Past winners of the competition include professional playwrights who have had multiple plays produced and won awards in both Professional and Amateur competitions. Cochran has spent the majority of his career at Market House Theatre and over the years has written several short scripts that have been presented locally in various forms.
"From experience I know that community and professional theaters are always looking for comedies that will attract an audience," Cochran said. "It's important to me that my artistic work be validated not just by the people who know me locally, but by others on a national level as well,"
Cochran's play will have a fully produced world premiere production at the Stage III Theatre in Casper, Wyoming and will be published by Dramatic Publishing. He submitted the script Eternity in August of 2016 and then waited to hear the results. As each round of the competition went on and his play continued to be considered Cochran said he tried not to focus on that as he worked on other plays at Market House Theatre.
Cochran said his work as a director and a designer of hundreds of plays at the theatre helped him to see the play from a producing theatre point of view. Cochran has a M.F.A. in theatre from SIU-Carbondale. While working at MHT he also completed a 4 year program in Education for Ministry from The University of the South School of Theology through Grace Episcopal Church of Paducah from in 2009. That educational experience led him to many of the themes of his script. I love plays and stories that make you laugh, cry, and think about things in ways that you hadn't before. I love challenging the nature of how we perceive faith and God."
Cochran's play Eternity is about an
older couple Abe and Edith who greet people after they die and help
them get to a "transfer point" for the next part of their
journey. Abe, who has been on a diet for days decides to
delay an "appointment" to get an ice cream sandwich. Abe
spends the rest of the play trying to get everything back on schedule
while he "collects" a group of other individuals from his
"appointments" along the way.
"It's a comedy
about the meaning of life and commitment," Cochran said.
