Sam Wallin
About the Winning Playwright
Sam Wallin has been writing plays of all shapes and sizes for more than 10 years, and has had his short plays produced multiple times around the United States. In early 2008 Sam signed up for Script Frenzy, which challenges playwrights to write a full-length script in one month. The result of that month of frenzy was an early draft of Memory Fragments. When he isn't writing plays, Sam Wallin is a librarian in Vancouver, Washington, a family man, and the One Minute Critic, Sam records himself and others giving short book reviews, then posts them online. You can view these videos (over 250 of them at this point) at http://www.youtube.com/user/CrashSolo.com.
The Winning Play
In the future, recording memories in 3-D may be as easy as recording video is today. In most cases, these memories will hold little interest to others- but when there is a murder, the memories of the deceased will be the first place the police will look for clues. Detective James Cloud is something of a specialist when it comes to reviewing 3-D memories, so when a headless John Doe washes up on the shore of a local river, he's called in to crack the case. As Detective Cloud digs through broken memories, examines recordings of psychiatric sessions, and interviews witnesses in virtual offices, he begins to realize that the death of his John Doe is the tip of a very large iceburg. In Memory Fragments no one is who they appear to be, and uncovering the truth might cost more than Cloud's corporate assets are worth. Memory Fragments is a fast paced mystery that toys with the deeper relationships with memory, evidence, theater, and life, and asks the question: Without your memory, what evidence is there that you exist at all?
Other Winners Include:
2009: Memory Fragments, Sam Wallin
2008: Stray, Ruth McKee
2007: Guided Tour, Peter Snood
2006: Farmers of Men, Richard Aellan
2005: Mother, May I, Dylan Brody
2004: Be Our Joys, Joseph Zaitchik
2003: Skin of a Lawyer, Richard Kalinoski
2002: How High the Moon, Timothy Jay Smith
2001: And Neither Have I Wings to Fly, Anne Noble Massey
2000: Shadow Plays, Frank Basloe
1999: Flight, music by James Scully; book by Steve and Elise Seyfried.
1998: Gone Astray, J.S. Stanisloff
1994: Tierra Del Fuego, Robert Alan Ford
1993: Rent, Jonathon Larson
1992: Boca, Christopher Kyle
1991: Planet of the Mutagens, Mary Gail
1990: Beast, Susan Arnout Smith
1989: Washington Square Moves, Matthew Witten
1988: Norm Rex, Phil Atlakson
1987: no decision made, all finalists carried over to following year
1986: Cue the Violins, David Richmond
1985: Interstates, Dan Dervin
1984: The Mountains of Arafat, Geoffrey Brown
1983: Cage Con Leche, Gloria Gonzalez
1982: Jonas, Billy Bly
1981: Sissy and the Baby Jesus, Barbara Allan Hite
1980: Private Opening, Norman Wexler
1979: The Stag at Eve, Robert Riche
1978: Cutting Away, Barry Knower
1977: Past Tense, Jack Zeman
1976: A Safe Place, C.K. Mack
1975: Jonathon (musical), Alan Riefe & Robert Haymes
1974: Son of the Last Mule Dealer: Gus Weill
1973: Carnivori, C. Richard Gillespie
1972: Fortune Teller Man, Marvin Denicoff
1971: Obtuse Triangle, Ben Roasa
1970: Three Sons (Of Sons & Brothers), Richard Lortz
1969: A Happy New Year to the Whole World Except Alexander Graham Bell, Bernard Sabath
1968: Bag of Flies, Venable Herndon
1967: The Prize in the Crackerjack Box, William Parchman
1966: To Become a Man, Albert Zuckerman
1965: Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, Lonnie Elder III
1964: Hothouse, Megan Terry
Thompson, Joseph Baldwin
1963: Funnyhouse of Negro & the Owl Answers, Adrienne Kennedy
1962: This Side of the Door, Terrence McNally
1961: La Loca (La Fiesta), Ernesto Fuentes
1960: The Busy Martyr, George Hitchcock
1959: The Apple Doesn’t Fall, Gene Radano
1958: Hear the Laughter (Clandestine on the Morning Line), Josh Greenfeld
1957: To Learn to Love, William I. Oliver