*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
STAGED READING | AUSTRIAN STAGE PRESENTS WASTE LAND
December 2 at 7 PM
RSVP and proof of vaccination required
A 70-minute staged reading of Waste Land, a comedic picture of a world where the consequences of climate change and environmental pollution, outcomes that are being conjured today, have already become reality. A 20-minute panel discussion with the playwright and two climate journalists will follow the performance.
ABOUT THE PLAY
Jesolo and Adrian are the last humans on Thilafushi, an artificial island where all the waste from the Maldives is dumped. There used to be many of them, sorting through whatever the holiday guests on the neighboring islands left behind. Then the waste grew and grew until there was no more space for the workers. Now there are no more tourists, but the sea level is rising. Soon, the water will have devoured the last islands, and only the highest elevations – the waste mountains – will stand out. Humanity has rendered itself immortal by way of millions of tons of plastic. When everything else is submerged, plastic waste will still survive the change.
We jump in time: an interactive exhibition in the near future is dedicated to the memory of the Maldives. A lot of effort goes into showing how mass tourism came to be, how a paradisiacal lagoon became the region’s largest rubbish dump, and how eventually the sea swallowed the entire archipelago. Original artifacts bear witness to those days: a throw-away bottle from the year 2020, crisp bags, a suitcase on wheels, a rubber boat with holes …
It’s a last look at what is left of the 21st century – if the destruction of habitats continues unchecked.
*** WRITE AWAY - FREE WRITERS EVENT ***
More info at:
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
StageQ's mission is to celebrate and advance theatre written by and about LGBTQ+ peoples.
We are looking for One-act plays, 15-60 minutes in length, at all levels of development from playwrights of all levels of experience. Chosen plays will be performed as part of our one-act festival that will run during Pride Month 2022.
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The Many Voices Fellowship is intended to support early career Black playwrights, playwrights of color, and/or Indigenous playwrights who demonstrate extraordinary potential, artistic vision, and a commitment to spending a year in residence in Minnesota developing their work with the Playwrights' Center in community with other fellows. Many Voices Fellows will receive a $20,000 stipend and $3,000 in development support.
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All Out Arts is accepting submissions for the 19th Annual Mainstage portion of the Fresh Fruit Festival, New York City’s grassroots, multidisciplinary, international festival of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer arts and culture. The festival will occur over two weeks in early May at The Wild Project in Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** FU DAY ***
Told you 158 times I can't stand little notes on my pillow. "We're all out of cornflakes. F.U." Took me three hours to figure out F.U. was Felix Ungar!
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Happy Felix Unger Day. Honk!
November 13 is Felix Unger Day.
It’s observed on this date because Felix’s wife threw him out on November 13, according to the opening credits to the TV show.
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On November 13, Felix Unger was asked to leave his place of residence. That request came from his wife…
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NYTimes review 1965
The opening scene in "The Odd Couple," of the boys in their regular Friday night poker game, is one of the funniest card sessions ever held on stage.
If you are worred that there is nothing Neil Simon, the author, or Mike Nichols, his director, can think of to top that scene, relax. The main business of the new comedy, which opened last night at the Plymoth Theater, has scarcely begun, and Mr. Simon, Mr. Nichols and their excellent cast, headed by Art Carney and Walter Matthau, have scores of unexpected ways prepared to keep you smiling, chuckling and guffawing.
Mr. Simon has hit upon an idea that could occur to any playwrights. His odd couple are two men, one divorced and living in dejected and disheveled splendor in an eight-room apartment and the other about to be divorced and taken in as a roommated.
One could predict the course of this odd union from its formation in misery and compassion through its disagreements to its ultimate rupture. Mr Simon's way of writing comedy is not to reach for gimmicks of plot; he probably doesn't mind your knowing the bare outline of his idea.
His skill - and it is not only great but constantly growing - lies in his gift for the deliciously surprising line and attitude. His instinct for incongruity is faultless. It nearly always operates on a basis of character.
