*** NYCPLAYWRIGHTS 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY ***
It's the 10 Year Anniversary of NYCPlaywrights and we've asked readers to share their stories of productions, readings etc. they may have found through of our blog and weekly email (sign up here for weekly emails.)
Do you have a story to share?
Send it to us at info@nycplaywrights.org - thanks!
More playwrights stories to read:
Kevin Curley
Pam Kingsley
Aaron Leventman
More are coming this week.
*** FREE THEATER ONLINE ***
Polaris North invites you to be our guest for a ZOOM READING —
TWO SHORT PLAYS
by C S JONES
Director: Bonnie Cole*
Stage Manager: Ali Walensky
Co-Hosts: Gayther Myers & Bonnie Cole*
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2020
7 PM (EST)
RSVP: LeslieLynnNow@gmail.com - Reservations will be confirmed by email and a
Zoom Link will be sent to you prior to the reading.
HOLD ONTO YOUR HATS
Horror writer Darko regales friends Mandu and Graham with
the creepy story of how he met his new girlfriend, but leaves it
half-finished. The other half is supplied by his lady in red,
Jezzie, who brings the story to its terrifying or funny climax.
You decide.
THE LOVE ASTRONAUT
In this docudrama parody, Ad Man Humph on the rebound
from model Clarise wades into even greater romantic danger
when he encounters wrestler Arlene. Russian cameraman
Vladi can’t believe his eyes. All four characters double as
narrators to bring to life the ultimate showdown.
With an All-New cast:
Shannon Dempsey, Theo McKenna,
Justin Pope, Crystal Ray
** HUNTER COLLEGE MFA ***
The Hunter College MFA Playwriting Program is accepting applications through January 15th! The program is a highly selective, rigorous, and affordable two-year playwriting program located in the heart of NYC. We seek writers eager to develop their craft and challenge assumptions about what theater is and will become.
Students study with award-winning writers, working theatre professionals, and esteemed guest artists. The program offers workshop opportunities and fosters a collaborative, close-knit artistic community. Teaching Assistantships and tuition waivers are available.
Current and recent faculty include: Clare Barron, Oliver Butler, Lisa D'Amour, Maria Striar, Lloyd Suh, and Anne Washburn. Visiting artists for 2020 include: Mia Chung, Will Davis, Michael R. Jackson, Jen Silverman, and Whitney White.
For more information, visit: https://www.huntertheatre.net/mfa
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
Submissions are now being accepted for the 2021 Neukom Institute Literary Arts Award for Playwriting. Submissions of full-length plays and other full-length works for the theater will be accepted; all submissions must address the question "What does it mean to be a human in a computerized, digitized world?" Playwrights with either traditional or experimental theater pieces, including multimedia productions, are encouraged to submit works to the award program.
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WSRT is looking for ensemble pieces that have a run time of 70-90 minutes, or roughly 50-80 pages. Additionally, all scripts need to be conducive to a virtual setting; for example, pieces reliant on physical action, slapstick comedy, or direct character interaction may not translate well to a virtual platform. We’re not particular about content, setting, character tropes, etc. All options are on the table.
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Barely Seen Featured Writer of the Month
Each month, one play will be featured with a special author bio. These writers will always be someone who's submitted their work to Barely Seen. Each month I'll review all of the plays that have been sent to me and choose one play to be featured. I will notify the author of the chosen work by the end of the month, and if necessary, they'll supply me with a short bio about themselves and their writing journey.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** MYSTERY PLAYS ***
The mystery plays and morality plays of the 15th and 16th centuries were very different from modern drama. They were performed in public spaces by ordinary people, and organised and funded by guilds of craftsmen and merchants. Hetta Howes takes us back in time to show how these plays portrayed scenes from the Bible, conveyed religious doctrine and encouraged their audiences to lead Christian lives.
The words ‘theatre’ and ‘drama’ conjure a specific set of ideas, writers and images for us today. Shakespeare may well be the first name to spring to mind – followed perhaps by Ibsen or Chekhov. Then, most likely, comes the image of a fixed stage, a darkened room and a reverent hush as the lights go down and the curtains go up. What kind of stories do we expect to be performed for us? Tragedy, often, as well as romance, explorations of the meaning of humanity, or, at the other end of the spectrum, slapstick comedy. Theatre may be rich in variety, but it nonetheless comes with its own set of associations and expectations attached.
