TEDxAsburyPark’s 1act.1idea is accepting submissions of short plays (8- 18
minutes run time) with a big idea worth sharing. We seek original work that
focuses our hearts and minds on any of these themes: Collaboration,
Determination, Democracy, Diversity, and/or "All Together Now".
***
The «Neem» award was created to support and identify underground dramatic
waters.
Nominations: Awarded one prize in the nomination «A play that no one will ever
agree to stage»
The author of the play-winner will receive a cash prize: 20£.
***
SPIDER®, a literary magazine for children, features fresh and engaging
literature, poems, articles, and activities for newly independent readers.
Editors seek energetic, beautifully crafted submissions with strong “kid
appeal” (an elusive yet recognizable quality, often tied to high-interest
elements such as humor, adventure, and suspense).
We seek fiction of all kinds: fantasy, folk or fairytale, sci-fi, historical,
humorous, or realistic. Whether the setting is long-ago or contemporary, or the
protagonist is a shy newcomer, clever trickster, class clown, fantasy creature,
or superhero, characters and the worlds they inhabit should be complex and
believable. Plays should have 2–6 characters so that a child could feasibly
perform the play at home with family or friends.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site
at https://www.nycplaywrights.org
***
*** REWORKING ***
The most controversial issue in the theater today (1988) continues to be the
reinterpretation or ''deconstruction'' of celebrated classical plays. There is
no theatrical activity that more inflames purist sensibilities in criticism and
the academy - nothing that stimulates as many caustic generalizations about the
debasements of modern culture. Perhaps because ''deconstruction'' as an
assonant noun if not as a method, is so perilously close to ''destruction'' and
''desecration,'' the standard purist posture is like that of Switzers before
the gates of the Vatican, defending sacred texts against the barbarians. The
paradox is that both sides are really devoted to the same esthetic purpose,
which is the deeper penetration of significant dramatic literature. The
difference is in the attitude. Is classical reinterpretation a reinforcing or a
defiling act - a benign or a malignant development in the history of modern
theater?
My own position is a qualified vote of support for conceptual directing. I have
long believed that if dramatic classics are not seen with fresh eyes they grow
fossilized - candidates for taxidermy. Even the most harebrained textual
reworking may open up new corridors into a play, while the more ''faithful''
version is often a listless recycling of stilted conventions. That is why I
continue to echo Artaud's call for ''No More Masterpieces'' - great plays can
be ''desecrated'' by excessive piety as much as by excessive irreverence.
Although I champion a radical auteurism in directing, however, not all examples
of this process have the same integrity of purpose. One can support the idea of
classical reinterpretation without defending all its forms or ignoring the fact
that what passes for originality is sometimes merely another kind of ego-tripping.
Let me refine my position by distinguishing between two common methods of
reworking the classics - one that depends largely on external physical changes
and another that changes our whole notion of the play. It is a distinction that
can be illustrated through analogies with figures of speech - the prosaic
simile and the poetic metaphor. Directors who are fond of similes assume that
because a play's action is like something from a later period, its environment
can be changed accordingly. Directors with a feeling for metaphor are more
interested in generating provocative theatrical images - visually expressed
through physical production, histrionically through character and relationships
- that are suggestive of the play rather than specific, reverberant rather than
concrete.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/06/theater/stage-view-reworking-the-classics-homage-or-ego-trip.html
***
It’s happy-making that the generally acknowledged living sovereign of musical
theater has been open to smart tinkering with his work. Fiasco — which emerged
from the Brown/Trinity MFA Acting program and is known for scrappy, energetic,
steamer-trunks-and-scavenged-props takes on classics — have turned to lean
double-casting to streamline the 1981 musical, which originally flopped
mightily but, over the years, has received lots of reworking from its creators
(Sondheim on music and lyrics and George Furth on book) and has become a cult
classic among highbrow musical-theater lovers. The company has also done a bit
of fleshing out of the script’s arc, most notably adding a scene from the
musical’s source, the 1934 play of the same name by George S. Kaufman and Moss
Hart.
More...
https://www.vulture.com/2019/02/theater-fiascos-lo-fi-reworking-of-merrily-we-roll-along.html
***
GNIT is a reworking of Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, a verse epic based on
Norwegian folklore and the playwright’s own tortured family life. For audience
members who know the source text, Eno’s take will be a hoot; for those who
don’t, it might well seem like a strange, jaunty trip through random dramatic
tropes. Eno hews closely to Ibsen’s plot, following the self-absorbed
protagonist, Peter (Joe Curnutte), as he leaves the miserable home he shares
with his despairing mother (Deborah Hedwall), becomes a fugitive, recklessly
woos several women and flees his homeland for exotic adventures abroad. There
are a number of 21st-century updates—flirty dairy maids are now a trio of DTF
grad students—but the play also keeps one foot in a simpler, semi-magical
Scandinavian past, complete with trolls.
