*** FREE THEATER ONLINE ***
Lincoln Center Theater unlocks more productions for FREE streaming this month
The second show in the series, The Royale will start streaming Thursday, April 22nd at 7pm ET for free. Register for a free streaming ticket through our list of free streaming theater!
Recorded during a performance with the resulting excerpts used for promotional purposes, it was never intended that the productions would be shown in their entirety.
The newly edited footage of the performances will give viewers the opportunity to revisit or discover these LCT shows in full.
When is a play about a boxer not really about boxing? When it's the 2016 Obie and Drama Desk Award-winning THE ROYALE! The play is about the life of the outsider in America as much as it is about charismatic African-American boxer Jay “The Sport” Jackson.
The stylized and stunning conception of Marco Ramirez was realized by director Rachel Chavkin. The production stars McKinley Belcher III, Khris Davis, Montego Glover, John Lavelle, and Clarke Peters.
*** WRITE AWAY! ***
Monday, April 19 at 4:15 pm PST
Our intrepid playwrights have 45 minutes to write a brand-new play, entirely based on audience suggestions. While they're hard at work, you're taking part in our fantastic Writer's Jam and having a blast meeting new people and exploring your creativity with a series of fun spontaneous writing exercises. Then, the playwrights come back, take roles in each other’s plays, and perform them on the spot. What could they have written in just 45 minutes? Find out at the next performance of Write Away! It's a show. It's a jam. It's the best of both worlds!
This is a free event but attendance is limited to just 80 people and advanced registration is required. Please use the buttons below to register Write Away!
*** HOW WRITERS AND ACTIVISTS CAN SAFEGUARD PROTEST RIGHTS ***
Thursday, April 8, 2021 – Thursday, April 29, 2021 | 1:00 pm – 1:30 pm ET
In collaboration with the Literary Action Coalition, PEN America will host a series of Instagram Lives featuring writers, activists, lawyers, and academics in conversation about the increased threats to protest rights. PEN America’s recent report on anti-protest legislation, Arresting Dissent: Legislative Restrictions on the Right to Protest, found a boom in anti-protest legislation that predominantly affects Black and Indigenous activists and communities.
To combat the criminalization of these communities and their right to protest, the series will delve deep into the importance of protest as a First Amendment right and explore how protest has been critical to the lives and liberation movements of Black and Indigenous communities, past and present. The series will also expand upon the role of the written and spoken word as protest, and how writers can contribute to efforts of defending Black and Indigenous people’s right to protest.
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
Unity Stage Company is calling for explosive original short plays to be presented in bars and cafes as part of a traveling neighborhood festival in Western Queens, NY. Each play should be the theatrical equivalent of a jolt of double-espresso or a knocked-back shot of whiskey. No cozy plays please!
***
The Chameleon Theatre Circle (located in the Twin Cities area in Minnesota) is seeking original works that have never been produced. All styles and genres are welcomed (i.e. one-acts, musicals, full length dramas, etc.). The winning plays are scheduled to be showcased in a concert-format festival in the fall of 2021. All shows submitted will automatically be placed on the slate of shows in consideration for future seasons.
***
The Q Collective’s new podcast series Q-Bits is seeking script submissions for its first season beginning July 1 on Patreon. Q-Bits is a new series of short radio plays exploring, celebrating, and speaking to experiences of gender and sexual minorities.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** ACCEPTANCE ***
Tony Kushner was in his 20s when he wrote “A Bright Room Called Day,” on the graveyard shift at his job as a hotel switchboard operator.
Ronald Reagan had just been re-elected, and Kushner, political to the core, channeled his alarm into the play. When his theater company, Heat & Light, staged it in 1985, Oskar Eustis — now the artistic director of the Public Theater — was there. That’s how they met.
“There’s a scene where the characters sing ‘The Internationale,’” Kushner said the other day, “and someone in the audience started singing along with them. And that was Oskar.”
Eustis, who gave Kushner his professional debut two years later when he staged “Bright Room” at the Eureka Theater in San Francisco, is now directing a revival at the Public.
And Kushner, whose published script includes an appendix of alternate text that he wrote for the 1991 run at the Public, is taking yet another crack at the play, which is in previews for a Nov. 19 opening. This time, the modern character who’s always troubled him is joined by a character from 2019.
Kushner and some other well-known playwrights mixed insight with affection for their younger selves when they spoke recently about their first professionally produced works, and whether they rewrite old scripts. These are edited and condensed excerpts.
More...
***
Congratulations, it’s a play! To me, there’s nothing more exciting than bringing a brand-new play into the world. I spent much of my grad school career directing new works, and one of the most important lessons I learned was how best to work with a playwright. The director-playwright relationship can make or break a new play development process. At its best, it’s a harmonious partnership that ends with the best possible iteration of a new script. At its worst it’s…well, something else.
More...
