South Street Players is seeking original, short (10 mins preferred, 15 mins
maximum) plays for its 12th Annual Tri-State Theatre Festival. The event will
take place October 21-23, 2022 in Spring Lake, NJ.
The festival, which receives more than 300 scripts annually, is committed to
presenting the finest and most unique original, short plays written by local
playwrights from New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. The event also serves
as an artistic fundraiser, with all proceeds going to SSP to help maintain its
commitment to producing high-quality, extremely engaging theatrical experiences
for our audiences.
***
One of the greatest sci-fi writers of all time, many of Dick's acclaimed short
stories are in the public domain. Beginning in January 2023, we will air a
radio play version of 9 of his stories, one per month, and we're looking for
playwrights to pen them!
You must choose from one of the approved plays...
***
TNP Readers Theatre “Evening of New Plays” contest is an annual event designed
to give playwrights an opportunity to have their one-act plays presented to an
audience in a staged reading.
Eligibility: Entries must be one act, non-musical, and no longer than 30
minutes.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site
at https://www.nycplaywrights.org
***
*** IS THERE BISEXUAL THEATER? ***
One would think that with the theatre’s groundbreaking strides for gay,
lesbian, and transgender representation in the public eye (e.g.: The Normal
Heart, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Fun Home), that theatre would also be paving
the way for bisexual representation in society. However, there is really only
one well-known and popular play that prominently features bisexual characters:
Diana Son’s Stop Kiss. This play doesn’t even use the word “bisexual” once, and
the main characters, Callie and Sara, can easily fall into the “confused but
actually lesbian” trope in the eyes of many readers and audience members. One
can argue that these characters are actually bisexual, as these women have both
dated men, and are now in love with each other, but it is never clearly stated
how these women choose to identify themselves—which is one of the truly
poignant aspects of the play.
More...
https://howlround.com/where-are-all-bisexuals-understanding-gray-areas-lgbtq-representation
***
Recently in media and art, there has been a discussion of representation. These
discussions are often about how little representation there is outside of a
cis-white male’s point of view. In recent years, there has been a tremendous
increase in the representation of different points of view.
However, there have been various instances where these characters are harmful
even if it wasn’t the creator’s intent. One example of this comes from bisexual
representation. With media, both physical and visual media, many harmful tropes
come with a character being bisexual. Usually, if the character appears
bisexual, the central harmful trope is that the character is evil and wielding
their sexuality as a weapon. In recent years, there has been another dangerous
trend that has emerged: the cheating bisexual.
More...
https://www.onstageblog.com/editorials/2021/8/19/it-is-time-to-bisexual-representation-in-storytelling
***
It is 2018 and I am sitting in the Neptune Theatre, Halifax, Canada. I’m
watching the Canadian premiere of the musical theatre adaptation of The Color
Purple directed by Kimberley Rampersad—the first time the show has been
directed by a black woman. It is also the first-ever positive representation of
my own sexuality that I have been able to witness in the form that I have spent
almost two decades studying, researching, and writing about: musical theatre.
As I watch the character of Shrug Avery (Karen Burthwright) delight in the
fluidity of her own sexual desire, a desire above and beyond gender, it feels
like a space has been made. I’m crying but it’s complicated. Joy? Sadness?
Recognition?
I am writing from the perspective of a bisexual+ cis-gendered white British
woman, so it is important to note the many kinds of privilege that shape the
experiences I am talking about, especially when addressing this musical. The
Color Purple (2005) is especially important in the space it makes for PoC, and
women of color. This has been written about both in reference to the musical
(Edney; Lovelock) and the novel (Bealer), and by Alice Walker herself. For me,
it is the first time I have seen what it is to be bisexual on a stage, while I
recognize this musical does many more important things than that in connection to
race and sexuality. Its powerful story makes ripples.
