*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

  

Cape Cod Theater Project 2022

As we rely on the generosity of our donors for housing, we usually limit our cast sizes to no more than six actors, though there have been exceptions. To answer a frequently asked question, we do develop musicals and have done so in the past. If your play is selected, your play will have a 20-25 hour developmental rehearsal process followed by 2 or 3 public readings with talkbacks.

 

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Recover-Me's third annual event to raise a deeper understanding of mental illness through visual and performing arts is now accepting submissions for this year's hybred in person and virtual event!

Looking for scenes, monologues, songs, movement pieces, and poetry about but not limited to the following:

DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder)

Schizophrenia

Depression

Anxiety Disorders

Bipolar 1 and 2

PTSD

Trauma

Eating Disorders

 

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The Strides Collective offers a special opportunity for emerging playwrights to have a chance to have their scripts edited, workshopped, and performed. These programs can take the form of full residencies, which culminate in some sort of final produced element, or workshops, which are strictly developmental processes with no final audience-facing production.

 

To us, Emerging Playwrights are those who have not had their work fully produced before or may not have the resources or means to have their work developed otherwise. Wherever you’re young in your playwrighting career or seeking a change of direction in your life, we’d be happy to consider your work!

 

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

 

 

*** REVIEWS REVIEW ***

 

I know I am never, never, never going to convince anyone that reviewers, as a breed, aren't a malicious lot whose primary occupation and principal delight is the shredding to pieces of bad plays. But I am, for the 65th time, going to give it a try - in spite of the fact that bad plays do indeed abound.

 

I was sitting there, just the other night, attending as dutifully as possible to yet another new play that grew worse by the moment, by the entrance, by the line, almost by the coffee costing no more than a dollar during intermission (please do not carry the cartons back to your seats, always supposing you plan to return to your seats). Some members of the slightly stunned audience - not reviewers, probably just nice ordinary people - were to be seen slipping away between acts into the early autumn night, and they were not to be scorned as slackers. There was nothing really to be hoped for up there on the stage.

 

More...

https://www.nytimes.com/1982/09/26/theater/stage-view-it-the-play-is-bad-the-review-is-hard-work.html

 

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The debate as to whether press nights are a good thing or not is back in the headlines. This old chestnut is to the theatre community what a discussion on capital punishment is to Radio 5 live or the exploits of Katie Price to the red tops – a reliable old standby, always in the bottom drawer. The latest brouhaha was ignited by suspicions that some of the critics reviewing Timberlake Wertenbaker's new play at the Arcola had supped a little too well at an awards junket earlier in the day, and may not have been in a fit state to review.

 

Even beyond the details of this case – some critics have hit back, accusing Wertenbaker of sour grapes – the wider debate is still worth having. Someone once estimated that the amount of stress suffered by actors on a press night is roughly akin to that of being in a minor car shunt; and indeed, with so much riding on the performance, it becomes an unrepresentative experience for both cast and critics.

 

Once you've divvied up the seats between critics, producers, backers, relatives, friends, agents and rival actors who've come along to see if they've missed out on something, there's hardly any room for the average punter. Audiences are either friends or foes, desperate for the play to either succeed or fail. Nourished only by forced enthusiasm from one section of the stalls and detachment from the other, a production that went well the night before – and will, no doubt, do so again tomorrow – becomes mangled. Laughs mysteriously disappear, fluency is replaced by force, and the result is often far removed from what it says on the tin.

 

More...

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2009/nov/30/press-nights-theatre

 

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As dutiful Theatre Nerds, not even the most cynical among us should root for a Broadway show to fail. I mean, what’s the point? First of all, there’s already enough negativity in this world… And, second of all, the closing of a show puts good people out of work — not to mention all the money that it washes down the drain. Yes, sure — buying a ticket entitles you to an opinion (how loud you decide to scream that opinion is totally up to you). But, frankly, when a show doesn’t work it’s just plain sad.

 

Ye olde critic for the New York Times Brooks Atkinson shared a similarly sentimental sentiment. As he put it in his review for the doomed 1958 musical “Portofino,” — “There is something pathetic about a musical show that is hopeless. For the hopeless ones require as much work as those that succeed. There are just as many carnival-colored costumes; there is just as much cheerful scenery. The light cues are just as intricate, and the orchestrations as ebullient. Just as many attractive young people dance their feet off and smile as pleasantly. Everybody has rehearsed just as loyally, as if he were bound to succeed. What makes a hopeless musical show pathetic is the fact that the medium is glamorous and gay.” From there, he went on to tear the show to shreds.

