Kenneth Robert Crost

Before moving to Denver, Ken was involved in Chicago theater as an actor, producer, and director.  Ken was the general manager for Pary Productions, an Off-Loop, avant-garde theatre company located at the Theatre Building.  During his tenure as general manager, Ken produced 15 plays.  Ken moved on to manage the North Umberland Theatrical Society, where he produced 5 plays and directed the critically acclaimed Chicago premiere of Extremities, by William Mastrosimone.  In addition to his producing activities, Ken also acted in numerous Off-Loop theatrical productions.  Ken studied at Second City for two years and with Paul Sills for a year.  His plays have been produced in the United States in New York City, Buffalo, San Francisco, Chicago, Denver and many universities, colleges, and high schools.  In addition, his plays have been produced in Germany, Canada, Spain, Australia, and Singapore.

 

Ken has completed three half-hour teleplays; two feature screenplays, Lotto Olé and No Blues for the Cabman, a short screenplay Listening Feeling; five one act plays, Jenny, The Party, No Blues for the Cabman, La Petite Fleur, and La Femme de Paris; and two full-length plays, The Party and Sin.  Ken is currently working on completing a new full length play, The Greenberg Family Moves to Mars.  In addition, Ken has contributed thirteen plays to an evening of 10 minute plays called Colorado Quickies.  Colorado Quickies was first produced in March of 1994 at the Changing Scene Theatre in Denver and was a critical and box office success.  Since that first production, twelve additional productions of Colorado Quickies have been staged, including a holiday version.

 

His full-length play, The Party, received its Australian premiere in July of 2004 and in 2008 was selected as a quarter-finalist in the 15th Annual Writer’s Network Screenplay & Fiction competition.  Sin was selected to participate in the Playwrights Showcase of the Western Region in 2004 and received a staged reading.  It was also selected by Paragon Theatre in Denver to participate in their play development program called the Trench and received a full staged reading.  Sin received a short production in March of 2007 as part of the National Children's Advocacy Center's 23rd National Symposium on Child Abuse in Huntsville, Alabama.  In 2007 Sin was selected as a quarter-finalist in the 14th Annual Writer’s Network Screenplay & Fiction Competition.  Sin had a staged reading in March at the 2010 Provincetown Theatre Winter Reading Series, in Provincetown, MA.  In 2012 Sin was selected to participate in the Edge Theatre’s On Your Feet Play Festival.

 

The full-length version of The Party received its world premiere at the Changing Scene Theatre in Denver in December 1993.  Jenny was selected as a finalist in the 1989 Dogwood National One-Act Play Competition and No Blues for the Cabman was selected as a semi-finalist in the 1994 competition.  In 1992, the one-act version of The Party was selected to participate in Red Octopus Theater's annual play workshop in Newport, Oregon.  In addition, The Party was produced in New York as part of Love Creek Theatre's Short Play Festival, was produced by the Alleyway Theatre in Buffalo, New York as part of their Summer Short Play Festival, was selected by the San Francisco Playwrights Center for their DramaRama92, and was produced by the Changing Scene Theatre in 1993 as part of their Summerplay program.  The Changing Scene also produced No Blues for the Cabman in the 1994 Summerplay program.  No Blues for the Cabman was also produced in 1994 by the Alleyway Theatre as part of their short play festival, in 2003 by the Ovation Players in Denver, and by the Changing Scene Northwest, in Bremerton, OR.  La Femme de Paris was produced at the Changing Scene in August, 1995. I published a book Shorts, which is a compilation of my ten-minute and one act plays. 

 

Ken is also a digital artist and has had his work in many galleries in Denver.  You can see his work at www.kencrost.com.

Additionally, his work is currently at Saatchi Art: https://www.saatchiart.com/kencrost and at Fine Art America.