OWENSBORO, KY (2/2/12) – RiverPark Center officials are proud to announce that the 2012 International Mystery Writers’ Festival, “Discovering New Mysteries,” is a GO! The eagerly awaited fourth year of Owensboro’s highly-acclaimed, award-winning festival will take place June 14-17, 2012. “RiverPark Center is pleased to join the Commonwealth of Kentucky to return the International Mystery Writers’ Festival to Owensboro/Daviess County and the entire state,” commented David Renshaw, chair, RiverPark Center Board of Directors.
In years past, the festival has hosted an unprecedented array of best-selling authors, internationally known actors and successful TV writer/producers including: Gene Hackman, Mary Higgins Clark, Josh Hutcherson, Sue Grafton, Anthony E. Zuiker (creator of C.S.I), Rene’ Balcer (creator of Law and Order: Criminal Intent), William Link (co-creator of Columbo and Murder She Wrote), and dozens of others who actively participated in workshops, panel discussions, and retrospectives of their work. And, the new plays “discovered” at the Festival by up-and-coming writers in 2008 and 2009 have gone on to win multiple Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, which are considered worldwide as the Oscar of Mystery Writing.
This year’s festival is sure to be as exciting, ground-breaking and celebrity-packed as previous years. The Festival has already received hundreds of play submissions from authors around the world. From those submissions, three works will be selected in February to debut during the four-day festival, which will include two live radio theatre productions presented in the Jody Berry Cabaret Theatre at RiverPark Center, and one full-length stage play. The casts of these productions, all of which will be staged by professional directors, will include well-known faces and regionally celebrated talent.
“We are looking forward to producing a fully-staged production on Cannon Hall’s stage, as well as the popular Live Radio Theatre. We hope our friends and neighbors from throughout the community and region will come and help us with these exciting shows,” said Festival Producer and RPC General Manager Roxi Witt.
In addition to the stage and live radio productions, the Festival will showcase film and television mysteries, along with the talent behind them, in our “Writers Reel” programs on Thursday and Saturday. The featured films will include writer/director Lee Goldberg’s “Bumsickle,” the sequel to his acclaimed short film “Remaindered,” both of which were produced in Owensboro using local talent in front of, and behind, the camera. The movies will be shown on RiverPark’s giant 40 x 20 foot outdoor movie screen and will be introduced by Goldberg, a two-time Edgar Award nominee whose many TV writing and/or producing credits include SeaQuest, Diagnosis Murder, Hunter, Spenser: For Hire, Nero Wolfe, Monk and The Glades. He is also the author of The Walk, Watch Me Die, Successful Television Writing, the Diagnosis Murder and Monk series of original mystery novels, and Amazon’s ground-breaking The Dead Man, the best-selling, monthly series of original ebooks. As a TV development consultant, he has worked for production companies and broadcasters in Germany, Spain, Sweden, and the Netherlands.
“There is nothing like Owensboro’s mystery festival anywhere else in the U.S, which is why it attracts some of the biggest names in books, television and the stage. And the festival’s success discovering, and producing, one Edgar Award-winning play after another isn’t just astounding, it’s unprecedented,” says Lee Goldberg. “It’s an honor for me to be part of the Festival again.”
Book signings and author workshops will once again be a key part of the Festival, giving fans and aspiring authors an up-close and personal look into the creative process of writing best-selling mysteries. It also serves a terrific educational component to the festival for English, drama, and journalism students to learn the craft from awarded authors.
Festival officials are thrilled with the timeliness of this year’s event, as it falls on the same weekend as two other very popular and complementary events: Friday After 5, and the Owensboro-Daviess County’s Convention and Visitors Bureaus Bourbon Festival.
“We hope visitors will come in to town early, see productions with the Mystery Festival, enjoy Friday After 5, attend events associated with the Bourbon Festival and then end with another Mystery! What a vacation – hope to see you here!” said RPC Board of Directors vice Chair Jeff Danhauer.
RiverPark Center will be making detailed announcements regarding the Festival in the next few weeks.
SurfKY News
Information provided by Travis Estes
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