After nearly “falling off the map” last season, Highline-area theatre-goers have witnessed this year’s impressive come-back staged by the 26-year-old Burien Little Theatre.

Last summer, hard-working, dedicated former members of BLT’s board of trustees rolled up their sleeves and re-united to rescue the theatre from a near-death experience.

Productions of Sylvia and Angry Housewives brought in a steadily growing audience who have welcomed BLT’s trustees (and the plays!) with open arms.

Finishing off their season of new beginnings will be the 2006 Bill & Peggy Hunt Playwright Festival, opening this weekend and featuring seven plays from seven Washington playwrights.

Opening the festival May 5-7 is They Shall Inherit the Earth, a drama by Olympia playwright Phil Wozniak.

May 12-14 will bring Take it Outside, a Northwest musical comedy by Redmond playwright and composer Rebecca Wolf-Nail and Monty Nail. Also on the bill that weekend is Good Works, a one-act comedy by Seattle’s Rosemari Ogden.

Watching Over Harold by Federal Way’s Curtis B. Swanson will be staged May 19-21, along with Spokane playwright Jeanne Gustafson’s one-act comedy Cooking With Mama.

And May 26-28, audiences will enjoy Dazzle Your Eyes by Seattle writer Kirsten Fatland and Images by Spokane’s Brian A. Cheney.

Beyond showcasing Washington playwrights, the BLT festival presents these original works to Burien audiences for their evaluation.

Evaluation? You bet.

After viewing each evening’s offerings, members of the audience will be invited to give feedback to the playwright about his or her work. This is a chance for each author to hear what “real people” think of the play, what worked, what didn’t work so well, and what changes they might like to see in the story.

If it all sounds a bit scary, don’t worry. It’s all part of the “workshop” process ... one that each playwright eagerly awaits.

Federal Way’s Curtis B. Swanson has gone through the workshop process with his plays on many occasions. The 2006 Hunt Festival winner for the full-length play division, Swanson is no stranger to play production.

Swanson has had an original drama produced both at the Seattle Fringe Festival in 1996 and at Centerstage Theatre in 2003.

His latest creation, Watching Over Harold, is a comedy-drama about a man in the early stages of dementia and the son who desperately tries to care for him. A heart-warming tale of familial love and the triumphant human spirit, Watching Over Harold is more than just a story for the stage. For Swanson, it’s personal.

“This show is loosely based on my mother-in-law’s brother,” admits Swanson, “and also on a failed play of mine that was going to be a political piece on the steelworkers of the 1930s in Youngstown, Ohio.

“I happened to have one character in that play that I liked. So, I took all this information I was gathering, and, while working as stage manager for Dinner With Friends at Centerstage Theatre in 2003, I started to pen this under a blue light backstage in the dark!”

The story’s main character, Harold, is a retired steelworker from the midwest. Swanson himself comes from a long line of men who worked with their hands. In fact, he prefers to write about folks just like that.

“I’ll never write about upscale New York or Hollywood. I’ll probably never even write about the Pacific Northwest. I would consider myself a blue-collar writer, the Bruce Springsteen of playwriting,” he adds with a smile.

Performances are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. All tickets are $5. A festival pass for all four weekends is $15. Call BLT at 206-242-5180 for reservations.

BLT is located at the Burien Community Center at Southwest 146th Street and Fourth Avenue Southwest.