Welcome

Welcome
John William Tuohy lives in Washington DC

NYCPlaywrights

  

NYCPlaywrights

Sat 10/3/2020 5:02 PM

*** FREE THEATER ONLINE ***

 

Keep Your Distance: six short musicals about separation - THE STREAMING EVENT

October 10, 10:30 PM - October 11, 12:30 AM EDT

The suggested donation is $10.00.

 

Join us for the STREAMING PRESENTATION of all six of our 15 Minute Musicals from the 2020 season, followed by a Q&A sessions with the writers, directors, and performers.

 

NMI’s annual 15 Minute Musicals have sold out for the past ten years…they’re the hottest ticket in town. “But, NMI, theatres aren’t open right now!” you say? That didn't stop the 15 Minute Musicals. This year, we’ve shot three of them in a greenscreen studio and three of them through Zoom - and now we’re bringing them to you on the small screen.

 

A View from the Moon. Set in a tropical paradise, in which a Covid-stranded couple has run out of money, and an entitled rich woman thinks she can buy their gratitude and the affection of the hotel proprietor. This is a bittersweet, aching romance. Book by Richard Holland, music by Ben Ginsberg, lyrics by Stacey Weingarten.

 

The Traitor. Set in a dystopian post-Covid future in which touching has become outlawed and even insurrectionistic. We’re in a prison cell, in which an interrogator is trying to get two of the prisoners to turn on the third…any two…so long as someone’s found guilty. It has a dramatic, almost operatic score. Book and lyrics by Stephen K. Nolly, music by Ron Barnett.

 

I Need Space. Poor Andrey…he’s scheduled to leave on a flight for Mars in two hours, but fear of germs and sudden lack of toilet paper confines him to a bathroom, to the eternal horror of his roommates who have been trying to get rid of him for months. Can the unscrupulous Toilet Paper Blackmarketeer save the day? Book and music by Sergei Stern, lyrics by Jordan Toopes.

 

Close (But Not Too Close). Too nervous to meet that special someone in person just yet? Why not try “CloseButNotTooClose.com” where you can check out the person of your dreams online. But watch out for scammers who may be looking for something other than love! Book by Paloma Sierra, music by Dusty Sanders, lyrics by Julia Koyfman.

 

Breakout. Siblings Jean and Jake are finding it extremely difficult to move on with their lives when divorced Mom and Dad are still openly feuding. One family Zoom session probably can’t make up for all the lost time, but can it at least help find a path forward? Book by Lalit Sritara, music by Evan Johnson, lyrics by Kellan Meador.

 

https://lu.ma/a3mqk3z8

 

 

*** PRIMARY STAGES ***

 

OCTOBER ONLINE CLASSES: First Draft and Comedy Writing Classes Online at Primary Stages ESPA! 

 

Start a First Draft with Winter Miller or Adam Kraar - or learn how to craft a laugh with Kate Moira Ryan in Comedy Writing! Faculty includes ADAM KRAAR (Writer, Wild Terrain at EST), WINTER MILLER (Writer, In Darfur at The Public), KATE MOIRA RYAN (Writer, 25 Questions for a Jewish Mother), and many other award-winning writers who provide practical skills and expert guidance in a collaborative atmosphere. 

Flexible, artist-friendly payment plans available. 

http://primarystages.org/espa/writing

 

*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

 

Pumphouse Players is now accepting short plays for Fall 2020 online events! Though our physical theatre is dark, we have an ongoing commitment to providing artistic opportunities and creative outlets to our community members and supporting various creative endeavors.

 

***

 

“Prologue Theatre understands that it can be difficult, at times, to begin conversations about “certain topics” and focuses on presenting theatre that can serve as that starting point. Through theatrical performance, coupled with community discussion, we strive to challenge our community to examine and discuss their views of the world and those around them. Our focus is on those who are in the process of finding their own voice - whether 15 or 115 years old – and are looking for a place where they can hone those viewpoints by examining world issues within (and with) their community.”

 

***

 

Garage Theatre Ensemble seeks work - We will pair you up with an extraordinary emerging director and actors who will help you bring the words on your pages to life. Over the course of this week-long intensive program, you will have multiple opportunities to work with your team, make edits, add pages, etc. before your final reading at the end of the week.

 

 

*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***

 

 

*** DEUS EX MACHINA *** 

 

Here's how to pronounce deus ex machina: day-us eks mah-kee-nuh

 

A mechane (/ˈmɛkəniː/; Greek: μηχανή, mēkhanḗ) or machine was a crane used in Greek theatre, especially in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. Made of wooden beams and pulley systems, the device was used to lift an actor into the air, usually representing flight. This stage machine was particularly used to bring gods onto the stage from above,[1] hence the Latin term deus ex machina ("god out of the machine"). Euripides' use of the mechane in Medea (431 BC) is a notable use of the machine for a non-divine character. It was also often used by Aeschylus. It was used to allow actors playing gods to fly through the air.

 

More…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechane

 

***

 

It’s when some new character, force, or event suddenly shows up to solve a seemingly hopeless situation. The effect is usually unexpected, and it’s often disappointing for audiences. It’s as if the author has brought us to the climactic moment of tension and suspense, and then simply said, “But then everything was suddenly OK.” It undermines the tension of the story, and seems to suggest that sheer blind luck is the ultimate determining force in the hero’s life. How unsatisfying!

