Writer
Of Perhaps The Greatest Headline Of All Time Dies At 74
“Headless Body In Topless Bar”
started trending nationwide on Twitter today — for a mix of reasons sad,
tragic, and nostalgic. The hashtag came from a dark (but amazing) 1983 New York
Postheadline — and it's back in the news because the exalted wordsmith who
penned it, Vincent “Vinnie” Musetto, has died. The retired news editor and film
critic was 74.
Doctors diagnosed Musetto with
pancreatic cancer just three weeks ago. His wife of 50 years, Claire, was with
him in hospice care at Calvary Hospital wherehe died in his sleep. “He wasn’t
in any pain,” his daughter, Carly VanTassell,tells The Post. “He was
comfortable.”
Although Musetto wrote many remarkable
headlines during his 40-year reign at The Post, “Headless Body In Topless Bar”
remains the indisputable public favorite. It refers to a grisly encounter in a
Jamaica, Queens bar on April 13, 1983. A patron named Charles Dingle fatally
shot the owner, Herbert Cummings, during an argument. He held several women
hostage, forcing them into violent acts, demanding one to completely remove
Cummings’s head. Dingle was convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life in
prison. He never received parole and died in 2012.
Apparently, though, this iconic
headline almost never got laid in ink. A city editor challenged Musetto on the
topless detail of the murder scene tavern. Musetto lept to his desk and
bellowed, “It’s gotta be a topless bar! This is the greatest fucking headline
of my career!” Charlie Carillo, who worked for The Post and was in the newsroom
that fateful night, told The Huffington Post. A young reporter was sent to the
locked-down bar and saw a neon light inside that confirmed it.
Musetto later said he changed his
mind about “Headless” being his favorite of all the headlines he had written.
Instead, he favored, “Granny Executed In Her Pink Pajamas.” It’s all
preference, really. Some other rather choice titles he penned for The Post include:
“I Slept With A Trumpet,” “500-Pound Sex Maniac Goes Free,” “Mayhem In The
Street,” and “Khadafy Goes Daffy.”
France's Centre Pompidou explores
the Beat GenerationFrom June 22 to October 3, 2016, the Parisian museum will be
paying homage to the literary and artistic movement of the beatniks with an
exhibition entitled "Beat Generation."
Spanning a period from the late
1940s to the late 1960s, the Beat Generation scandalized America in the dawning
days of the Cold War. The movement laid the foundations for the liberation of
youth culture and is now recognized as one of the major cultural movements of
the 20th century. The Beat Generation is now also the subject of an exhibition
at the French capital's Centre Pompidou.
After forming when beatnik
novelists and poets William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac met in
New York, the heart of the Beat Generation then shifted to San Francisco on the
USA's west coast. From 1957, the movement gained ground in Europe, with Paris
becoming an important center of activity. The city's Beat Hotel proved a
particular focal point, with regular guests including William Burroughs,
Gregory Corso, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky and Brion Gysin.
In homage to its shifting
centres, the "Beat Generation" exhibition is organized
geographically. It is split into three main sections covering New York,
California and Paris, as well as smaller sections on Mexico and Tangiers.
The New York section focuses on
the relationship between music and literature, and explores the technology of
the age, such as vinyl records and typewriters. The California area focuses on
the literary and artistic scene from 1952 to 1965. The show then takes visitors
to Mexico, exploring the many factors that drew beatniks over the border,
including the country's violent yet magical appeal. Next, the show heads to
Tangiers, highlighting the influence of trance music recorded by Paul Bowles
during his visits to Morocco in 1959. The exhibition ends with a section on
Paris, where several major Beat poetry works were written, particularly at the
Beat Hotel.
The exhibition is accompanied by
a program of readings, concerts, meetings, films and other events.
"Beat Generation" runs
June 22 to October 3, 2016, at Centre Pompidou, Paris.
Drug-fueled
18-page letter Neal Cassady wrote to Jack Kerouac which inspired On The Road
goes up for sale and is expected to fetch $600,000
•Neal Cassady wrote 16,000 word
letter over three days in December 1950
•Later admitted to having been on
amphetamine Benzadrine the whole time
•Kerouac said the 18-page note
was 'the greatest piece of writing I ever saw'
•Letter was lost for 60 years but
was found in a defunct publishing house
By CHRIS PLEASANCE FOR
DAILYMAIL.COM
It was the 16,000 word letter
that inspired the Beatnik generation - and it is now going up for sale more
than 60 years after it was thought to have been lost over the side of a
houseboat.
The 18-page script, penned by
Neal Cassady over three drug-fueled days in 1950 and sent to Jack Kerouac, is
credited with inspiring the spontaneous style of his masterpiece, On The Road.
Speaking in 1968, Kerouac said
the letter 'was the greatest piece of writing I ever saw' saying he got his own
style from 'seeing how good old Neal Cassady wrote his letters to me, all first
person, fast, mad, confessional, completely serious, all detailed'.
In his response to the letter,
Kerouac added: 'I thought that it ranked among the best things ever written in
America. It was almost as good as the unbelievably good "Notes from the
Underground" of Dostoevsky.
