NYCPlaywrights

 NYCPlaywrights

Sat 2/6/2021 5:17 PM
  •  NYCPlaywrights
Greetings NYCPlaywrights

*** FREE THEATER ONLINE ***

Welcome to CBS Radio Mystery Theater
Hosted by E. G. Marshall/Tammy Grimes

Enjoy our episode guide of all 1,399 CBS Radio Mystery Theater old time radio shows for free! You can stream or download old radio shows in MP3 format or copy radio shows to CD. We're big fans of Radio Mystery Theater and by offering shows from the golden age of radio for free, we keep the spirit of the Radio Mystery Theater alive.


*** BYLINES *** 

If you are a playwright who also writes poetry, fiction or creative non-fiction, the sister site of NYCPlaywrights, BYLINES, has no-fee calls for submissions - a new opportunity every day. Check out the site at https://www.bylines.org - you can also sign up for the mailing list here:

Or you can join the mailing list by asking to be added - send to info@bylines.org and ask to be added - BYLINES will assume the email address you use to make the request is the one you wish to be added to the BYLINES mailing list, unless you included a note saying you'd like to use a different email address.

Unlike with calls for submissions for plays, most BYLINES opportunities include payment.  Recent paying opportunities include:

Bracken is a literary magazine born of the love of the woods and its shadows. Bracken is green and lush, coarse and delicate, drinks from the earth, and spreads underground, more root than frond. Bracken is understory, invades, takes over, shades and protects. We seek poetry, short fiction, and art that will root, tender and tough, in us. 

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The editors of West Branch welcome submissions of poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and translation. We normally read unsolicited manuscripts between August 1st and April 1st. We print only original, unpublished work. For accepted work, we purchase First North American serial rights.
PAYMENT is awarded for accepted works in the amount of $50 per submission of poetry, and $.05/word for prose with a maximum payment of $100.

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Hungry is now accepting submissions for Issue 00: “Home Cooking”!
With our first and pilot issue, we honour everyday food knowledge. We are asking for submissions on the theme of home cooking. What does home cooking mean to you? What stories, emotions, questions, relationships does “home cooking” bring up for you? In this year when many of us have been spending much time at home, what are you cooking and eating? What are your comfort foods? Who are the people you learned to cook from? What foods or meals are important to you? From who, or where, did you learn how to prepare them? How do you recreate, create and document home cooking knowledge? 
PAYMENT: All contributors are paid $50 upon publication.

*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

PSA, the Journal of the Pirandello Society of America (https://www.pirandellosociety.org), seeks submissions of short dramatic pieces (5 to 30 minutes of expected performance time) inspired by the theatre and literary works of Luigi Pirandello, for publication in the next or future issues and potential production. Scripts should be previously unpublished and unproduced.

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The FRESH FRUIT FESTIVAL of New LESBIAN, GAY, BISEXUAL, TRANSGENDER, and QUEER ARTS and CULTURE
ALL OUT ARTS is now accepting submissions for the DEVELOPMENTAL PLAY READINGS, an “OUTwrite” Series, a part of the 2020-2021 Fresh Fruit Festival. Authors are encouraged to submit early; we understand these are drafts, and expect revisions

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The Anderson Center’s Jerome Emerging Artist Residency Program offers month-long residency-fellowships at Tower View to a cohort of early-career artists from Minnesota or one of the five boroughs of New York City for concentrated, uninterrupted creative time to advance their personal artistic goals and projects.

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


*** YEAR OF THE OX ~ CHINESE THEATER ***

China has gone through immeasurable changes since 1964, when “The Red Detachment of Women” was unveiled and lauded by Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, as one of eight acceptable “model dramas.” In “Red Detachment,” tutus have no place; ballerinas wear military shorts, carry rifles and charge onward in jumps so heroic that you begin to imagine that Spartacus, the subject of that Soviet war horse, is just around the bend.

The enduring “Red Detachment” has been performed thousands of times — President Richard M. Nixon was treated to it during his 1972 visit to China — and Saturday, as part of the National Ballet of China’s engagement at the David H. Koch Theater, the production soldiered on. The only dance company at the Lincoln Center Festival this year — the lack of dance is deplorable — the National Ballet of China has shown a split personality during its run: austere and restrained in “The Peony Pavilion” (2008) and out for blood in this vintage propaganda machine.

