Meet ‘Writing Shadows’ playwright Barry Cavin
Ghostbird Theatre Company opens its 2017-2018 season with a special production in the Langford-Kingston Home in downtown Fort Myers. Writing Shadows centers on a St. Louis housewife by the name of Pearl Curran who began channeling a woman who lived in the 1600s after dabbling with a Ouija board one afternoon in 1913. The play was written specifically for the Langford-Kingston Home by Barry Cavin, who is Ghostbird’s Artistic Director and Professor of Theater at Florida Gulf Coast University.
The Cavin is an accomplished playwright. His last play for Ghostbird was No. 27, which he co-wrote with Ghostbird co-founder and actor Katelyn 
Gravel. No. 27 follows Creature, who is an engineer – for a miniature railway. Five days a week, Creature toots and whistles around the wooded landscape of a private park down by The Lake of Lost Thoughts. Creature finds a modicum of comfort traveling in a loop. No matter the time traveled, the track brings you back to the same spot.
In addition to No. 27, Ghostbird audiences will recall Cavin’s The Perfect Island of Dr. Teed, a trope about self-proclaimed Messiah Cyrus Teed and his followers, the Koreshans, that examined the convergence of religion, pseudo-science 
and utopian society.
Over the course of his career, Barry has designed and directed more than 40 fully-produced plays. More than a dozen of these have been staged at FGCU. FGCU TheatreLab audiences will recall The Mansion at Hangman’s Bog, a wild and hilarious comedy that opened on February 19, 2016. Wooden Mouth and The Living Blog: Apocalypse are among the other plays he has written and directed at FGCU.
From the chair, Barry’s directing credits extend to a full spectrum o
f classic and contemporary plays, including The Tempest, Agamemnon, Beyond Therapy, Exit the King, No Exit, Psychosis 4.48, Three Sisters and Woyzeck. He also directs student work. Paler Than Grass and Orphan Bunko are two of these.
In both his capacity as a theatre professor and as a playwright, Cavin seeks to build an interest in the lively art of theatre and is excited to be working again with Ghostbird Theatre Company in this new production.
October 2, 2017.
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About the Author
Tom Hall is both an amateur artist and aspiring novelist who writes art quest thrillers. He is in the final stages of completing his debut novel titled "Art Detective," a story that fictionalizes the discovery of the fabled billion-dollar Impressionist collection of Parisian art dealer Josse Bernheim-Jeune, thought by many to have perished during World War II when the collection's hiding place, Castle de Rastignac in southern France, was destroyed by the Wehrmacht in reprisal for attacks made by members of the Resistance operating in the area. A former tax attorney, Tom holds a bachelor's degree as well as both a juris doctorate and masters of laws in taxation from the University of Florida. Tom lives in Estero, Florida with his fiancee, Connie, and their four cats.