'You gather all the best
styles... and utilize them in the muscular rush of your own narrative and
excitement.
'I say truly, no [Theodore]
Dreiser, no [Thomas] Wolfe, has come close to it; [Herman] Melville was never
truer.'
Known as the 'Joan Anderson
Letter' because of one of the love interests that it discusses, it was thought
to have been lost for almost 60 years.
Kerouac said he loaned the letter
to poet and fellow Beat Allen Ginsburg, who had passed it along to an unknown
third party who was said to have dropped it off the side of a boat.
Only a small extract was known to
exist after being retyped by Kerouac himself and then included in the 1964 book
'Notes from Underground #1' by John Bryan.
However, the full script
resurfaced in 2012 after being found in the 'to read' pile of a now-defunct
publishing house in San Francisco called Golden Goose Press.
According to Jean Spinosa, who
found the letter among her late father's possessions, Ginsburg had been trying
to get it published when he mailed it, to no effect.
The letter was due to be
auctioned in 2014, but was withdrawn from sale after it sparked an ownership
dispute between Spinosa, Cassady's children, and Kerouac's estate, who were
unaware of its existence.
The trio have now reached an
'amicable settlement' according to the San Francisco Chronicle, with Cassady's
family retaining ownership of the content, which they plan to publish at a
later date.
The letter itself is due to go
under the hammer on June 16 at the Rockefeller Center in New York where it
could fetch as much as $600,000.
Dennis McNally, a Kerouac biographer,
said: 'The letter is invaluable. It inspired Kerouac greatly in the direction
he wanted to travel, which was this spontaneous style of writing contained in a
letter that had just boiled out of Neal Cassady's brain.'
Cassady, a prominent member of
the Beat generation known for his love of both drugs and women, admitted
writing the letter to Kerouac during a Benzadrine binge.
He formed the basis for the
hopelessly energetic 'holy fool' character of Dean Moriarty in On The Road,
while Kerouac himself appeared in hedonistic adventures alongside him as Sal
Paradise.
World
Poetry Day: 28 of poetry's most powerful lines ever written
Because I could not stop for
Death, / He kindly stopped for me; / The carriage held but just ourselves / And
Immortality
'Because
I could not stop for Death', Emily Dickinson
And when wind and winter harden /
All the loveless land, / It will whisper of the garden, / You will understand
'To
My Wife', Oscar Wilde
But the dark pines of your mind
dip deeper / And you are sinking, sinking, sleeper / In an elementary world;
There is something down there and you want it told
'Dark Pines Under Water',
Gwendolyn MacEwen
This is the way the world ends /
not with a bang but a whimper 'The
Hollow Men', T.S Eliot
Out of the ash I rise / With my
red hair / And I eat men like air 'Lady
Lazarus', Sylvia Plath
Bent double, like old beggars
under sacks, / Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, /
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs / And towards our distant rest
began to trudge.'Dulce et Decorum est',
Wilfred Owen
I love you as certain dark things
are to be loved / in secret, between the shadow and the soul. 'Sonnet XVII', Neruda
I would like to be the air / that
inhabits you for a moment / only. I would like to be that unnoticed / &
that necessary 'Variation on the Word Sleep', Margaret Atwood
they speak whatever’s on their
mind / they do whatever’s in their pants / the boys i mean are not refined /
they shake the mountains when they dance 'the boys i mean are not refined', E. E. Cummings
O Captain! my Captain! our
fearful trip is done; / The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought
is won 'O Captain! My Captain!', Walt Whitman
Don’t like the / fact that he
learned to hide from the cops before he knew / how to read. Angrier that his
survival depends more on his ability / to deal with the “authorities” than it
does his own literacy 'Cuz He’s Black', Javon
Johnson
The weight of the world / is love
/ Under the burden / of solitude, / under the burden / of dissatisfaction / the
weight, / the weight we carry / is love 'Song', Allen Ginsberg
The caged bird sings with a
fearful trill/ Of things unknown but longed for still/ And his tune is heard on
the distant hill/ For the caged bird sings of freedom'I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings', Maya Angelou
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed,
and everywhere / The ceremony of innocence is drowned; / The best lack all
conviction, while the worst / Are full
of passionate intensity The Second Coming',
William Butler Yeats
Down, down, down into the
darkness of the grave / Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind; /
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave. / I know. But I do not
approve. And I am not resigned 'Dirge
Without Music', Edna St. Vincent Millay
I bequeath myself to the dirt to
grow from the grass I love / If you want me again look for me under your
boot-soles' Leaves of Grass', Walt
Whitman
How happy is the blameless
vestal's lot! / The world forgetting, by the world forgot. / Eternal sunshine
of the spotless mind! / Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd
'Eloisa
to Abelard', Alexander Pope
Love is not love Which alters
when it alteration finds, / Or bends with the remover to remove: / O no; it is
an ever-fixed mark, / That looks on tempests, and is never shake 'Sonnet 116', William Shakespeare
Tree you are, / Moss you are, /
You are violets with wind above them. / A child - so high - you are, / And all
this is folly to the world 'A Girl',
Ezra Pound
You may write me down in history
/ With your bitter, twisted lies, / You may trod me in the very dirt / But
still, like dust, I’ll rise 'Still I Rise', Maya Angelou
