25TH ANNUAL AURAND HARRIS PLAYWRITING AWARDThis award was created in 1997 to honor the late Aurand Harris (1915-1996) for his lifetime dedication to all aspects of professional theatre for young audiences.The contest is open to all playwrights and is for new full-length plays for young audiences. No musicals nor plays targeted at adult audiences***The Bechdel Project: Room of One's Own ResidencyIn this inaugural year, the focus will be on scripts that illuminate or bring forward untold stories from history that center on women. The residency is open to feminist writers (of any intersection) who are looking for support to create or develop a new work based on women from history or a historical event with a feminist lens.***Fleas on the Dog Open 4 Submissions Issue 11Seeking fiction poetry plays nonfiction quality does it style chutzpa rock on epic awesome activist fun serious goofy grandiose mainstream beat hot experimental new wave kick ass yum yum try us a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on emergent voices mature voices magic voices literary sci/fi dirty realism beckett marquez angry young men the plays the thing free verse blank verse no verse universe no frills game changing dude quintet funny my god hurry hurry*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ****** THEATER OF UKRAINE ***The experience of Ukrainian theater is one of trying to balance classical heritage and a tragic history with innovation, according to Pavlo Bosy, Producer, Little Globe Theater, Kirovohrad, and OSI Research Fellow, New School University, New York. Speaking at a Kennan Institute lecture on 1 May 2001, Bosy explained that theater is important for understanding Ukrainian culture because it is "that kind of art which is the most alive, metaphoric and capable of reacting to life issues." Theater, he declared is a "model of society."In the 19th century, Ukrainian theater developed in three centers--Poltava, Lviv, and what is now Kirovohrad. The main genres, according to Bosy, were comedy, tragedy, operetta, and musical drama. The musical drama, which he portrayed as a Ukrainian invention, helped to make theater accessible to the lower class, but had stagnated by the 1920s and was no longer considered an art form.More...https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/contemporary-ukrainian-theater-baroque-carnival***"How I love you sadlyMy people are nullified by povertyFrustrated and darkness is overwhelmedThat has already forgotten how to respect itselfHaving spent its former strength ...How do I love your sad gravesUkraine! How I love you! "These strong words in 1878 were written by prominent Ukrainian writer, actor, director, theater and public-cultural activist Mykhailo Starytsky. He was born 177 years ago in the village of Klishchyntsi (now Cherkasy region).Mykhailo Starytsky is the author of over 30 plays, including the drama «Bohdan Khmelnytsky», «Marusya Boguslavka», and others. In addition to the original plays, he reworked the works of other authors according to the stage rules. For example, “Christmas Night", "For Two Hares", "Limeryvna", and others. Thanks to Mykhailo Starytsky these works became extremely popular among the audience.More...http://ukraine-consul.blogspot.com/2017/12/mykhailo-starytsky.html***Among the 35 people killed in the bomb attack on Moscow's Domodedovo airport yesterday was the young playwright Anna Yablonskaya. She was travelling to Moscow from her home town, Odessa, to receive a prize for her most recent play, Pagans.Anna was one of the leading playwrights of her generation. Born in 1981 in Odessa, she was recognised as one of the new voices of Russian drama: her plays have been performed in theatres across Russia, and she has been nominated for a number of Russian writing prizes. Anna's work was particularly appreciated in Russia. Like other young Ukrainian writers, she seemed destined to be a prophet without honour, unlikely to see any of her own work performed in Ukraine itself, where the literary managers "cross themselves at the mention of new writing", as she wrote in a theatre journal last autumn. Odessa was a town full of theatre, she added. "Is it worth," she asked, "getting upset because we will never manage to force this real-life theatre up on to the actual stage?"More...https://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2011/jan/25/anna-yablonskaya-playwright-tribute***The Nightmare of Being a Russian-Language Ukrainian Playwright (2014) This is the second piece I wrote based on interviews I did with Ukrainian playwrights Natalya Vorozhbyt and Maksym Kurochkin. I was prompted to do the interviews by a request from American playwright Caridad Svich who was then editing a series of articles for the TCG website on the topic of crossing borders. I realized I had a great opportunity to record for posterity one of the most fascinating and agonizing aspects of that time – the position of the Ukrainian writer who writes in Russian as Russia waged a war against Ukraine.More...https://johnfreedmanarchive.wordpress.com/2018/05/05/the-nightmare-of-being-a-russian-language-ukrainian-playwright-2014/
***The Berezil theater is in the core of stories about modern Ukrainian theater and culture.Lesia Theater is an illustration of how crucial changes can be made possible in theater institutions. PrikVO is a by far the forgotten history, and is hardly perceived as part of the story of culture in Ukraine.In the talk with Dr. Mayhill Fowler, Associate Professor at Stetson University and Fulbright Scholar in Ukraine, and Dr. Sofia Dyak, Director of the Center for Urban History, we shall touch upon what unites these theaters and how to write about the history and culture of the 20th century; how can it help understand and create the present-day culture.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRRy6CITbUo***I grew up in the Ukrainian Youth Association (CYM, pronounced “soom”) in Montreal—as had my parents. Picture the boy scouts but more stoic and Ukrainian Catholic. In some of my more autobiographical playwriting, I’ve spoken to that time. How I attended a camp outside Chertsey, Que., every summer where—along with swimming, sports, arts and crafts—we’d get Ukrainian history lessons and, strikingly, take part in rather militaristic morning routines. In khaki uniforms, we’d line up in formation on a little field, ceremoniously raise a flag as we sang the Ukrainian national anthem. It’s opening line: “Ukraine is not dead yet.” Two lines later: “Our enemies will vanish like the dew in the sun.” As a young boy I would be proudly calling out the CYM slogan “Honour to Ukraine! Ready to defend!” having no idea what that really meant. As a young person, it felt good to yell something out, in unison with others.More...https://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/my-love-for-the-giant-that-is-ukraine/***Comedy on the ruinsBy Marko KropyvnytskyiThe comedy by the founder of the Ukrainian professional theater, actor, director, playwright, author of 40 works, Marko Kropyvnytsky (1840-1910), is full of juicy folk humor, grotesque characters, and perfectly matches the definition of the artist, who called it a one-act “joke-operetta”. The plot of the comedy is quite clear. A young ambitious landlord Rafail Smorodina, a gambler and heartthrob, didn't even notice how he went bankrupt while enjoying “the eternal feast of life”.More...http://ft.org.ua/en/performance/komediya-na-ruyinah