Gibson, Scott Eldon
Scott Gibson
1953 -
A Colorado native who lived in Pagosa Springs until he was 10, then Leadville and Sterling before moving to Evergreen in 1972 with his parents. He'd summered here from 1963 on.
English always came easily to Scott, so when he encountered the dilemma of not being able to get into any of the classes he needed while registered as a Business Major in college, he fell back on something that felt comfortable. Majoring in English it would be, and most of his future jobs would have at least some remote connection to his degree.
Running the Haunted Bookstore on Meadow Drive in Evergreen from 1987-94 allowed him to be around books. During that period he was a contributing columnist to Spree and later Upbeat, writing about the arts in Evergreen in both cases.
While running the store in 1988, someone asked him to play a small role with just three lines in a stage production of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and that whet his appetite for the stage in one fashion or another – performing, directing, producing, or writing.
Locally, Scott has been involved with productions of The Evergreen Players, The Evergreen Chorale, Evergreen Fairy Tale Theatre, and Conifer's StageDoor Theatre Company. From 1998 - 2008 he had a nomadic theatre company based in Denver called Conundrum Productions, doing 10 shows in 10 years in venues such as The Denver Civic Theatre, The Bug, The Oriental Theatre, LIDA Project, and the Buntport Theatre.
To date, he has written 20 plays – 10 full-length productions and 10 shorter, one-act plays. More recently, his works have been produced in different parts of the country about six times per year, some fully staged, some just a staged reading.
He's known for writing plays with a small cast of characters and a single set. Character development is where he concentrates his efforts, earning him top recognition in theatre competition with Someone Else's Life (co-winner of the 2005 Steven Dietz Playwriting Competition in 2005) and The Last Good Day (The Long Island Public Access Television's Original Playwriting Contest in 2008).
His plays are not written for a particular theatre, "just for an audience to find interesting," he says. His stories are contemporary, grounded in real life.
He's also written three books: A Year in Stucker's Reach, Stopping by Earth, and Welcome to Judelaine.
What he observes around him often helps in character development in his writings. He's says he's always thinking of characters, paying attention to features, gestures, body language and mannerisms. If you read one of his books or attend one of his plays, you just might recognize a combination of people you know!