you are much more than simply
dead/ I am a dish for your ashes / I am
a fist for your vanished air / the most terrible thing about life/ is finding
it gone 'The Unblinking Grief', Charles
Bukowski
At twenty I tried to die / And
get back, back, back to you. / I thought even the bones would do./ But they
pulled me out of the sack, / And they stuck me together with glue
'Daddy',
Sylvia Plath
I saw the best minds of my
generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, / dragging
themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix /
angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection to the starry
dynamo in the machinery of night “Howl', Allan Ginsberg
She had blue skin,/ and so did
he./ He kept it hid/ and so did she./ They looked for blue/ their whole life
through./ Then passed right by--/ and never knew 'Masks', Shel Silverstein
Do not go gentle into that good
night, / Old age should burn and rave at close of day; / Rage, rage against the
dying of the light 'Do Not Go Gentle
Into That Good Night', Dylan Thomas
Water, water, every where, / And
all the boards did shrink; / Water, water, every where / Nor any drop to drink 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', Samuel
Taylor Coleridge
I am the poor white, fooled and
pushed apart / I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars / I am the red man driven
from the land, / I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek - / And finding
only the same old stupid plan / Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak
'Let
America Be America Again', Langston Hughes
Iconoclast
1 : a person who destroys
religious images or opposes their veneration
2 : a person who attacks settled beliefs or
institutions
Icon comes from the Greek eikōn,
which is fromeikenai, meaning "to resemble." Iconoclast comes to us
by way of Medieval Latin from Middle Greek eikonoklastēs, which joins eikōn
with a form of the word klan, meaning "to break." Iconoclast
literally means "image destroyer."
Jovial
1 : (capitalized Jovial) of or relating to
Jove
2 : markedly good-humored especially as
evidenced byjollity and conviviality
Jupiter, also called Jove, was
the chief Roman god and was considered a majestic, authoritative type—just the
kind of god to name a massive planet like Jupiter for. Our word jovial comes by
way of Middle French from the Late Latin adjective jovialis, meaning "of
or relating to Jove." When English speakers first picked up jovial in the
late 16th century, it was a term of astrology used to describe those born under
the influence of Jupiter, which, as a natalplanet, was believed to impart joy
and happiness. They soon began applying jovial to folks who shared the
good-natured character of Jupiter, regardless of their birth date.
Lout
An awkward brutish person
Lout belongs to the large group
of words we use to indicate an undesirable person, a boor, a bumpkin, a dolt, a
clod. We've used lout in this way since the mid-1500s. As early as the 800s,
however, lout functioned as a verb with the meaning "to bow in
respect." No one is quite sure how the verb sense developed into a noun
meaning "a brutish person." Perhaps the awkward posture of one bowing
down led over time to the idea that the person was personally low and awkward
as well.
Nomic
1. Relating to a gnome (an
aphorism or a pithy saying).
2. Puzzling, ambiguous, or
incomprehensible yet seemingly profound.
From Greek gnome (judgment,
opinion), from gignoskein (to know). Ultimately from the Indo-European root
gno- (to know), which also gave us knowledge, prognosis, ignore, narrate,
normal, and gnomon. Earliest documented use: 1815.
Hoity-toity
1: thoughtlessly silly or
frivolous : flighty
2: marked by an air of assumed importance
: highfalutin
Before it was an adjective it was
a noun meaning "thoughtless giddy behavior." The noun, which first
appeared in print in 1668, was probably created as a singsongy rhyme based on
the dialectal English word hoit, meaning "to play the fool." The
adjective hoity-toity can stay close to its roots and mean "foolish"
("… as though it were very hoity-toity of me not to know that royal
personage." — W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge), but in current use
it more often means "pretentious."
Felicitous
1: very well suited or expressed
: apt
2: pleasant, delightful
The adjective felicitous has been
a part of our language since the late 18th century, but felicity, the noun
meaning "great happiness," and later, "aptness," was around
even in Middle English (as felicite, a borrowing from Anglo-French). Both words
ultimately derive from the Latin adjective felix, meaning "fruitful"
or "happy." The connection between happy and felicitous continues
today in that both words can mean "notably fitting, effective, or well
adapted." Happy typically suggests what is effectively or successfully
appropriate (as in "a happy choice of words"), and felicitous often
implies an aptness that is opportune, telling, or graceful (as in "a
felicitous phrase").
Negotiate
1: to confer with another so as
to arrive at the settlement of some matter; also : to arrange for or bring
about by such conferences
2: to transfer to another by
delivery or endorsement in return for equivalent value
3: to get through, around, or over
successfully
For the first 250 years of its
life, negotiate had meanings that hewed pretty closely to its Latin root,
negotiari, meaning "to carry on business." Around the middle of the
19th century, though, it developed the meaning "to successfully travel
along or over." Although this sense was criticized in the New York Sun in
1906 as a "barbarism creeping into the language," and Henry Fowler's
1926 A Dictionary of Modern English Usage declared that any writer who used it
was "literally a barbarian," it has thrived and is now fully
established.
