WHO: You!
WHAT: A special reception honoring SHS Hall of Fame inductee Rand Higbee
WHERE: Matthews Opera House Fireplace Room
WHEN: Sunday, October 20th at 2 pm
WHY: To celebrate a homegrown playwright and soon-to-be Hall of Famer!
HOW: Please join us for this free celebration and reception!
Spearfish native Rand Higbee is being inducted into the Spearfish High School Fine Arts Hall of Fame! Please join us at the Matthews on Sunday, October 20 at 2 pm to celebrate this honor with a free reception offering refreshments, a little history, and an informal presentation of the playwright’s work.
About Rand Higbee…
Originally from Spearfish, South Dakota, Rand Higbee obtained a Theatre degree from South Dakota State University and a Master of Fine Arts in Playwriting from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. While at UNLV his first full-length play, Sir Isaac’s Duel, was named as an alternate to the National American College Theatre Festival held at the Kennedy Center.
Rand first attended the Valdez Theatre Conference in 2006 and has become a regular ever since. In recent years, most of his published and produced plays underwent the developmental process in Valdez before being produced elsewhere. A few career highlights: His short play Next! has become one of the most often performed high school one-acts in the country. He won a Wisconsin Wrights award for his superhero play The Lightning Bug. The debut production of his full-length A Girl Named Destiny at the Venus Theater in Laurel, Maryland, was named one of the best plays of the year by DC Metro Theatre Arts. Rand is also the author of Kid Dakota and Plays from the Valdez Theatre Conference. He is one of Alaska’s most produced writers of the past two decades.
His plays are mostly family friendly, with wildly engaging plots and distinct characters who all have opportunities for actors to shine. They’re fun, always, and funny, always. They invariably have a good heart and wryly positive messages, tinged with a little bemused cynicism about the human condition.
– Dawson Moore
Coordinator, Valdez Theatre Conference
In his own words…
I was lucky to grow up in Spearfish, South Dakota. My family had lived in larger cities when I was very young: St. Paul, Minnesota and Reno, Nevada. Little Spearfish, however, seemed to be the right size to me. Small, friendly, surrounded by the Black Hills, I would say that if Spearfish didn’t have it then you probably didn’t need it.
One thing Spearfish did have was a college. My Dad taught there and he and my Mom would take my brothers Paul, Scott, and me (our little sister Susan too, but she came along later) to all of the theatre productions. I learned at an early age that seeing a movie might be fun, but seeing the action live on stage was magic. I don’t even remember when or where, but sometime in my single digit years I saw a production of Harvey. That sold me. Magic.
Reading through Plays from the Valdez Theatre Conference you will see what else entertained me while growing up in Spearfish: Baseball. (The Last Ballgame.) Late night, bad science fiction movies. (The Head That Wouldn’t Die and Shaula: Queen of the Universe.) Superheroes. (The Lightning Bug.) TV sitcoms. (At Home With the Clarks.) Comedians. (Born a Clown.) My pets. (The Feral Child.)
After becoming familiar with my comedies people inevitably ask me if I write dramas as well. I have in the past. (The Last Ballgame I consider to be the last non-comedy I have ever written.) However, I’ve been around this business long enough to realize you have to play to your strengths. Maya Angelou said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” I believe that if I left this Earth tomorrow people would remember me by saying that I made them laugh. What more could I ask?