GULF SHORES, Ala. — Valerie Scarborough is a drained, lost woman, tired of running. When the TVA empties a nearby lake, her haunted past reemerges, leading Valerie back to her childhood home and to answers that lie buried at the bottom of the lake.

This is the synopsis of the comedy-drama The River Valeo, written by 2002 Gulf Shores High School graduate Trey Tatum, currently playing from now through Aug. 29 at The Kraine Theater in New York City as part of the New York International Fringe Festival.”

After graduating from Gulf Shores, Tatum, a playwright and composer who grew up along the Gulf Coast, received a BA in Theatre Arts from Birmingham-Southern College and has recently completed his MFA in Playwriting at the Actors Studio Drama School at Pace University. Pace has campuses in New York City, Westchester and White Plains, N. Y., and enrolls more than 13,000 students in various bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programs.

Now a resident of Jackson Heights, N.Y., Tatum’s plays have been performed throughout Alabama, Virginia, New Jersey and New York City. As a composer, his music has been performed in Alabama, Tennessee, New York City, Pennsylvania and Prague.

Tatum has performed as an actor in “The Cover of Life” at the South Baldwin Chamber Theatre, “Children of a Lesser God,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and “The Lover”  at Birmingham-Southern College, as well as “Better Than Nothing,” at the Manhattan Repertory Theatre and “Tape” at the Actors Studio Drama School in New York.

Recently, Tatum completed a play writing intensive at The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and had a one-act play, “Black Meat,” performed at The Samuel French Off Off Broadway Festival in July.  During the past 34 years, the Samuel French Off Off Broadway Short Play Festival has featured more than 500 theatre companies and schools.