Wroth
From Old English wrath.
Ultimately from Indo-European root wer- (to turn or bend), which is also the
progenitor of words such as wring, weird, writhe, worth, revert, and universe.
Earliest documented use: 893.
Knavery
Dishonest dealing or an instance
of this.
From knave, from Old English
cnafa (boy, servant). Earliest documented use: 1528.
Defalcation
1: the act or an instance of embezzling
2: a failure to meet a promise or
an expectation
Defalcation is ultimately from
the Latin word falx, meaning "sickle," and it has been a part of
English since the 1400s. It was used early on of monetary cutbacks (as in
"a defalcation in their wages"), and by the 1600s it was used of most
any sort of financial reversal (as in "a defalcation of public revenues").
Not till the mid-1800s, however, diddefalcation refer to breaches of trust that
cause a financial loss, or, specifically, to embezzlement.
Qua
The etymology of qua, a term that
comes to us from Latin. It can be translated as "which way" or
"as," and it is a derivative of the Latin qui, meaning
"who." Qua has been serving English in the capacity of a preposition
since the 17th century. It's a learned but handy little word that led one 20th-century
usage writer to comment: "Qua is sometimes thought affected or
pretentious, but it does convey meaning economically."
Attenuate
1: to make thin or slender
2: to make thin in consistency:
rarefy
3: to lessen the amount, force,
magnitude, or value of weaken
4: to reduce the severity,
virulence, or vitality of
Attenuate ultimately comes from a
combination of the Latin prefix ad-, meaning "to" or
"toward," and tenuis, meaning "thin." It has been on the
medical scene since the 16th century, when a health treatise recommended eating
dried figs to attenuate bodily fluids. That treatment might be outmoded
nowadays, but attenuate is still used in medicine to refer to procedures that
weaken a pathogen or reduce the severity of a disease. Most often,
though,attenuate implies that something has been reduced or weakened by
physical or chemical means. You can attenuate wire by drawing it through
successively smaller holes, or attenuate gold by hammering it into thin sheets.
You can even attenuate the momentum of a play by including too many costume
changes.
Ponceau
A bright red color.
From Old French pouncel (poppy),
diminutive of paon (peacock), from Latin pavo (peacock). Peacocks are not red,
so why this word after a peacock? The poppy flower got this name because its
vivid red color was compared to the bright colors of a peacock. A related word
is pavonine.
Licit
conforming to the requirements of
the law : not forbidden by law : permissible
Licit is far less common than its
antonym illicit, but you probably won't be surprised to learn that the former
is the older of the two. Not by much, though: the first known use of licit in
print is from 1483, whereas illicit shows up in print for the first time in
1506. For some reason illicit took off while licit just plodded along. When
licit appears these days, it often modifies drugs or crops. Meanwhile, illicit shows
up before words like thrill and passion (as well as gambling, relationship,
activities, and, of course, drugs and crops.) The Latin word licitus, meaning
"lawful," is the root of the pair; licitus itself is from licēre,
meaning "to be permitted."
Extirpate
A: to destroy completely : wipe
out
B: to pull up by the root
2: to cut out by surgery
Extirpate finds its roots in roots
(and stumps. Early English uses of the word in the 16th century carried the
meaning of "to clear of stumps" or "to pull something up by the
root." Extirpate grew out of a combination of the Latin prefix ex- and the
Latin noun stirps, meaning "trunk" or "root." The word
stirp itself remains rooted in our own language as a term meaning "a line
descending from a common ancestor."
Probative
Serving to test something or
providing a proof.
From Latin probare (to test or
prove), from probus (upright, good). Ultimately from the Indo-European root
per- (forward), which also gave us paramount, prime, proton, prow, German Frau
(woman), and Hindi purana (old). Earliest documented use: 1453.
Greetings
NYCPlaywrights
*** TESTIMONIAL ***
“…Giving us a place to share our
'call for submissions' was definitely a great help to our festival. More
importantly, I write myself, and wanted to thank you for creating this
wonderful space which enables people to follow their passion.”
Abby Judd - General Manager |
NYNW Theatre Festival 2016
http://www.nynwtheatrefestival.com/
~ Thanks to Abby Judd for
allowing us to share her kind words about the NYCPlaywrights web site - glad if
we can help!
*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
New York Classical Theatre
120 minutes, no intermission.
All performances begin @7pm.
No tickets required!
DATES/LOCATIONS
Central Park
(Enter @ West 103rd St. &
Central Park West)
Thursdays through Sundays, June
2-26
+++
Nelson A. Rockefeller Park in
Battery Park City
(North end of Battery Park City,
west of River Terrace)
Wednesday through Saturday, June
29-July 2
+++
Prospect Park
(Enter at Grand Army Plaza)
Wednesday through Sunday, July 6
- 10
+++
Carl Schurz Park
(Enter @ East 86th St.)
