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Heartland inspiration

Idaho-born playwright finds middle America ripe for exploration

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‘A Bright New Boise’
Through Nov. 6
Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company
641 D Street, NW
$20-$67.50
202-393-3939

From left, Joshua Morgan, Emily Townley, Felipe Cabezas, Michael Russotto and Kimberly Gilbert in ‘A Bright New Boise’ by Samuel D. Hunter. (Photo by Stan Barouh; courtesy Woolly Mammoth Theatre)

For up-and-coming gay playwright Samuel D. Hunter, Idaho is an outsized source of inspiration.

“I’m originally from Idaho, and most of my plays are set there,” he says. “It’s a sort of canvas for me. Typically I like to use places and things I know as a jumping off point to explore things I’m not quite so sure about.”

Hunter’s best known play, “A Bright New Boise” for which he won a 2011 Obie Award (the off-Broadway Tony) for playwriting, is running at Woolly Mammoth and is the first of his plays to be produced in D.C. Set in the break room at a big box craft store called Hobby Lobby, “Boise” is a dark comedy whose central character is obsessed with the rapture.

“I’m very interested in people who want the world to end,” says Hunter, 30. “They’re so hard to figure out. But the play is about a lot more than the rapture. The spine of the story is the reunion of a father and his long lost son. It’s a human story that’s pretty universal.”

In recent weeks, Manhattan-based Hunter has been in D.C. completing rewrites and spending extra time with his partner John Baker, Woolly’s literary manager. Thus far, Hunter reports positively about the quality of the production (staged by gay director John Vreeke and featuring, among others, gay actors Michael Russotto and Joshua Morgan as the father and son, respectively).

Hunter’s characters aren’t particularly glamorous: They hold menial jobs, profess fundamentalist beliefs and are in many ways similar to a lot of Americans. “I like to write about folks who aren’t typically written about. Do we really need another play about rich white people getting divorced? Granted there are some good plays on the subject, but there’s so much more to put on our stages.”

Growing up in smallish Moscow, Idaho, Hunter (who goes by Sam) attended a Christian day school and worked part time at Wal-Mart. After high school, he attended New York University where he majored in dramatic writing and minored in Middle Eastern Studies. Later, he received an master’s degree from the Iowa Playwrights Workshop. Since then, he’s taught at Fordham University, as well as in the Occupied Palestinian Territories at Ashtar Theater (Ramallah) and Ayyam al-Masrah (Hebron). But mostly he writes plays.

Winning the Obie Award was definitely a turning point in Hunter’s increasingly busy career. “It’s not like I won an Oscar, but yes, it lifted my career. It used to be there were all the fancy people and then there’s me. After winning I began to feel like a member of the club. I finally believed it was possible for me to sustain a career in theater.”

And now as a hot emerging playwright with a progressively more demanding schedule, Hunter has had to give up the regular teaching gig. In addition to “Boise’s” D.C. run, Hunter soon has other plays opening at the Denver Center, and, yes, the Boise Contemporary Theater. Sounding almost entirely convinced, he says, “I have my life figured out for the next year and a half, and I’m pretty certain I can survive on what I earn as a playwright. Considering the economy, I think that’s pretty good.”

And what’s Hunter writing about now?

“A lot of my past plays involve dull jobs and parking lots. Currently I’m working on a play about the Home Shopping Network and the culture of all that. I enjoy exploring boring things. If I still lived in Idaho, I’d probably be writing about New York City.”

 

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PHOTOS: World Pride March

LGBTQ rights demonstration held in Amsterdam

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A scene from the 2026 World Pride March in Amsterdam. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The 2026 World Pride March was held on Saturday, Aug. 8 in Amsterdam. Tens of thousands of participants marched from Martin Luther Kingpark to the grounds of the Pride Village at Museumplein.

(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)

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PHOTOS: Daddy Issues at Kiki

Evry Pleasure, Tiara Missou-Sidora, Indiana Bones perform

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Evry Pleasure performs at the 'Daddy Issues' drag show at Kiki on Wednesday. (Washington Blade photo by Landon Shackelford)

The weekly drag show “Daddy Issues” was held at Kiki on Wednesday, Aug. 5. Performers included Evry Pleasure, Indiana Bones and Tiara Missou-Sidora.

(Washington Blade photos by Landon Shackelford)

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Books

Something’s off about Dad. When is it time to step in?

‘When Memory Fades’ can help when families face dementia

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(Book cover image courtesy of St. Martin's Essentials)

‘When Memory Fades’
By Nathaniel Chin, MD
c.2026, St. Martin’s Essentials
$30/422 pages

Mom called you in a panic the other day.

She’d lost her keys and by the time you arrived to help, she’d found them. In the refrigerator.

These kinds of things keep happening, not often but often enough, and you don’t know quite what to worry about. But in the new book “When Memory Fades” by Nathaniel Chin, MD, you’ll learn about the journey ahead, for both of you.

You can’t remember why you walked into a room. You got lost last week, going to the bank. Popular wisdom says that things like that are normal as we age, but Chin says that’s not true – although the answer may not be a worst-case scenario, either. Yes, memory problems could just be signs of stress, dehydration, or lack of sleep – or is it time to see a doctor?

Chin says maybe, yes.

He was working his way through medical residency when his father, a geriatrician in Madison, Wisc., was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Chin, now a geriatrician, was blindsided, but that diagnosis also changed his life.

Here, he writes about the brain, and how Alzheimer’s and dementia are diagnosed, explaining that dementia has many faces and, depending on a doctor’s evaluation, memory problems might be slowed or improved. He shares his father’s illness with readers, but he also writes about his mother, a steadfast, steady caretaker.

Her story reminds reader-guardians to care for themselves, too.

Know how to talk the talk, so that you can have “a more productive” conversation with your doctor. Understand that there’s nothing “normal” about dementia or Alzheimer’s. Know the statistics – African Americans are affected with dementia twice as much as whites – and know how to lower your risks. Learn here what questions to ask, how to break the news to everyone, and any legal matters that will be important soon. And know how to tend to you.

Says Chin, “The best action you can take is to educate yourself… The more you understand, the better equipped you are to make sound judgments.”

Something’s off about Dad, just a lot of little things that don’t add up. When is it time to step in? “When Memory Fades” can help you decide.

Wise, wide-spread, comprehensive, and compassionately helpful, this is a book you can read and then take it to the doctor with your loved one. It’s a book that makes sense when nothing else does, and its biggest feature is that it smoothly transitions from easy-to-grasp science and charts, to gentle coaching for caregivers. Author Nathaniel Chin, MD writes with storytelling, humility, grace, and experience from both sides of the Alzheimer’s/dementia issue, and his words are reassuring but also urgent. Learn, but don’t wait, he says. Know how to safeguard yourself. See your doctor, and don’t fear testing. Watch for signs of depression. And never, ever stop asking for help.

Read those last seven words, and find “When Memory Fades” now. It’s a book to have on your shelf, whether you’re 45 or 95 because, as you’ll see, dementia happens and knowledge is key.

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