***
If you are a playwright or "producing playwright" (yes, there is such a thing these days) and you’ve ever participated in a theatre festival, think back. Did your theatre festival experience fulfill all your expectations? Before you answer that question, ask yourself this: what expectations did you have before entering the festival? How about after the festival run?
Like most festival participants, the process is mostly a flurry of initial excitement, followed by big announcements on social media, then sudden deadlines, unanticipated expenses, three (sometimes a few more) performances, and then the aftershock! It can certainly be a great learning experience, but shouldn't it be the opportunity of a lifetime, or at least a step in that direction? Well, when I speak to festival participants who came and went, that is always the one regret they express.
***
The Dramatists Guild staff lawyers in Business Affairs can review unsigned contracts and advise on a wide range of matters including options, commissions, royalties, copyright, collaboration, trademark, rights of privacy, rights of publicity, defamation, so-called “life-story rights,” and agents. It can also provide guidance, and follow up on complaints regarding theatres, producers, publishers, agents, attorneys, festivals, and contests.
Business Affairs also provides constructive comments to government and business leaders on balancing institutional tradition in the face of necessary innovation. Toward this end, the lawyers at the Guild track U.S. and worldwide theater business trends, advise members on immediate business concerns, and draft statements reflecting the Council’s position on issues of national import.
More...
***
The most frequent question I get asked is “What does a Dramaturg do?”
It can be a difficult question to answer as there is still some debate about how the role fits in to the British system of producing theatre. Some people see it as a purely new writing mentorship role, akin to a Literary Manager. Others like to think of it along the lines of an Assistant Director or a researcher.
But it’s actually all of these things. And much, much more besides.
Wikipedia contains a pretty faithful and accurate description of the craft which you can read here. However the role of the Dramaturg within the creative process changes greatly depending on whether the play is being devised, newly written or adapted from a classic text.
The Production Dramaturg
This is the most familiar role for a Theatre Dramaturg. If a production team choose to mount a pre-existing play script, whether a translation of a foreign text or a “classic” English language piece, they can employ a Production Dramaturg to become responsible for the “Dramaturgy” of the text.
More...
***
The Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis was staging Matthew Lopez’s “The Legend of Georgia McBride” this summer when a national brouhaha erupted that could have affected the production.
The chairman of Papa John’s Pizza was forced to resign after using a racial slur. Yet the hero of the 2015 play, a lighthearted comedy, is a broke Elvis impersonator who turns to drag to support his family when a splurge order of Papa John’s leads to the rent check bouncing.
The theater went to Mr. Lopez with a request: Would he agree to substitute another corporate pizza chain so as not to be distracting? Mr. Lopez readily agreed. Problem solved. (He declined to discuss the decision.)
But for many playwrights, the productions that follow a play’s premiere — when it is handed over to theaters around the country and the world — can be fraught. And more than the purveyor of pepperoni is at stake.
More...
***
In fact, there is no recognized property right that gives a director ownership of any aspect of a theatrical production. Traditionally, directors have not attempted to copyright their work, and no court has ever recognized the validity of a director’s copyright claim.
Ron Shechtman, attorney for the SSD&C, has referred to the law in this area as “murky.” In order to support this characterization, he and his union rely heavily on two cases, and perhaps one other, recently decided.
The first, Mantello v. Hall, is generally cited as having supported the notion that directors can copyright their stage directions. In fact, it did nothing of the kind.
The case arose out of a production of Terrence McNally’s play Love! Valor! Compassion! mounted at the Caldwell Theater in Boca Raton, Florida in 1996. In 1994, Joe Mantello—a brilliant director with whom I have had the immense pleasure of working—staged the original production of Love! Valor! Compassion! in New York, where it won the Tony Award for Best Play.
Two years later, Mantello’s attention was directed to the Caldwell production, which was reportedly a virtual replica of his New York production, and he sued, alleging among other things, infringement of a copyright which he had acquired when he filed a copy of McNally’s script with his stage directions written in the margins with the U.S. Copyright Office.
Mantello v. Hall was settled before it went to trial. Mantello’s copyright filing had been processed by the Copyright Office without any opinion offered as to whether the stage directions which he had filed were in fact copyrightable or not. The court reached no decision on the matter.
In response to defendant theater’s motion for summary judgment, the court did find that Mantello had in fact received a copyright certificate from the Copyright Office. But both the filing of the claim and the issuance of the certificate were purely mechanical. Nevertheless, “Possession of this certificate,” said Judge Ryskamp, “creates the presumption that the work in question is copyrightable.” Defendant’s assertion that stage directions are not copyrightable as a matter of law might or might not have been resolved at trial, but to quote Judge Ryskamp again, “with the record in its present undeveloped state, the Court cannot grant summary judgment on this basis.
More...
--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/dfd32e43-22e7-4a2f-8f0e-9316f8d145ban%40googlegroups.com.