Tuesday, July 12
Thursday through Sunday, July
14-17
+++
More information:
http://www.newyorkclassical.org
*** SEEKING ONE-ACT PLAYS ***
Seeking fully produced one act
plays
(cast, directed & ready to
perform)
7 to 20 minutes for
SUMMER ONE ACT PLAY COMPETITION
July 25 - August 12, 2016
at Manhattan Rep, 303 W.42nd St.
$1000 for BEST PLAY!
3 performances, (and 4 more
performances if your play moves to the FINALS.)
Please email:
The complete play,
synopsis of the play,
running time,
Set/lighting requirements,
playʼs
production history
your mailing address,
and a contact email address to:
manhattanrep@yahoo.com
by July 5, 2016.
Put “Summer Competition” in the
subject heading.
NON-EQUITY ONLY.
Once accepted, there’s a $155.00
participation fee.
www.manhattanrep.com
*** PLAYWRIGHTS OPPORTUNITIES ***
The Owl and Cat Theatre are
currently seeking new works to be produced as part of their 4th season. The Owl
and Cat Theatre is an independent theatre located in Melbourne, Australia. They
are dedicated to sourcing and producing contemporary plays that reflect the
voices of today.
*Plays must explore the theme of
sexuality on some level.
*One act or full length only.
*Submissions are accepted
worldwide.
*Confronting and provocative
works are encouraged.
***
The Bridge Initiative is
accepting new plays and musicals written by women for this year’s “Playwright
of the Year” award. Stipulations are that the work must be in development with
a cast limit of eight (8) and that the writer has an understanding of the next
stages needed towards the creation of their play. The playwright will be
submitting her piece with the intention of committing time, work, and rewriting
within a conscious and measured pipeline of development that will be generated
with The Bridge Initiative: Women in Theatre and three other theatre companies
committed to the shepherding of the work and writer throughout the process. A
panel of professional theatre artists nationwide will adjudicate the
submissions.
***
Crossing Borders Repertory is a
theater venture showcasing new and emerging writers and new work. Our mission
is to explore topics that either directly or indirectly involve the crossing of
borders between people: countries, religions, generations or life-stages;
class, gender or racial differences—and the walls that must come down to allow
the crossing—stereotypes, prejudices, hatred and blindly held customs.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about
these and other opportunities see the NYCPlaywrights web site at http://www.nycplaywrights.org
***
NYCPlaywrights June 18, 2016
Nancy_GMAIL
6/18/16
Groups, Newsletters
To: NYCPlaywrights
Greetings
NYCPlaywrights
*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
AS YOU LIKE IT
BAREFOOT SHAKESPEARE
Sunday, June 19, 2016 4PM
At Summit Rock in Central Park
http://www.barefootshakespeare.org/#!productions/cb3i
Map of Summit Rock
http://www.centralpark.com/maps/group/attractions/summit-rock
*** Getting Your (Second) Act
Together ***
July 16-17: Screenwriting
Workshop: Getting Your (Second) Act Together with Kate Cortesi: In this 2-day
workshop at Primary Stages ESPA, you will confront your screenplay’s Second Act
Problems head-on, and explore strategies for developing a problem-proof premise
and conflict. With Kate Cortesi (Screenwriter, New Line Cinema), you will take
an in-depth look at how to excite your audience with a hero who is challenged
along a meaningful journey and proceed through your second act with two
principles in mind: how your hero needs to be tested, and how your audience
empathizes and delights in the hero’s process.
Payment plans available:
http://primarystages.org/espa/writing/workshop-getting-your-second-act-together
*** PLAYWRIGHTS OPPORTUNITIES ***
South Street Players
(southstreetplayers.org) is seeking short (20 minutes or less), original,
HALLOWEEN-themed one-act plays for its Tri-State Theatre Festival: Halloween
Edition. The event will take place October 21-23, 2016 in Spring Lake, NJ.
This event is an offshoot of SSPs
popular Tri-State Theater Festival, and will serve as an artistic fundraiser.
All proceeds go to SSP to help maintain its commitment to producing
high-quality, extremely engaging theatrical experiences for the 2016-17 season…
and beyond.
***
Northern Kentucky University |
School of the Arts is once again calling for submissions for its award-
winning, 18th Biennial Year End Series Festival of New Plays - THE Y.E.S.
FESTIVAL, running April 20-30, 2017
• Full-length plays are eligible.
All rights must be fully owned by the author.
• No children’s theatre,
one-acts, or reader’s theatre pieces will be considered.
• Adaptations will be considered
only if the adapted work is in the public domain.
