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Winning playwright Guy Martin with COWfest producer, Shelia Clark.
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Mindy Moffat with Chris Silagyi won first prize and $500 for their song about why they have hit the Occupy line on Mil Potrero Highway nearly every weekend since November.
Artists with provocative ideas and audiences in quest of thoughtful creativity spiced with a dash of humor struck gold last week at the Center of the World Festival. The annual event, affectionately known as COWfest, is held at the base of Mount Pinos in the Pine Mountain Village gazebo. Playwrights and singer-songwriters compete with original work for $1,000 in prizes.
Creativity, social change and an often hilarious exploration of the quest for how to live in balance with a healthy Mother Nature is at the heart of the three-day event. The festival is a celebration of storytellng in many forms, produced by Shelia and Bob Clark, Bobbie and Joe Ladin, Katherine King and the Center of the World Festival Board of Directors. The songwriting competition was sponsored by artist Michael Cram and photographer Mel Weinstein.
Out of six effective plays, the winning playwright this year was Guy Martin, who wrote “Buck ‘n’ the C-Stem,” a whimsical parody of Dr. Seuss that was inspired by the cascade of Savings & Loan frauds followed this decade by the worldwide banking meltdown.
The songwriting contest was won by Mindy Moffatt and Chris Silagyi, whose song told of their reasons for being on the Occupy line on the road to Pine Mountain nearly every weekend since last November.
—P. Hedlund
This is part of the August 24, 2012 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.
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