Centenary College alumnus and playwright Erik Champney recently had his play, “The Screens,” wrap up Off Broadway in New York City as part of a limited engagement series by T. Schreiber Studio and Theatre.

“I have had some very good fortune with this play, especially since it has fallen into the hands of incredibly gifted artists,” Champney said. “Even without large billboards, each performance was sold out.”

Shortly after its run in New York, a new production of “The Screens” opened in Columbus, Ohio for a threeweek run at MadLab Theatre’s Roulette Festival. A subsequent production will be mounted in July by The Driftwood Players near Seattle, Wash.

Champney’s said his success is the culmination of years of dedicated work tracing back to age 15 when he was commissioned to write a full-length play for Peter Pan Players, a local children’s theater based in Shreveport. He later enrolled at Centenary and continued to grow as a writer.

“During my time at [Centenary,] Robert Buseick, then chair of theater, speech and dance, strongly encouraged me to pursue the playwriting competitions held by the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival,” Champney said. “With his guidance, I submitted a play called Dead Brains. It ended up winning the National AIDS Fund/CFDA-Vogue Initiative Award for Playwriting. From there, ‘Dead Brains’ would be presented at the Bay Area Playwrights Festival in San Francisco, eventually receiving its World Premiere Production at the Seattle Fringe Festival.”

Champney also attributes much of his success to the leadership and devotion of faculty such as Buseick and Don Hooper, professor of theater and dance, who he said consistently pushed and nurtured him as an artist.