More...
https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/gnit-review-will-eno-peer-gynt-off-broadway
***
It cracks itself wide open to the audience; it hits them in the face. The Wife
of Willesden – Zadie Smith’s terrific adaptation of Chaucer, gloriously staged
by Indhu Rubasingham and triumphantly embodied by Clare Perkins – is shot
through with the spirit of its heroine, who leaps across the centuries to
proclaim what she thinks it is that women really really want.
The spectators are squeezed by the action before a word has been spoken. Robert
Jones has redesigned the auditorium so that it is partly a cabaret space with
some of the audience seated at tables in a pub, based on the Sir Colin Campbell
opposite the theatre in Kilburn High Road. Jones is aiming to create “that
infamous sticky carpet feeling”. Light bounces off shelves of bottles; the
publican wears a leopardskin top and big gold hoops; the punters – from church
and temple and mosque and schul and utter godlessness – jostle to tell their
stories.
More...
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2021/nov/21/the-wife-of-willesden-zadie-smith-kiln-review-rare-earth-mettle-royal-court
***
Ivo van Hove and West Side Story are not an obvious match. The Belgian director
specialises in stripping densely cerebral classic works of theatre and cinema
down to their dramatic essence. “I Feel Pretty” are three words that would
appear to have little place in his austere world.
So it’s little surprise that the chirpy number has been axed from his revival
of Jerome Robbins’s boisterous musical pageant (with a book by Arthur Laurents,
music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim) about racially
charged gang violence in 1950s New York.
That excision sets the tone for Van Hove’s boldly reworked staging, which is
darker, grungier and more violent than the 1961 film adaptation. The
sombre-toned streetwear and tattoos sported by most of the 39-strong cast
indicate that the setting has been shifted to the present day. The action still
nominally takes place on Manhattan’s now thoroughly gentrified Upper West Side.
But Luke Halls’s haunting slow-motion video sequences of deserted streetscapes,
which fill a screen covering the entire width of the mostly bare stage, seem to
depict the grittier parts of the Bronx, Brooklyn or Queens.
More...
https://www.ft.com/content/8c96682c-53cc-11ea-a1ef-da1721a0541e
***
“Life Sucks,” Aaron Posner’s comic adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya,”
is a whimsical retelling of the classic play that quite delightfully disrupts
the original’s quiet desperation and dark humor. Moving at a quick if
dramatically melancholic pace and incorporating ideas pulled from pop
psychology, the comedy deconstructs and reassembles the original with myriad
clever turns and an ending that is genuinely and surprisingly uplifting. That’s
not to say you won’t shed a tear or two, if you’re even a little sentimental
the closing scene will likely give you “all the feels.”
The story’s essential characters are present. Vanya, and almost everyone in the
show, still pines and moans with love for his brother-in-law’s wife; and he’s
still angry with the professor and disappointed in himself. Sonia still yearns
for any scrap of affection from the doctor; and she’s still patiently
persistent and remarkably tenderhearted.
More...
https://kdhx.org/articles/theatre-reviews/1142-‘life-sucks’-gives-chekhov-a-seriously-funny-and-strangely-sunny-outlook
***
The American Repertory Theater's (A.R.T) electrifying production of
"1776" is no ordinary history lesson. From the moment the cast steps
onstage in what appears to be regular street clothes and then transforms with
the pulling up of socks, the donning of brocade jackets and buckled shoes, and
the use of elegant choreography by Jeffrey L. Page, it's evident that the
opening scene foreshadows an energetic ride down a familiar path.
Typically, I'm slow to warm up to historical founding-of-America fare. Not
because it's unimportant, but because it's often exclusionary. Here,
"1776" (through July 24 at the Loeb Drama Center) with direction from
Diane Paulus and Page differs as much as it can, in all the best ways.
There's a diverse, multi-generational cast, who identify as female, nonbinary
and trans, so the people onstage represent America more fully; a colorful
"We the People" mural by Artists for Humanity; and a multimedia
exhibit where cast members talk about this document and their stories as part
of American history. In addition to the complementary happenings, there's an
infectious buzz to the performance that might come from the two-year
pandemic-induced wait to bring the story to the stage.
More...
https://www.wbur.org/news/2022/06/03/1776-american-repertory-theater-review
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