songmaker / playwriter / gamewright
Hi, I'm Devan Wardrop-Saxton (she/her)! I'm a writer making plays, songs, games, and poems, originally from the City of Subdued Excitement (otherwise known as Bellingham, WA), and currently living & working in the woods just outside Portland, OR. My stories are intimate, fabulist works that often explore themes of collective memory, cross-cultural understanding, and the intimate complexities of determining personal identity by ourselves v. in relationship with our communities. I'm inspired by emotions in our lives that aren't easily untangled and relationships whose importance to us is so much larger than the categories cultural norms expect of us. I love language, especially when it fails, and am always trying to pin down the miracle that is a moment of being fully, truly seen.
Past work includes writing One Without the Other, a national semi-finalist for the John Cauble Short Play Award, composing the original score for Anon it Moves' The Winter's Tale, co-devising for the Drammy-award nominated ... And the Great Refraction!, collaborating with writer/performer Ames Miyako Williams on their solo piece Metaxu, and releasing my debut EP of original music, The City Where You Live, in 2015. In summer 2022 my poems "soup song" and "I I I wish" were published by the lickety~split; you can find my music on Bandcamp and my games on itch.io.
I'm a proud associate artist of new works lab String House Theatre, and am grateful to have received artist residencies with D'Clinic Studios (Zalaegerszeg, Hungary) and Shaking the Tree Theatre (Portland, OR). I'm a graduate of the Young Audiences of Oregon & SW Washington Teaching Artist Studio, and have been on the teaching staff at California Coast Music Camp, Northwest Women's Music Celebration, and Northwest Writers' Weekend. B.A., Theatre & German Studies with a Distinction in Dramaturgy from Lewis & Clark College.
+ drop me a line at devankws@gmail.com to say hello or be added to my mailing list!
+ check out my CV (.pdf)!
+ up next: artist residency at Sou'wester, working on an untitled interactive fiction project!