 

More...

https://literaryterms.net/deus-ex-machina/

 

***

 

What Mozart and Da Ponte offer instead is a deus ex machina of Christian morality but of conspicuously Greco-Roman inspiration (there’s even a reference to “Proserpina and Pluto” to make the point). Don Giovanni, taking refuge in a secluded garden, stumbles upon the tomb of the Commendatore, which speaks to him and seeks his repentance. In a terrifyingly sublime roar of hubris, Don Giovanni invites the spirit of the Commendatore to join him for dinner. The ultimate result, of course, is that the Commendatore opens the earth and sends Don Giovanni to the flames of Hell, restoring order, through divine intervention, that couldn’t be restored through human authority.

 

More...

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/revelations-don-giovanni-met

 

***

 

FOUR COUPLES MARRIED BY A GREEK GOD IN FRANCE

 

(but in Arden, which we all know is in England)

Okay, picture it: We get the couple of Rosalind and Orlando (love at first sight at the top of the play: genius).  Then we add another couple with Touchstone and Audrey (Rosalind and usurping Duke Frederick’s witty sidekick and his country lass).  We get one more when the tables turn on Phebe and she’s forced to marry Silvius.  And finally to add the cherry on top of our newly-newly-newly-weds’ cake Oliver and Celia (who’ve just met) tie the knot too.  These things happen.

 

Tell me more about the Greek God, you say?  While there are many traditions of Hymen’s origins, I like to think that Shakespeare had the story of the child of Dionysus (god of Theatre, and other wonderful things like wine) and Aphrodite (goddess of Love) in mind. What a beautiful blend that would be on any stage. Present at all weddings, and running this one. Really, how else can we make sense of four weddings at the same time?

 

More...

https://americanshakespearecenter.com/2018/08/as-you-like-its-ending-explained/

 

***

 

In Medea, Euripides makes use of deus ex machina to facilitate Medea's killing of Glauce and King Creon, a way of undermining the audience's sensibility. In reality, however, murder cannot be executed so simply as sticking out one's foot to trip one's enemy. Pre-meditated murders do not come cheap and easy. Euripides must know this, thus, to have the most convenient way out, he uses witchcraft to carry out Medea's act of murder.

 

Euripides seems to have quite a number of problems thinking of ways to untangle

conflicts. At the end of the play, Medea escapes through the sudden introduction of a chariot drawn by dragons. Like manna from heaven, comes the chariot to suit the requirements of the plot. And the poet expects the audience to believe that, and hopes to get away with it, the way Medea just got away with the crime.

 

More...

http://pinkhamper.blogspot.com/2012/02/medea-too-evil-for-deus-ex-machina.html

 

***

 

“It is so forceful, it really takes your breath away,” says director Brian Clowdus. He’s not lying.

 

The Serenbe Playhouse production of Miss Saigon is set in the secluded hills of Georgia, in a 1,000-acre residential and commercial community called Serenbe, located in Chattahoochee Hill Country. Audiences must find their way to the setting of Saigon’s Dreamland, deep in the woods where a shipping container lies in front of a dirt hill and a small pool of water. Off in the distance is a landing spot for the Huey helicopter once used in the Vietnam War and now flown by actual war veterans for the show.

 

As day turns to night before audiences’ eyes, Saigon takes shape. A young, angelic Kim emerges from behind the shipping container to enter the movie in her mind—a cinematic take on the production conceived by Clowdus—and marines ride in on trucks as dusk approaches. By the time the show reaches Act II, the chopper rides in from a hidden location, circles overhead and descends—slightly kicking up water and grass with a powerful gust of wind—to land in the distance.

 

More…

http://www.playbill.com/article/how-a-real-vietnam-helicopter-lands-nightly-at-the-epic-outdoor-miss-saigon

 

***

 

Whirligig Productions and playwright Liz Fisher seem to have turned a corner in theatre with their production of Deus ex Machina, now enjoying its spectacular premiere run at the Rollins Studio Theatre at the Long Center. The production is a new play by Fisher, her compound of the three plays in Aeschylus’ Oresteia, about the House of Atreus after the Trojan War. Her work also incorporates some of Sophocles’ and Euripides’ follow-on works (fan fiction?) on the same trilogy, both entitled Electra.

 

What sets Fisher’s work apart from all other productions or offshoot plays about these classical Greek tragedies is the production’s strong embrace of digital technology. Using several packages of software, the cell network, and the internet, the technology producers, headed by Benjamin Bradley, have managed to integrate the media fields of the play in real time during each performance. This means that audience members can send texts from their cell phones to the producers to convey choices offered them during the performance. The characters on stage then act out the decisions of the “gods” accordingly. And this opens new territories for theatre and the collaboration between performers and audiences. This collaboration is the vital heart of Deus ex Machina ('God out of the machine' in translation). As Fisher writes in her director’s notes: “From its inception, the story was crafted around the idea of empowering the audience to choose….So it seems natural to return to agency as an answer to weighty questions. This play cannot exist without you. Without your voice, the play stops.”

 

More...

https://ctxlivetheatre.com/reviews/review-deus-ex-machina-by-liz-fisher/

 

 

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NYCPlaywrights" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to 
nycplaywrights_group+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit 
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/nycplaywrights_group/d900adc3-4224-4153-b607-1538795daec3n%40googlegroups.com.