 

More...

https://theatrenerds.com/12-times-critics-were-absolutely-savage-not-necessarily-wrong/

 

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This week my show bug, a theater performance about women of an Indigenous family navigating addiction and intergenerational trauma, opened in Tkarón:to (Toronto).

 

As part of our efforts to decolonize art and foster culturally informed criticism, my theater company, mandoons collective, run by Cole Alvis and I, requested that only Indigenous, Black, people of color (IBPOC) review the show.

 

To be clear, white people are welcome to attend the show. It’s important to have witnesses present to understand the ongoing effects of colonialism. And we are totally fine with a person of color giving us a bad review. It’s not the review we’re worried about, it’s the voice behind it.

 

Indigenous performance has been grossly under-reviewed and while the tide is shifting, the lens with which predominantly white critics view the work has been problematic. The lack of IBPOC voices in the media—at a time when arts’ coverage is shrinking—means white critics are often the gatekeepers of success.

 

More...

https://www.vice.com/en/article/dygxgw/why-im-asking-white-critics-not-to-review-my-show

 

***

 

Here, then, are some of our crutches, translated.

 

Charismatic: “This person’s stage presence seems to extend beyond his physical boundaries, rippling the air around him, the way a supermassive celestial body warps space and time. I say ‘him’ because this quality is almost exclusively applied to men.”

 

Clear-voiced (of singing; also, bell-like): “If you think describing good acting is hard, try finding the words to distinguish one ingenue’s lovely voice from another’s.”

 

Committed: “This actor kept being in character even in non-speaking moments.”

 

Complicated (of a female character): “This character was neither merely a virgin nor a whore nor a mother.”

 

Controversial: “I would like to acknowledge that others have expressed strong opinions about this play, but I’d prefer to just observe the fray from a distance, if it’s all the same to you.”

 

Dated: “This show is painfully racist, sexist, homophobic, heteronormative and/or nationalist, and quite likely very boring in the moments when it’s not making you wince. You’re watching it for one of two reasons: One, long ago, it was the best of the pack, perhaps because we didn’t let most of humanity be playwrights back then. Two, some current-day director or producer is banking on name recognition or hoping for credit for discovering a ‘hidden gem.’ ”

 

Edgy: “This production was created by people who are younger than I am.”

 

More

https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/theater/theater-criticism-jargon-translated

 

***

 

“Slave Play” creator Jeremy O. Harris has become the golden boy of theater. Out labeled the 6-foot 5-inch Yale Drama School graduate “the queer Black savior the theater world needs.” In the New York Times, Tarell Alvin Mcraney, “Moonlight” co-writer and chair of Yale’s playwriting program, called Harris “a supernova star that consumes everything around them and metabolizes a new energy.”

 

With his penchant for gender-bending high fashion, the only thing eclipsing Harris’ persona is his provocatively titled “Slave Play.” Predictably, the name and the racially charged BDSM themes of the play have elicited strong reactions.

 

On the one hand there is theatergoer Ashley B who started a change.org petition titled “Shut Down Slave Play.” “I wanted to verbalize that this was one of the most disrespectful displays of anti-Black sentiment disguised as art that I have ever seen,” she wrote in the description. “As a Black woman I was terribly offended and traumatized by the graphic imagery mixed with laughter from a predominantly White audience.”

 

On the other hand there is “What It’s Like to See ‘Slave Play’ as a Black Person” by New York Times opinion writer Aisha Harris. She first saw the production at a special performance for Black people and then watched it again with a standard, predominantly White crowd. Her verdict: She understands Black people’s “hesitation and dubiousness” but concludes that “those of us who choose to endure it, we might just find a new way of living in that uncomfortable space, and reimagine the possibilities of what theater can give us.” (This is not to mention a nod from Roxanne Gay and attendance by luminaries such as Whoopi Goldberg, Steven Sondheim, Kehinde Wiley, Janelle Monáe and Rihanna, whose song “Work” is featured.) 

 

More...

https://www.colorlines.com/articles/despite-hype-i-hated-slave-play-op-ed

 

***

 

“Are you going to let somebody else grade your work?” Victory Gardens Theater Artistic Director Chay Yew responded to my latest snarky comment about the number of stars my most recent show had received in the Chicago Tribune.

