Bryan Harnetiaux

Bryan Harnetiaux has been a playwright-in-residence at Spokane Civic Theatre in Spokane, Wash., since 1982. Thirteen of his plays have been published, and his short play The Lemonade Stand is also anthologized in More One Act Plays for Acting Students (Meriwether Publishing Ltd., 2003). These works include commissioned stage adaptations of Ernest Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro and The Killers and Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s Long Walk to Forever, all published by Dramatic Publishing.

Harnetiaux's work has been performed throughout the United States. His play National Pastime, about the breaking of the color line in major league baseball in 1947, has received many productions, including an equity-waiver production at Fremont Centre Theatre in South Pasadena, Calif., and an equity production at (former) Stamford Theatre Works in Stamford, Conn. National Pastime is published by Playscripts, Inc., of New York City.

The one-man play York, done in collaboration with David Casteal, which tells the story of the only black man on the Lewis and Clark Expedition (1803-06), has been performed throughout the country and was revived for a limited tour in 2018. Harnetiaux did the book for York, and Casteal developed the Djembe drum rhythms used to tell the story.

Harnetiaux has a cycle of plays on end of life: Vesta, Dusk and Holding On ~ Letting Go. Vesta was workshopped at the Lark Play Development Center in New York City and has been performed throughout the United States. Vesta received an equity-waiver professional production at Seattle's Capitol Hill Arts Center (CHAC) in February 2008, with Megan Cole in the title role. Dusk premiered at Spokane Civic Theatre in Spring 2007, and Holding On ~ Letting Go premiered at Fremont Centre Theatre (FCT) in 2012. The FCT production was featured as a main stage production at the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston Salem, N.C., in Summer 2013. It was again produced by Spokane Civic Theatre Studio Centre in the spring of 2017.

All of these end-of-life plays (Holding On ~ Letting Go in abridged form) are licensed in clinical settings addressing end-of-life issues (medical and professional conferences, etc.) through Hospice Foundation of America.

In 1999, Harnetiaux was a Fellow at the Hawthornden Castle International Retreat for Writers in Lasswade, Scotland. He has also been a guest writer for a number of theatre programs, including the Lark Play Development Center in New York City in 1999.

A number of Harnetiaux's short plays have been featured in festivals throughout the country. In July 2010, his short play Antipasto was featured in the 35th Annual Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival. For an extensive interview with the playwright, search Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festivals/Bryan Harnetiaux, click on "Links on The Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festival," and scroll to Harnetiaux Interview (40 DAYS TO 40 PLAYS).

Harnetiaux is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.