Argus-Courier’s David Templeton earns 2021 Will Glickman Award honorable mention with ’Galatea’

It hasn’t yet premiered before a live audience, but David Templeton’s play “Galatea” has already earned regional acclaim, securing a rare honorable mention 2021 Will Glickman Award for best play to premiere in the Bay Area last year.

Templeton, community editor for the Argus-Courier, learned of the award shortly before it was announced April 16 along with recognition of Ricardo Perez Gonzalez’s winning play “Don’t Eat the Mangos,” which was produced at San Francisco’s Magic Theatre in 2020.

“I know it’s kind of corny to say this, but seriously, just to be mentioned in the same sentence as Ricardo Pérez González, and to be anywhere on a list that includes Sarah Ruhl, Octavio Solis, Peter Sinn Nachtrieb and Lauren Yee, does feel pretty good,” Templeton said in a written statement. “And, that the judges apparently created the runner-up slot this year to give ‘Galatea’ a place on that list is particularly gratifying and a very sweet surprise, especially given the disappointment of COVID-19 postponing the play’s world premiere last year.”

Templeton’s play, which was scheduled to premiere at Spreckels Performing Arts Center in March 2020, is set in the year 2167, and deals in themes of survival, loss and trauma through a science fiction lens.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Glickman Committee, a group of Bay Area theater and entertainment journalists, defined eligibility broadly this year for the award administered annually by the nonprofit Theatre Bay Area.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported the committee, which includes Chronicle theater critic Lily Janiak, expanded eligibility beyond scripts that premiered in the first 2 ½ months of 2020, to works that premiered online as well as those, like “Galatea,” that had in-person productions canceled.

The award, named after Tony Award-nominated Bay Area playwright and screenwriter Will Glickman, has been given out each year since 1984, but has rarely featured an honorable mention, as it did this year for Templeton’s yet-to-premiere work.

"Our hometown newspaper is lucky to have a gifted writer like David Templeton in our ranks, who has penned many acclaimed plays,“ Argus-Courier Publisher Emily Charrier said in a written statement. ”While we focus on fact over fiction, his strong literary voice and narrative style of storytelling enriches our Community section in so many ways."

This year’s winner, Perez Gonzalez, earned the $4,000 prize for “Mangos,” a play about a Puerto Rican family with three grown sisters that critics called unsparingly honest.

Templeton’s “Galatea,” is a four-actor play that centers on the relationship between a synthetic human named Seventy-One and her therapist, Dr. Mailer. Seventy-One, who Templeton said is “basically a robot,” was found floating in deep space in a decaying escape craft – the lone surviving crew member of the Galatea, a large human-transport ship that disappeared without a trace more than 100 years earlier.

“That’s the set-up,” said Templeton. “What comes after that is more-or-less a gradually unfolding mystery as Dr. Mailer puts Seventy-One through a series of training exercises – some of which are pretty funny, actually – while trying to unlock whatever secrets she’s holding onto, and to find out what really happened to the Galatea, and whether there might be other survivors.”

Although there’s plenty of humor in Templeton’s play, he said it’s not really a comedy. Once it reaches audiences, and it almost certainly will, “Galatea,” Templeton said, will resonate on many levels.

“Plus, it’s about robots,” he said. “Who doesn’t love robots?”

For “Galatea,” the show will almost certainly go on, with Spreckels Theatre Manager Sheri Lee Miller confirming the performing arts center is committed to producing the play’s world premiere.

In a statement, Templeton thanked all who made the honor for “Galatea” possible.

“I really can’t thank the judges enough for this, and I’m extremely grateful to Sheri Lee Miller at Spreckels, who has always championed ‘Galatea,’ and who very generously submitted it to the Glickman for consideration,” Templeton said.

Tyler Silvy is editor of the Petaluma Argus-Courier. Reach him at tyler.silvy@arguscourier.com, 707-776-8458, or @tylersilvy on Twitter.