 

I paused. “No, of course not!” Until that moment, I hadn’t ever thought of it as a “grade.”

 

But I certainly don’t ignore the star rating. Words have sometimes hurt when I’ve read them about my work, but when I’ve reread a review later it usually has meant something different and has perhaps even been helpful to me with the cool eye of distance. But unlike words, the number of stars is so conclusive and final; reducing the worth of the work to a numeric appraisal, “this production is worth this many stars.” Like most artists, I teeter tentatively between caring what others think and not, and I sometimes can’t help but feel like I wear those stars, like a scarlet letter, around with me during the days after the review goes to print.

 

As a director, I put my most intimate thoughts and feelings into my theatrical work. I spend hours of mental space researching, analyzing, dreaming, collaborating, rehearsing, teching, and fine-tuning every play I direct, sometimes for more than a year in the making. And then there it is, after opening, the long anticipated review. The printed response. The permanent proof of this ephemeral piece of art that I have spearheaded.

 

More...

https://howlround.com/are-criticism-rating-systems-serving-anybody

  



 

Interesting

Lifelike reconstruction of a Neanderthal man - Neanderthal museum, Mettmann, Germany.

 

Gasconade


 noun | gas-kuh-NAYD

Gasconade is confident talk or behavior that is intended to impress other people.

The citizens of Gascony in southwestern France have proverbially been regarded as prone to bragging. Their reputation has been immortalized in such swashbuckling literary works as Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers and Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac. Linguistically, the legend survives in the word gascon, meaning "a swaggering person" or "braggart," as well as in gasconade itself.

CDC


 


 

Nietzsche

 “And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” 

                                          -Friedrich Nietzsche




desultory

  

desultory

 adjective | DEH-sul-tor-ee

Desultory means "marked by lack of definite plan or purpose."

 

The Latin adjective desultorius was used by the ancients to refer to a circus performer (called a desultor) whose trick was to leap from horse to horse without stopping. It makes sense, then, that someone or something desultory "jumps" from one thing to another. (Desultor and desultorius, by the way, come from the Latin verb salire, meaning "to leap.") 

A desultory conversation leaps from one topic to another and doesn't have a distinct point or direction. A desultory student skips from one subject to another without applying serious effort to any particular one. A desultory comment is a digressive one that jumps away from the topic at hand. And a desultory performance is one resulting from an implied lack of steady, focused effort.



The world might say you are not allowed to yet

  The world might say you are not allowed to yet. I waited a long time out in the world before I gave myself permission to fail. Please don't even bother asking. Don't bother telling the world you are ready. What did Beckett say?  Try again fail, again failing better. Peter Dinklage



French poet Francis Vielé Griffin, 1898,

Vielé-Griffin was educated in France and divided his time between Paris and Touraine. He was a writer of vers libre and founded the highly influential journal Entretiens politiques et littéraires (1890–92). His name will remain attached to the history of symbolism and vers-librism. 

Symbolism was a late nineteenth-century art movement of French, Russian and Belgian origin in poetry and other arts seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through language and metaphorical images, mainly as a reaction against naturalism and realism.

In literature, the style originates with the 1857 publication of Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal. The works of Edgar Allan Poe, which Baudelaire admired greatly and translated into French, were a significant influence and the source of many stock tropes and images. The aesthetic was developed by Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine during the 1860s and 1870s. In the 1880s, the aesthetic was articulated by a series of manifestos and attracted a generation of writers. The term "symbolist" was first applied by the critic Jean Moréas, who invented the term to distinguish the Symbolists from the related Decadents of literature and of art.

Distinct from, but related to, the style of literature, symbolism in art is related to the gothic component of Romanticism and Impressionism.

 

His first collection, Cueille d'avril, appeared in 1885. He practiced a relaxed prosody, which did not take into account the obligatory alternation of masculine and feminine rhymes, the prohibition to rhyme a plural with a singular, replaces the rhyme with an assonance.

 

The Desmond Taylor killing

  

It was called the most sensational murder of the century.




William Desmond Taylor was an Anglo-Irish-American film director and actor at a time when Hollywood was growing at a phenomenal rate.

Taylor directed fifty-nine silent films between 1914 and 1922 and acted in twenty-seven between 1913 and 1915. But it is Taylor's murder on  February 1, 1922, that brought him to infamy.