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Looking Back at The Odd Couple on Broadway, 55 Years Later (slideshow)
March 10, 2020 marks the 55th anniversary of the Broadway debut of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, which opened at the Plymouth Theatre (now the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre) in 1955. The production, directed by Mike Nichols, starred Walter Matthau and Art Carney as its titular pair.
In the play, two suddenly single pals — a sloppy sportswriter and a fastidious news writer — strain their friendship by turning roommates and unconsciously repeating the same mistakes they made in the marriages they just left.
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When Neil Simon premiered his 1965 play The Odd Couple on Broadway he was probably hoping for success but he probably wasn’t prepared for two films, three separate sitcom versions, and a cartoon. Talk about getting the most out of an idea.
The original concept for the show came from Neil Simon’s brother Danny. Danny had to go through a divorce and moved in with another recently single friend, agent Roy Gerber. Danny made dinner one night and completely ruined a pot roast. By all reports the next day Gerber jokingly said to Danny “Sweetheart, that was a lovely dinner last night. What are we going to have tonight?”. Without skipping a beat, Danny said to Gerber, “What do you mean, cook you dinner? You never take me out to dinner. You never bring me flowers.” The idea stuck with Danny who wrote an initial draft but thought he would hand it to his brother, Neil to complete and polish.
The first stage production of the show was directed by soon to be legendary director Mike Nichols and starred Walter Matthau as Oscar and The Honeymooners star Art Carney as Felix. The show was a huge success and won multiple awards. In 1967, Simon sold the rights to the play to film studio Paramount Pictures.
The first film version of The Odd Couple was made in 1968 and featured Walter Matthau reprising his stage role of Oscar and Jack Lemmon as Felix. The film was a massive success and sent the already famous actors to another level. They would reprise these roles in 1998 for The Odd Couple II, and this would also inspire the Grumpy Old Men films also starring Matthau and Lemmon.
With the movie being a huge success, Paramount was quick to cash in with a television version of the show. In 1970 the television version of The Odd Couple kicked off starring Tony Randall as Felix and Jack Klugman as Oscar. The show ran for five years and spawned a 1993 TV reunion film with the original cast.
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Three days ago, actor Tony Randall died of pneumonia and complications of heart surgery in New York at the age of 84. Though he had a long and impressive stage and screen career, Randall is best remembered in the cultural imagination as Felix Unger, the uptight, obsessively tidy roommate of slovenly sportswriter Oscar Madison (played by Jack Klugman) on The Odd Couple, the ABC series that ran from 1970 through 1975. Tonight, TVLand will be presenting a six-episode Odd Couple marathon (from 9 to midnight, ET).
I spent the day yesterday in the Museum of Television and Radio revisiting this classic show, which, 30 years later, still feels surprisingly fresh and sophisticated. Especially after the first season, when the one-camera setup and laugh track were replaced by a more freewheeling three-camera format and a live audience, Klugman and Randall’s star chemistry and skill at improvisation—many of the two-minute “tags,” short scenes that preceded the final credits, were made up on the spot—took the sitcom far beyond the simple slob-vs.-neatnik dialectic of the Neil Simon play that inspired it. Oscar and Felix were a couple whose “oddness” had less to do with their differing approach to laundering clothes (Felix: send to drycleaner. Oscar: wear in shower) than with the fact they were two divorced, heterosexual men sharing a Manhattan apartment, where they cooked, cleaned (or refused to clean), bickered, and negotiated the dilemmas of everyday existence together.
Some recent interpretations have wondered whether Randall’s uptight, opera-loving Felix functioned as a “stealth gay stereotype” in the still-closeted world of ‘70s prime time. But I would argue that the Oscar/Felix relationship occupied a more ambiguous space, one where Randall, in fact, spent his entire career: Outside the black-and-white absolutism of the “is he or isn’t he?” question, Randall broke new ground by choosing roles that existed precisely in the liminal zone between straight and gay.
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