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Since the time of the Tang Dynasty's Emperor Xuanzong from 712 to 755—who created the first national opera troupe called the "Pear Garden"—Chinese opera has been one of the most popular forms of entertainment in the country, but it actually started nearly a millennium before in the Yellow River Valley during the Qin Dynasty. 

Now, more than a millennium after Xuanzong's death, it is enjoyed by political leaders and commoners alike in many fascinating and innovative ways, and Chinese opera performers are still referred to as "Disciples of the Pear Garden," continuing to perform an astonishing 368 different forms of Chinese opera.

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Dance in China has a long recorded history. Some Chinese dances today, such as dancing with long sleeves, have been recorded at least as early as the Zhou dynasty (c. 1045–256 BCE). The art of dance in China reached a peak during the Tang dynasty (618–907 CE) but declined later.

Shuixiu can be translate literally to be water sleeves, which refers to a suit of skills to perform various movements with double white-silk sleeves attached to the cuffs of a costume. It is one of the most skillful stunts in Peking and its function is to exaggerate actors’ mood. Totally there are about hundreds of gesticulations in shuixiu, such as sleeves quivering, throwing, wigwagging, casting, raising, swinging, tossing, whisking, rolling, folding, crossing and so on.

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Shadow Puppetry is said to have originated in China over two thousand years ago during the Han Dynasty.  The most popular origin legend tells of Emperor Han Wudi who was rendered irrevocably heartsick at the sudden passing of his favorite concubine. As the Emperor’s wisest advisor pondered the best way to revive the Emperor’s spirits, he came upon children playing in the courtyard with parasols under the midday sun.  Their simple parasols cast shadows that were so lifelike, he was struck with an illuminating idea.  That night, the advisor invited the Emperor to the courtyard for a special performance; there he conjured the likeness of the late Empress with such mastery that the Emperor was revived and went on to rule for many prosperous years.  And while the origin legend is certainly more fiction than fact, it speaks to the historic power of the shadow.

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Translated literally, xiangsheng means “face voice,” but is more commonly referred to as “crosstalk.” Unlike modern American stand-up, crosstalk uses two comedians and sometimes even an entire group. Not unlike American comedy, xiangsheng usually employs the “double act” trope of a straight man and a stooge perpetually at philosophical odds — similar to Abbott and Costello, Martin and Lewis, Nichols and May, even Jim and Dwight.

Xiangsheng requires the mastery of four talents: speaking (說), imitating (學), teasing (逗), and singing (唱). Crosstalk routines are heavy on the puns, sometimes political, and more often than not quite crass. All the most famous performers have been men (sorry ladies), but they usually wear costumes that to the unsophisticated eye pretty much look like dresses. Think Monty Python meets Kids in the Hall meets the Marx Brothers, and they all get together to perform “Who’s On First” in China. Hilarity ensues?

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Nanxi (南戏; or Nan-hsi) is an early form of Chinese drama, developed from ancient traditions of mime, singing, and dancing during the Song Dynasty in the 12th century AD. The name means literally "Southern drama", and the form originated in the area around Wenzhou in Southern China.

Nanxi started as combinations of Song plays and local folk songs and ballads, using colloquial language and large numbers of scenes. As with Western operetta, spoken passages alternated with verses (qu) set to popular music. Professional companies of actors performed nanxi in theatres that could hold thousands of spectators. Nanxi developed into the later and more complex dramatic form known as chuanqi, and later still into kunqu.

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Among all Chinese traditional operas, types of facial makeup in Peking Opera have developed into the most systematic and mature one. Historical characters in Chinese traditional Peking Opera are provided with different types of facial makeup. They can reflect the identity, status, personality and appearance of the characters and therefore can intensify the artistic appeal on stage. As an impressionistic and exaggerated art, types of facial makeup in Peking Opera is featured by painting brows, eyelids and jowls in various patterns such as bat, swallow wing and butterfly wing. Also, it is characterized by portraying facial expressions with exaggerated nasal fossas and lipped fossas. The age can be reflected by the height and shape of "Crow's-feet", temperament by the opening and closing of "Chordal furrow", and personality by different patterns of "Glabella furrow". Additionally, in the types of facial makeup in Peking Opera there exist some invariable images including white-faced Tsao Tsao and black-faced Bao Zheng. The white-faced image symbolizes wickedness and viciousness, while black-faced image stands for equity and selflessness. Due to unchangeable rules in types of facial makeup, personalities of a character with certain facial makeup can be seen from the facial colors and figures.

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