• A submitted play may not have
had a previous professional or university
***
The Bridge Initiative is
accepting new plays and musicals written by women for this year’s “Playwright
of the Year” award. Stipulations are that the work must be in development with
a cast limit of eight (8) and that the writer has an understanding of the next
stages needed towards the creation of their play. The playwright will be
submitting her piece with the intention of committing time, work, and rewriting
within a conscious and measured pipeline of development that will be generated
with The Bridge Initiative: Women in Theatre and three other theatre companies
committed to the shepherding of the work and writer throughout the process. A
panel of professional theatre artists nationwide will adjudicate the
submissions.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about
these and other opportunities see the NYCPlaywrights web site at
http://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** THEATER GOSSIP ***
New York Theatre Guide Online -
Rumors and Gossip
Will Taylor Louderman star in
Clueless on Broadway?
Clueless Broadway alum and
"Peter Pan Live!" star Taylor Louderman took on the role of Cher in a
recent workshop reading of Clueless, opposite Dave Thomas Brown as Josh. Is a
Broadway staging far behind?
+++
Cooper & Miller in The
Philadelphia Story on Broadway?
Bradley Cooper According to
Showbiz 411, Oscar and Tony nominee Bradley Cooper may reunite with onscreen
co-star Sienna Miller in a Roundabout revival of Philip Barry’s romantic comedy
The Philadelphia Story.
+++
Will Jake Gyllenhaal return to Broadway
in Burn This?
Jake Gyllenhaal According to the
New York Post, Oscar nominee Jake Gyllenhall may star in a Broadway revival of
Lanford Wilson's 1987 drama Burn This, to be directed by Tony winner Michael
Mayer.
More…
http://www.newyorktheatreguide.com/news/rumors.htm
***
London Theatre Gossip &
Rumors
New Take That Musical Heading to
London?
Take That frontman Gary Barlow
doesn't seem content enough with having two musicals running in the West End
next year, as The Girls and Finding Neverland open in London. It has been
announced that a new musical featuring the songs of Take That will open in 2017
and will tour the UK, but could London also be on the cards?
The show will be called 'The
Band' and has been created in association with Gary Barlow, Mark Owen and
Howard Donald. It will be cast via a BBC1 series named 'Let it Shine', which
will scour the country in the hope of finding five performers to head up the
leading cast. The TV talent search marks a return to the format by the BBC who
previously ran similar competitions to find Dorothy and Nancy in new West End
productions of 'The Wizard of Oz' and 'Oliver!'.
More…
https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/theatre-news/rumours
***
Michael Riedel, New York Post
If anything’s ripe for parody,
it’s “Hamilton,” which rode a wave of hype to sweep the Tonys on Sunday. And
who better to take a few potshots at “Hamilton”-mania than Gerard Alessandrini,
creator of the legendary revue “Forbidden Broadway”?
“Spamilton,” Alessandrini’s
affectionate sendup, debuts July 13 at the Triad on West 72nd, known as
Palsson’s Supper Club when “Forbidden Broadway” premiered there in 1982.
“Spamilton” isn’t a new edition of “Forbidden Broadway,” but an 80-minute spoof
of “Hamilton,” though it takes potshots at other shows — “American Psycho,”
“Waitress” and “An American in Paris” — along the way.
More…
http://nypost.com/2016/06/16/a-new-show-will-mock-hamilton/
***
New York Post - Page Six
Scott Rudin tells his actors not
to talk about Orlando at Tonys
June 16, 2016 | 9:42pm
A p.r. pro applauded the move:
“The actors are not media trained. It was a developing story.
+++
Angela Lansbury took ‘Murder, She
Wrote’ role for the money
"We had to have an annuity,”
she said.
+++
De Niro co-directing ‘A Bronx
Tale’ on Broadway
The show will start performances
Nov. 3 at the Longacre Theatre.
http://pagesix.com/tag/theater/
***
Broadway World Message Boards
http://www.broadwayworld.com/board/
***
Jezebel - Broadway
Phillipa Soo will play the lead
in the upcoming Broadway production of Amélie after she’s done with Hamilton.
I’m sorry to have to relay the news that Hamilton continues to completely fall
apart.
+++
Wicked, a word guaranteed to
conjure vivid memories for anybody who’s been in a marching band or drama club
for the last decade or so, is officially going to be a movie.
+++
Look, I know you want to see
Hamilton. And I know tickets are impossible to get unless you’re willing to
spend thousands of your hard-earned dollars. And I know you were sort of
friendly with Audra McDonald in the early 2000s after doing that one episode of
SVU together. And I know you haven’t really spoken to her…
More…
http://jezebel.com/tag/broadway
***
Out Magazine - Michael Musto
The horrifying massacre in the
Orlando gay club Pulse early Sunday truly took a lot of the urgency out of
"Best Lighting in a Musical goes to..." But the Tony Awards kept
going, dedicating the telecast to the families and friends of those affected,
and managing to keep celebrating Broadway, which made sense to me since it’s
all about diversity, culture, and freedoms that we cherish. But as a chill
crept over the proceedings—even as some of the self-congratulators willfully
ignored current events--I thought, “Wow, the deranged shooter must have really
hated gays to mess with my poor Tonys” (not to mention Gay Pride month). It
really redefines American Psycho.
Before I get to the specifics of
the Tonys, let me say how awful it is to hear certain political sectors follow
the biggest shooting in American history with cries of, “We need more guns!”