Born William Cunningham Deane-Tanner , Taylor was born into the Anglo-Irish gentry on  April 26, 1872, at Evington House, Carlow, County Carlow, Ireland, one of five children of a retired British Army officer, Major Thomas Kearns Deane-Tanner of the Carlow Rifles, 8th Battalion, King's Royal Rifle Corps, and his wife, Jane O'Brien. One of his uncles was Charles Kearns Deane Tanner, the Irish Parliamentary Party Member of Parliament for Mid Cork.

In 1891, Taylor left Ireland for a dude ranch in Kansas and eventually moved to New York City and fell into acting.

The Taylor were well known in New York society and were members of several exclusive clubs. He was also known as a heavy drinker, possibly suffered from depression, and was noted for his many affairs.

Taylor began directing films in 1914, after his move to California but before coming to Hollywood, Taylor had abandoned his wife and daughter and headed to Klondike to pan for gold during the gold  rush. No one knew where he was for months, and some assumed her was dead.

On the morning of February 2, 1922, Taylor’s cook found his boss, laying on the floor, dead, shot in the back. The cook ran out the front lawn screaming “Mr. Taylor is dead! Mr. Taylor is dead”

A crowd gathered inside, and someone identifying himself as a doctor stepped forward, made a cursory examination of the body, and declared Taylor had died of a stomach hemorrhage. The doctor was never seen again. But the 49-year-old film director had been shot at least once in the back with what appeared to have been a small-caliber pistol, which was not found at the scene.

When Police Lieutenant Tom Ziegler arrived to the scene, he found actors, actresses and studio executives rummaging through the director’s belongings.

In Taylor's pockets, investigators found a wallet holding US$78 in cash (modern day $1,210), a silver cigarette case, a Waltham pocket watch, a pen knife, and a locket bearing a photograph of actress Mabel Normand. An expensive  two-carat diamond ring was on his finger. With the evidence of the money and valuables on Taylor's body, robbery seemingly was not the motive for the killing; however, a large but undetermined sum of cash that Taylor had shown to his accountant the day before was missing and apparently never accounted for

Neighbors recalled hearing what they thought was a car backfiring around nine the night before. One couple, alarmed at the sound, had looked out their window to see a man leaving Taylor’s home.

A suspects list drawn up by the police included a deranged stage mother, drug dealers, a love-lorn teenage cinema star, and members of a gay opium cult, were just a few of the convoluted leads.

Eventually details of Taylor’s private life surfaced. Pornography (rare in those days) and a large collection of women’s lingerie was found in the bungalow.

Police learned that the  last person to see Taylor alive was Hollywood “it girl” Mabel Normand with whom, it was rumored  Taylor was madly in love with her although a large portion of the Hollywood colony argued that Taylor was gay. Eventually it was learned that Normand was addicted to cocaine and Taylor had tried repeatedly to help her get treatment. The story was that Taylor threaten to reveal the dope dealer to the police, which led to his murder.

The police also suspected that person seen leaving Taylor’s house that fateful night wasn’t a man at all but Charlotte Shelby, the mother of starlet Mary Miles Minter, a Taylor protégé. Minter had been in love with him, but Taylor had rebuffed her, saying he was too old for the teenager. A piece of lingerie found in his house had her initials on it.

Minter had once tried to shoot herself with the same type of gun used in Taylor’s murder. Furthermore, Shelby had previously threatened the life of another director who had made a pass at her daughter. Later in the investigation, Shelby’s alibi witness received suspiciously large sums of money. Many years later, in Minter’s unpublished autobiography, she admitted that she and her mother were at Taylor’s bungalow on the night of the killing..

Shelby, an incorrigible stage mother, was outraged by the possible relationship. In the coming years, both of Shelby’s daughters, including Mary, would accuse her of the murder. “My mother killed everything I ever loved’’ Mary Minter would later say.

Edward Sands, Taylor’s former valet, who had previously robbed him, was long considered a leading suspect, but the police were unable to find him.

In 1964, as Margaret Gibson, a silent film star who had worked with Taylor, lay dying, she asked for a priest. She then proceeded to tell the priest and the group of neighbors who had gathered around her, “I killed William Desmond Taylor”

No consensus of the true murderer ever came about and Taylor’s murder was never solved.

 

 

 

 

 

never

 "Never wish them pain. That’s not who you are. If they caused you pain they must have pain inside. Wish them healing." Najwa Zebian