*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
The Syracuse
University Department of Drama is seeking submissions for the inaugural year of
its New Works, New Voices (NWNV) initiative. The purpose of NWNV is to support
the development of musicals by writers and composers whose perspectives have
been historically underrepresented in the musical theater canon.
NWNV is seeking
completed musicals or musicals-in-progress from teams who are interested in
developing their work with undergraduate BFA students. One musical will be
selected, to receive a four-week developmental reading during the Spring 2022
semester, directed and music directed by SU Drama faculty and performed by SU
Drama students. The writing team will be in residence during the final two (2)
weeks of the rehearsal process (travel and lodging provided by NWNV) and will
participate virtually during the first two (2) weeks.
***
Gallery Players is
seeking plays for its 25th Annual Black Box New Play Festival to be held online
January/February 2022. Each play selected will be given a virtual production
with non-Equity actors. Playwrights must be available via Zoom or some other
virtual venue for rehearsals and use this as an opportunity to continue work on
their play.
We are specifically
seeking plays from the BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color)
playwriting community.
***
Adirondack Theater
Festival produces new scripts of the highest caliber throughout each season. To
help fulfill this mission, we welcome the opportunity to read submissions from
skilled playwrights who feel their work would be a good fit at the Adirondack
Theatre Festival.
*** FOR MORE
INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** BECOMING A
PLAYWRIGHT ***
1. Learn the Basics of
Playwriting
Playwriting is an
ancient artistic expression that began to take shape as early as 4000 B.C., but
theater, as we know it today, started in Ancient Greece with playwrights like
Sophocles. Theatrical performances have certainly changed since the tragedies
that were presented in Greece at festivals of Dionysus, the god of wine and
fertility. However, the role of the playwright remains the same – to develop
stories that are brought to life by actors and actresses on the stage.
The main
responsibility of the playwright is to develop scripts for theatrical
productions. In addition to coming up with the concept for the story and
crafting characters’ dialogue, playwrights also make suggestions for the
theatrical set design and develop stage directions for the actors to follow
throughout the performance. But, developing plays requires more than just
effective writing skills. Playwrights must be able to envision and communicate
important details, like the way characters look and behave so that actors can
accurately bring these characters to life for the audience.
More...
https://www.theartcareerproject.com/become/playwright/
***
MY LIFE AMONG THE
DOLLS; OR HOW I BECAME A RADICAL FEMINIST PLAYWRIGHT
My career in theatre
began at an early age, when I realized that reality was going to kill me.
Raised in an
environment of terror where my father had license to act on his irrational and
sadistic impulses without fear of reprisals, I learned that it was possible to
create another world, one where justice could prevail. Even more miraculously,
I found that I could inhabit this world at will. It was, of course, a trick
done with mirrors—or, more accurately, a trick done with those brilliant,
refractory shards of a shattered identity, but it did enable me to survive the
horrors of my childhood.
Everything in my
universe as a child was sentient and animate, except for other human
beings—especially adults. Like the images of Godzilla or King Kong in the old
movies, grownups lumbered mechanically across the enchanted landscape of my
childhood, obviously inorganic and superimposed—their outsize scale rendering
their atrocities fantastical.
Read more:
***
Becoming a Playwright
in Midlife: Lucy’s Story
When acting gigs dried
up for Lucy, she embarked on a career in research. But, years later, an offhand
remark gave her the opportunity to write and star in her own one-woman show,
paving the way for her to emerge as a writer.
Tell us a little about
your background…
I am a foundling from
Hong Kong, China. I was abandoned at birth, in Kowloon, on a public stairwell;
it was known as being “abandoned in order to be found.” I was found by the
local police and taken to the Fanling Babies Home. I was pre-term, covered from
head to foot in boils, and suffering from extreme malnutrition.
After the standard six
months at the orphanage, waiting to see if anyone would claim me or respond to
newspaper and radio ads, I was then eligible to be put up for adoption. Given
that in Hong Kong it was an offense to abandon a minor, it was highly unlikely
that anyone would claim me. The general state of poverty for the indigenous
population I have no doubt also contributed to my blood relatives not coming
forward.
More...
https://helenetstelian.com/becoming-a-playwright-in-midlife-lucys-story/
***
Shaw Decides to Become
a Playwright
Bernard Shaw often
mythologized his own history. How and why he completed his first play,
Windower's Houses, as he described the episode, became a laid-back affair,
accomplished as any genius would have done it. "I came across the
manuscript of the play,' he wrote in the March 1893 preface to the first
edition, only nine months after he had rediscovered the abandoned two acts,
"and it so ticked me that I there and then sat down and finished it."