Ironic much?
May I dare to also bring up the
fact that gays can give their blood while being slain by a homophobic psycho
with weapons, but they’re not allowed to give blood to save lives in the same
situation!
More…
http://www.out.com/michael-musto/2016/6/13/wake-tragedy-tony-awards-celebrated-diversity-hate-will-never-win
NYCPlaywrights, July 9, 2016
Nancy_GMAIL
Greetings
NYCPlaywrights
*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
PRE-SHOW COMEDY
T. Schreiber Studio will present
standup comedy at 7:30, right before performances of HYSTERICAL, a new play by
Jim Geoghan on July 15, 16, 22, and 23.
While they hope you will stay for
the ($18 ticket) performance of the play, the standup comedy is FREE.
T. SCHREIBER STUDIO & THEATRE
151 West 26th Street, New York,
NY 10001
212.741.0209 info@tschreiber.org
More information…
http://tschreiber.org/hysterical/
*** SEEKING ONE-ACT PLAYS ***
Seeking fully produced one act
plays
(cast, directed & ready to
perform)
7 to 20 minutes for
SUMMER ONE ACT PLAY COMPETITION
July 25 - August 12, 2016
at Manhattan Rep, 303 W.42nd St.
$1000 for BEST PLAY!
3 performances, (and 4 more
performances if your play moves to the FINALS.)
Please email:
The complete play,
synopsis of the play,
running time,
Set/lighting requirements,
playʼs
production history
your mailing address,
and a contact email address to:
manhattanrep@yahoo.com
by July 10, 2016.
Put “Summer Competition” in the
subject heading.
NON-EQUITY ONLY.
Once accepted, there’s a $155.00
participation fee.
www.manhattanrep.com
*** PLAYWRIGHTS OPPORTUNITIES ***
We're now accepting full length
play submissions for the 2017 Caleb Reese Festival of New Plays and Musicals.
The Festival will be held between May 1st and May 14th 2017.
The Festival presents four staged
readings of new unproduced plays or musicals, an Evening of New Short Plays and
a Composer/Lyricist Cabaret.
***
Theatre Now New York has
announced that it is now accepting submissions for the Sound Bites 4.0 musical
theatre festival. The festival offers composers, lyricists and librettists the
opportunity to showcase their work in front of musical theatre enthusiasts and
industry professionals. The selected scripts will be presented live onstage in
New York as well as compete for festival awards and for the chance to receive
further development.
***
12 Peers Theater is accepting
unsolicited submissions of new full-length plays to be recorded and released
monthly on a podcast about and featuring new plays. In an effort to maximize
exposure for playwrights and assist them in securing full productions, 12 Peers
Theater will record and release readings of new plays to be aired on our Modern
Myths Podcast throughout 2017.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about
these and other opportunities see the NYCPlaywrights web site at
http://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS ***
CHORUS
Chorus, in drama and music, those
who perform vocally in a group as opposed to those who perform singly. The
chorus in Classical Greek drama was a group of actors who described and
commented upon the main action of a play with song, dance, and recitation.
More…
https://www.britannica.com/art/chorus-theatre
***
DIRECT ADDRESS
Theater Talkback: Stop Talking To
Me
By CHARLES ISHERWOOD
“Talk amongst yourselves!”
That old “Saturday Night Live”
catch phrase has been popping into my mind a lot lately at the theater,
complete with the shrill Long Island accent of Mike Myers’s Linda Richman.
The reason? At far too many new
plays in recent seasons the characters seem to spend more time chatting to the
audience than they do talking to each other. Instead of interacting with their
fellow characters, they keep turning away from the action to give us commentary
on what just happened, or explain what we’ve missed.
They spout lyrical tangents
describing their impressions or zoom into dazzling riffs that reveal the playwright’s
comic gifts. They seem to be doing anything, in short, but talking to each
other, which is to say exchanging dialogue, once the standard format of modern
drama.
Direct address, as it is called
in the trade, has become the kudzu of new playwriting, running wild across the
contemporary landscape and threatening to strangle any and all other
dramaturgical devices. Hence my furtive impulse to stand up and hurl Linda
Richman’s memorable exhortation at the stage.
More…
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/21/theater-talkback-stop-talking-to-me/
***
DRAMATIC IRONY
Dramatic irony is an important
stylistic device that is commonly found in plays, movies, theaters and
sometimes in poetry. Storytellers use this irony as a useful plot device for
creating situations where audience knows more about the situations, the causes
of conflicts and their resolutions before leading characters or actors.
More…
http://literarydevices.net/dramatic-irony/
***
DREAM SEQUENCE
A dream sequence is a technique
used in storytelling, particularly in television and film, to set apart a brief
interlude from the main story. The interlude may consist of a flashback, a
flashforward, a fantasy, a vision, a dream, or some other element…
The dream sequence that Atossa
narrates near the beginning of Aeschylus' Athenian tragedy The Persians (472
BCE) may be the first in the history of European theater.
