”
The Storyteller
- April 22-May 18, 2025
- Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 S.W. Morrison St., Portland
- By Sara Jean Accuardi
- Directed by Luan Schooler
More info: https://artistsrep.org/performance/the-storyteller/
Sponsor
Show Dates:
♦ Saturday, Apr 26 (evening): opening night
♦ Saturday, May 3 (evening): Highlight Night
♦ Sunday, May 4 (matinee): Post-Show Music of the Storyteller
♦ Saturday, May 10 (matinee): BIPOC* Affinity
♦ Saturday, May 10 (evening): Meet the Artist
♦ Saturday, May 17 (matinee): Arts on the Couch
♦ Thursday, May 15 (evening): Audio Described Perfomance
♦ Friday, May 16 (evening): ASL Performance
♦ Saturday, May 17 (matinee): Open Caption Performance
Conversation