Shaw's shorthand diary
is a better source for what happen, beginning on 29 July 1892. "Began to
set papers in order," he wrote, "and came across the comedy which I
began in 1885" - it was actually begun in 1884 - "and set aside
after finishing two acts." When Shaw was at loose ends he often resorted
to rearranging his disorganized heaps of papers.
Read more:
***
What could teenage
playwright Jeyna Lynn Gonzales, Florida-based International Thespian Officer,
do with an inspiring idea and a free week? She could write an innovative play
that places students right at the center of social justice movements. Gonzales,
a Filipino-American student leader, dancer, and actor now adds one more title
to her already impressive list: published playwright.
The high school senior
recently published her play, With Liberty and Justice For All, through
Theatrefolk, an influential publisher that provides plays for schools.
Gonzales’ play follows multiple teens at Black Lives Matter protests during the
summer of 2020. It illuminates how the pursuit of justice requires people of
all ages and identities to be involved.
Q & A WITH TEENAGE
PLAYWRIGHT, JEYNA LYNN GONZALES
To celebrate her
publication, Gonzales talked with us about her writing process, her goals as a
student leader, and the pressing need for diversity in the playwriting
industry. Through her work, she proves to other thespians what’s possible. The
following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Dylan Malloy: Will you
tell us about the characters, and what your writing process was while working
on With Liberty and Justice For All?
More...
https://dramatics.org/how-one-teenage-playwright-got-her-first-play-published/
***
Question: I’m
interested in becoming a playwright; any tips or suggestions? What program
would be best for me? Keep up the good work! Alex
Answer: Before you go
and do something rash and foolish, ask yourself: Do you really want to be a
playwright? Well, obviously you want to be a “playwright,” but do you actually
want to write plays? It’s tedious, solitary work with little reward. You will
struggle for years in self-imposed isolation on the greatest musical drama
about rollerskating cats in the hopes that at least your mother will show up on
opening night, and even then she will strain to make a compliment like, “That
was nice, but did you have to use so many swears?”
Did she not even
notice the heart and soul you poured into this masterpiece? That you insisted
on real pig’s blood for the carnal orgy scenes? That you hid references to
Hamlet, Henry the Fifth, and Tuesdays with Morrie even the actors missed? Every
play you ever mount will be like this, and each one will be worse than the
last.
Considering all of
that struggle and toil, think to yourself, “Do I still want to bother with the
whole tedious business of actually writing the damn thing?” You could easily
just show up at ritzy gala balls with a beret and a cigarette holder claiming
to be the heir apparent to Tennessee Williams and nobody would be the wiser. If
they ask why they’ve never heard of you, it’s because they’re uncultured. Then
jam a quill pen in their eye, shout Vive la Révolution!, and urinate in the
closest porcelein vase. Trust me, it feels good.
Read more:
http://www.themorningnews.org/article/how-to-become-a-playwright
***
When I was growing up
I was really focused on being an actor. I think quite often it’s the first port
of call when you’re thinking about going into theatre. I mean, what seven year
old says they want to be a director or a lighting designer? They don’t, because
they never see it – we all know the names of our favourite actors of the telly,
we probably don't know the name of the DOP or the Sound Engineer who all
contribute towards the end product.
So I went to drama
school and trained and spent a couple of years after I graduated auditioning
with little success. I couldn't get an agent. I couldn't get enough paid work.
I suspect I was probably wasn’t much good! Around this time a friend invited me
to go to the Young Writers course at the Lyric Hammersmith, (which if I
remember rightly was only three of four quid a session).
I started writing my
debut play Yous Twos on that course in 2012, and although it’s not exactly the
same as it was then, it’s not far off. Ella Hickson (Boys, Oil) who taught the
course, was really encouraging, she pushed me to finish the play and then
directed a reading of it. I've always found writers to be an exceptionally
generous breed.
I used the play like a
calling card, it got me my agent and a bit of other work but I'd resigned
myself to it not being produced. In 2015 after the play was shortlisted for
Soho Theatre’s Verity Bargate Award, the now director Chelsea Walker contacted
my agent asking to read it. We worked together on developing the play and on
finding a theatre to produce it - which took another two years. It's now
running at Hampstead Theatre downstairs, but getting it to production took six
years, a bit of persistence and a lot of luck. Timing, I have found, is
everything.
More...
https://www.nyt.org.uk/about-us/news/interview-georgia-christou-working-hard-and-becoming-playwright
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