More...
https://jhuptheatre.org/theatre-topics/online-content/issue/volume-30-issue-2-july-2020/space-has-been-made-bisexual
***
This week, we’re so excited to have writers/producers/performers Erin Pattison
and Samantha Andrew come to talk to us about their recently launched cabaret,
Baby Bi Bi Bi! The show focuses on the experiences of Bisexual identity and
women’s experiences put into performance.
Samantha Andrew is a Melbourne based composer, graduating from the VCA in 2017
with a Bachelor of Music. Samantha is currently in development with her new
musical “Seen ✓” for UMMTA, and has arranged
for artists including Kate Ceberano. From writing dirty comedy to composing
children’s music, Samantha feels excited to bring some female representation to
the normally male dominated field of composition.
More...
https://joy.org.au/triplebipass/2018/07/13/baby-bi-bi-bi-queer-cabaret-and-bisexual-theater/
***
Algorithms is a tragicomedy one-woman play about turning thirty, online dating
and laughing off bisexual tropes. As Sadie Clark’s debut play, we sat down to
chat about mainstream ‘bi-ness’, the importance of telling our own stories and
our shared love for Bridget Jones.
Q – Your depiction of a bi character felt as though you did it for a bi
audience as well as a non-queer audience. What made you why you chose to
incorporate Bi-ness into your show?
Sadie Clark: I knew I wanted to have a bi character because I realised I was
bisexual when I was 26. When I had the realisation I looked back and thought
god there’s been loads of times I really fancied women but didn’t think it was
real or significant because I didn’t realise that bisexuality was a thing. I
felt if I’d seen a character that was just bisexual and it wasn’t a big deal,
that might have helped? I wanted to write a mainstream show, where the
character happened to be bi and address those things that do come up.
More...
https://unicornzine.com/issue-001/bi-talent-at-the-edinburgh-fringe-festival/
***
By a quirk of timing I wound up seeing two days in a row the two stage plays
currently playing in New York (Off Broadway) that deal at any length with male
bisexuality. And as I wrack my brain about all the gay themed plays I’ve
seen in New York over the past 30 odd years (and I have seen very many) it is
possible I have just seen the only two Broadway or Off Broadway plays that deal
with male bisexuality at any length with any depth. And this has made me
feel conflicted and peevish; and so here I am writing yet one more blog piece
on bisexuality, specifically male bisexuality on stage and screen.
“Hot Mess”, currently in previews, is the “labor of love, and completely true
story” Dan Rothenberg co-wrote with his wife Colleen Crabtree. Now
performed by a cast of three, the comedy romance about a bisexual man not
telling the woman he is dating about his history of sleeping with men was
originally performed by Dan and Colleen as a two person show called
“Regretosexual” in LA. (That bit of info about the writers being husband
and wife now probably gives away the ending, doesn’t it? High time I
forewarn that particular spoilers will abound for all plays and movies I
discuss here today.)
More...
https://dannyashkenasi.com/2017/12/04/hot-mess-male-bisexuals-torched-off-broadway/
***
Scholars have long questioned and debated the famed playwright’s sexuality, but
the authors of a forthcoming book claim to have finally cracked the age-old
case. Shakespeare, according to the findings of Professor Sir Stanley Wells and
Dr. Paul Edmondson, was bisexual beyond reasonable doubt.
According to the Telegraph, the scholars arrived at this conclusion after
chronologically ordering Shakespeare’s 182 sonnets — including 28 from his
plays — and determining that 27 are addressed to males, 10 to females and the
other 145 are “open in their directions of desire,” leaving the gender identity
of the beloved in question.
“The language of sexuality in some of the sonnets, which are definitely
addressed to a male subject, leaves us in no doubt that Shakespeare was
bisexual,” said Edmondson. “It’s become fashionable since the mid-1980s to
think of Shakespeare as gay. But he was married and had children. Some of these
sonnets are addressed to a female and others to a male. To reclaim the term
bisexual seems to be quite an original thing to be doing.”
More...
https://www.insidehook.com/daily_brief/books/scholars-say-william-shakespeare-bisexual
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