A local playwright will be the keynote speaker for the upcoming Lit Jam event at Escalante High School on March 21.
Raymond King Shurtz has deep roots in Southern Utah with generations of family ties in the beautiful rural town of Boulder and graduating from Escalante High School. During his teen years he grew up in Phoenix and spent summers on the family farm with cousins and grandparents.
Raymond’s website biography states: “I am a playwright and performer. During my twenties, I was a gymnastics coach, and practiced theatre when I could. From there, I opened a theatre called ‘Playwright’s Workshop Theatre,’ and was the artistic director for twelve years. During my tenure, I managed to produce about eighty new plays. The plays I produced were always new plays, cultivated out of a program I called ‘The Edge Project’. I also taught acting, playwriting, and facilitated a directing program. I was also able to produce my own plays, several of them now published. I also acted when I could, and lived a bohemian lifestyle, as living the life of a playwright and artistic director often becomes. At the end of Playwright’s Workshop Theatre, I got a job teaching theatre and film in an arts high school for the arts. I taught at Metro Arts for ten years, which brought me full circle back to performing and producing again. I just finished my show, ‘Bohemian Cowboy’ in Los Angeles, and am heading back home to Boulder, (Utah not Colorado).”
In 2009 Raymond produced and performed his one man show, “Bohemian Cowboy,” at The Elephant Theatre, which was the “pick of the week” in The LA Weekly, and subsequently performed it approximately seventy-five times in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Salt Lake City and Southern Utah, with twenty-three shows in Austin, Texas.
Raymond was described by a theater critic as a maverick with a quirky sense of drama and a flair for the unexpected, who then added, “few people in Phoenix have bigger hearts or more compassionate natures. He loves people and thrives on bringing out creativity in others. In addition to founding theater companies, writing plays, composing music and songs, he is a mentor to young people.”
We feel truly fortunate to have Raymond King Shurtz share his vast theatrical and literary experiences and talents with our local students.
– by Karen Munson