More…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_sequence
***
FORESHADOWING
Foreshadowing often appears at
the beginning of a story or a chapter and helps the reader develop expectations
about the coming events in a story. There are various ways of creating a
foreshadowing. A writer may use dialogues of characters to hint at what may
occur in future. In addition, any event or action in the story may throw a hint
to the readers about future events or action. Even a title of a work or a
chapter title can act as a clue that suggests what is going to happen.
More…
http://literarydevices.net/foreshadowing/
***
FOURTH WALL
…the Fourth Wall is the fact that
in any work of fiction the characters are unaware of the fact that they're
fictional characters in a work, the audience observing them, and whatever
medium conventions occur in between the two.
Breaking the fourth wall is when
a character acknowledges their fictionality, by either indirectly or directly
addressing the audience. Alternatively, they may interact with their creator
(the author of the book, the director of the movie, the artist of the comic book,
etc.). This is more akin to breaking one of the walls of the set, but the
existence of a director implies the existence of an audience, so it's still
indirectly Breaking The Fourth Wall. This trope is usually used for comedic
purposes.
More…
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BreakingTheFourthWall
***
LAZZO
(Italian: “joke”) plural Lazzi,
improvised comic dialogue or action in the commedia dell’arte. The word may
have derived from lacci (Italian: “connecting link”), comic interludes performed
by the character Arlecchino (Harlequin) between scenes, but is more likely a
derivation of le azioni (“actions”). Lazzi were one of the prime resources of
the commedia actors, consisting of verbal asides on current political and
literary topics, manifestations of terror, pratfalls and other acrobatics, and
similar actions.
More…
https://www.britannica.com/art/lazzo
***
OBFUSCATING INSANITY
It's pretty much a given that
no-one takes crazy people seriously. It's also a given that a lot of people
give crazy people a wide berth lest they flip out on them. A lot of people are
aware of this and choose to take advantage of it, although their reasons for
doing so vary from one character to the next. Sometimes the apparent nutcase is
actually perfectly sane, other times they actually are a little on the
Cloudcuckoolander side (or maybe more than a little) but deliberately play it
up to the Nth degree so that they appear to be far crazier than they actually
are. If they are not the point-of-view character, the question may be left
open...
The title character of Hamlet.
Among his tactics were absurd self-contradictions, irrational and sudden
tirades, and general oddness. How much of his insanity is simulated, is the
subject of some debate. Depending on how you look at it, the same might also
apply to Ophelia.
More…
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ObfuscatingInsanity
***
SELECTIVE PERCEPTION
When either the audience only,
the audience and one or more on-stage characters, or one character only can
sense something (by sight, sound, etc.) on stage. Usually a sign of insanity or
the supernatural.
Examples
In A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM,
Oberon is invisible to the Athenians, but not to the audience or Puck. He lets
the audience know this fact because he states: “I am invisible;”
In HAMLET
The ghost of Hamlet’s father is
seen by Horatio, soldiers, Hamlet and the audience in opening scenes, but in the
scene with Gertrude, only Hamlet and the audience can see and hear the ghost.
In MACBETH, only Macbeth can see
a dagger floating before him, and only Macbeth can see Banquo’s ghost.
The term is borrowed from
psychology.
More…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_perception
***
SOLILOQUY/MONOLOGUE
A soliloquy is a word taken from
Latin and it means ‘talking by oneself.’ It’s a device that dramatists – and
Shakespeare to great effect – used to allow a character to communicate his or
her thoughts directly to the audience. The character may be surrounded by other
characters but the convention is that they can’t hear the soliloquy because it
is essentially a piece in which the character is thinking rather than actually
speaking to anyone…
A monologue is a speech made by a
character to other characters, sometimes to a crowd. It is not a dialogue,
where two or more people are in conversation with each other.
More…
http://www.nosweatshakespeare.com/quotes/definition-monologue-soliloquy/
***
STOCK CHARACTER
A stock character is a
stereotypical person whom audiences readily recognize from frequent recurrences
in a particular literary tradition. Stock characters are archetypal characters
distinguished by their flatness. As a result, they tend to be easy targets for
parody and to be criticized as clichés. The presence of a particular array of
stock characters is a key component of many genres.[1][2]
List of stock characters
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stock_characters
***
TEICHOSCOPY
One of the oldest techniques that
has been used often, is that of teichoscopy or the "viewing from the
wall", in which actors observe events beyond the confines of the stage,
such as a distant battle, and discuss it on stage while the battle is taking
place, as opposed to the event being reported by messengers at a later time
after the event has happened. Shakespeare uses this technique in the final
scenes of Julius Caesar.
More…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_technique
***
UNSEEN CHARACTER
An unseen character is a
fictional character referred to but not directly observed (seen or heard) by
the audience...
Unseen characters occur elsewhere
in drama, including the plays of Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Edward
Albee.[4][5] Author Marie A. Wellington notes that in the 18th-century,
Voltaire included unseen characters in a few of his plays, including Le Duc
d’Alençon and L’Orphelin de la Chine.[6]
More…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unseen_character
