Gregory Paul is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter and the brain child behind the Workbench New Play Workshop and Filmmaker Intensive in Park Rapids. Greg lives in New York City and spends time in Park Rapids in the summer and at Christmas.

The Workbench New Play Workshop is a playwriting workshop designed to guide writers though the process of writing an original 10 page play. It’s a quick intensive format of writing a play over the course of a week that ends with the play being read in reader's theater style. 

The filmmaker intensive requires participants come with an already-written script. Participants will be led through the process by award winning LA filmmaker David Leidy and Gregory Paul, culminating in a public showing of the new films.

Greg spoke about the playwriting process, the role of a director, working with the Northern Light Opera Company, and the creativity, openness, and generosity of the community.

The Workbench New Play Workshop takes place from June 14 - 19 with the public performance on June 20th at 7 PM.

The Workbench Filmmaker Intensive takes place from August 11 - 14 with the public screening on August 15 at 7:30 PM.

Free to the public thanks to the support of The Northern Light Opera Company & Minnesota's Region 2 Arts Council.

Learn more at northernlightopera.org. Listen for more details!

Described as a one woman arts institution by host Phil McKenzie, Misti Koop spoke about how she began her musical and theater stage career. Misti has been teaching music in Minto, ND for the last 7 years and will be taking a break next year to work on her creative efforts. Misti’s experience includes performing regularly in the Medora Musical and Frost Fire Theater. She’s the President of the Summer Arts Stages.

Stages Arts Stages is traveling drama camp that began 32 years ago in East Grand Forks under the direction of Larry D’Amico. Each year, Misti gathers a team to develop a show. They spend two weeks working on the show, including the costumes and sets for 2 teams who will travel the region from June through mid-August. This year the show is The Lion King. Kids will participate in these one week camps daily and at the end of the week they perform the show. Summer Arts Stages receives funding from the NWMAC. You can find the schedule for the camp throughout the region and more info at summerartsstages.com.

Misti is also involved in the Medora Christmas Tour. She received a grant from the NWMAC to help her create a favorites album of the Christmas show, which she’ll start to record soon and work into the fall.

If this isn’t enough, Misti serves on the Fire Hall Theater Board in Grand Forks and will be directing a show in January. She also teaches piano and plays many musical instruments.

Listen to hear more!

Brianna Severts is a freshman at the Grygla School and won 2nd place in the student category for her sculpture giraffe called Jerry at the annual NW Art Exhibit. This is a 3 dimensional piece made out of paper mache. Brianna created leaves for the background. She made the eyes out of clay with fake eyelashes from the dollar store. She learned that giraffes have dark blue/purple tongues and incorporated this into the piece. Her mom Tausha is the art teacher. Brianna spoke about this piece, her family, other art she’s created, and more.

Thief River Falls Photographer Bert Foster won a merit award in this year’s annual NW Art Exhibit. Bert has been a frequent exhibitor in our exhibits and has received grants from the NWMAC. Bert spoke about the camera he uses and the technical aspects and preferences of his work. He prefers landscape photography and recently started including humans. He and his wife, Christine Foster had an exhibit together at the NWMAC Gallery a few years ago. Listen to hear more about Bert’s photography and much more!!