by School of Music and Theater
July 8th 2025
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Abbey Abell, PSU Theater Arts student and playwright.
On June 2, 2025, members of the 1917 Drama Reading Club celebrated the conclusion of their annual competition with a live reading of Shower Conversations, a play by Portland State University Theater Arts student Abbey Abell. The play was read by Abell’s peers Biz Bellows, Ashley Pio, and Cooper Blomberg, with Theresa Dudeck, a PSU Theater Arts professor, reading the stage directions.
The selection committee chose Shower Conversations as the winning play, stating they were “impressed by [Abell’s] command of dialogue and ability to tell a fulfilling and honest story in an economic and creative way." As the first-place winner, Abell had the pleasure of hearing her play read before a very receptive audience for the first time and received a $2,500 cash prize.
Set in the bathroom of the character Romaine, the play involves a series of conversations with Romaine’s best friend, Anya, and her lover Leonardo. The characters discuss intimacy issues, metaphors, and past relationships as they each navigate their needs in love and learn to recognize when it’s time to let go.
A second-place award was given to Elizabeth (Biz) Bellows for their play The Jump, accompanied by a $1,000 prize.
The 1917 Drama Reading Club has been reading plays together for 108 years, with only one interruption, during WWII. An annual 1917 Drama Reading Club Prize was created in 2017 to mark the group’s centennial. The competition invites PSU students to submit one-act plays of up to 30 pages. Submissions are reviewed by a selection committee of three to four members, including Portland-based playwrights, Drama Reading Club members, and a PSU faculty member representative (in 2025, the faculty representative is Theresa Dudeck).
This year’s committee praised the quality and creativity of the submissions, particularly the dramatic structures used by student playwrights to tell their stories.
Sara Jean Accuardi, PSU’s playwriting professor during winter term 2025, spearheaded the 2025 competition.