More...
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The staging of the York Mystery Plays is one of the city’s greatest literary and theatrical traditions and is a hugely popular part of York’s cultural heritage.
York Festival Trust is a charitable company, incorporated in 1979, that has staged the Mystery Plays on the streets of York on behalf of the city’s historic Guilds every four years since 1998 and is the only organisation currently staging large scale productions on a regular basis.
In medieval times, the Guilds would present the plays on moving pageant waggons, parading through the city streets from one location to another. Trade guilds arose in the 14th century as craftsmen united to protect their common interest. In 1415, there were 96 (?) craft guilds; there are now just eight – five that date back to the 14th and 15th centuries, two formed in the 1950s, with the Guild of Media Arts becoming the city’s eighth guild at the end of 2015.
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After last week’s post about medieval dancing, there were some comments about miracle/mystery plays, so I thought we’d have a look at them. They were medieval plays based on events from the Bible. They were usually performed at Corpus Christi or at Whitsun, both movable church feasts i.e. feasts which did not take place on the same date every year.
Corpus Christi is the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, which in turn is the first Sunday after Pentecost. Pentecost (Whitsun in England) is the seventh Sunday after Easter. For example, this year Easter is on 1st April, Pentecost is 20th May and Corpus Christi is 31st May. Easter is early this year. This will be important later.
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I see in the press that Chester Cathedral has recently completed a programme of the Chester Mystery Plays. These plays are only performed every five years and they are always well received.
Coventry Cathedral used to have its own series of Mystery Plays, that were performed every three years up until 2006. I was fortunate to be able to perform in the last two productions in 2003 and 2006.
The Coventry Mystery Plays date back to the early Medieval Mystery Plays which were perhaps best known as the source of the Coventry Carol. Performances of the Coventry plays are first recorded in a document of 1392–3. It is very likely that the young Will Shakespeare saw them as he quotes from the Mystery Plays in some of his own plays with scenes and events from them. Various Coventry Trade Guilds would put on small plays on mobile stages around the city. The plays were mostly taken from scenes from the Bible. Each Guild would perform a scene while the other guilds were changing in preparation for the scene that they would perform. Unfortunately few records of the plays now exist but the Shearmen Guild and Tailors' Guild plays were transcribed and published by Thomas Sharp and most recent performances are loosely based on these plays, from Adam and Eve to Noah's Ark then Annunciation, Nativity, Massacre of the Innocents to Christ's Crucifixion.
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Mystery Plays were created all across Europe from the 13th century as a means of celebrating the stories of the Old and New Testaments for the Feast of Corpus Christi. Other famous Mystery Play “Cycles” in England were written in Coventry, York and Wakefield. The scripts, as in the case of the Chester Cycle, were often written by medieval monks. Originally performed inside the churches, from the 14th century they were produced by Crafts Guilds and performed in the open streets and market places on pageant carts ("waggons"). The mounting of the Plays in the nave of Chester Cathedral in 2013 was the first time in hundreds of years that they had been performed inside a church, and it was the first time they had ever been produced inside the cathedral nave itself. Performed by local people, both scripts and performances changed each year to remain current and have popular appeal.
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The list of plays thus presented commonly included: The Fall of Lucifer; the Creation of the World and the Fall of Adam; Noah and the Flood; Abraham and Isaac and the promise of Christ's coming; a Procession of the Prophets, also foretelling Christ; the main events of the Gospel story, with some additions from Christian tradition; and the Day of Judgment. The longest cycle now known, that at York, contained, when fully developed, fifty plays, or perhaps even more. Generally each play was presented by a single guild (though sometimes two or three guilds or two or three plays might be combined), and sometimes, though not always, there was a special fitness in the assignment, as when the watermen gave the play of Noah's Ark or the bakers that of the Last Supper. In this connected form the plays are called the Mystery or Miracle Cycles. In many places, however, detached plays, or groups of plays smaller than the full cycles, continued to be presented at one season or another.
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Medieval Mystery Play Staging: Scenery and Fire Effects for Mystery Plays
The Medieval Period started around the 6th century and lasted through the 16th century. It is from this period that the various mystery plays appear. During the Medieval Period, there was no political power or ruling system, so the Roman Catholic Church took control of the populous. In response to this, Christian values became prominent in the culture and the Church was present in every aspect of daily life.
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