Art House Productions is a performing and visual arts center established in
2001 and located in Jersey City, NJ. Art House is a home for adventurous
artists, audiences, and ideas. We engage, inspire, entertain, and challenge
audiences with ambitious performing and visual arts programs. We provide arts
education programs that promote life-long learning to a diverse community and
celebrate the essential power of the arts to illuminate our common humanity.
While New Jersey residency is not a requirement for the INKubator program, we
are seeking playwrights with some kind of association to New Jersey.
***
The WOMEN’S WORK LAB for short plays provides a supportive and nurturing
environment to emerging and mid-career women playwrights while maintaining a
rigorous feedback process that leads to production within six months.
Six playwright members are selected each year, along with a similar number of
directors. The LAB meets monthly (Sundays) from February through June, allowing
for time in between sessions for writers to continue to develop and revise
their work in response to specific feedback from the dramaturgical team.
Members are expected to bring work to each session beginning with the
development of an original short play BASED UPON AN ASSIGNED THEME.
***
Flint Repertory Theatre is seeking new plays and musicals for the 2023 New
Works Festival April 28-30, 2023.
The New Works Festival is an annual weeklong event featuring staged readings
and workshops of new plays and musicals. Playwrights and composers from around
the country are in residence in Flint during the process, which includes
post-show audience discussions.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at
https://www.nycplaywrights.org
***
*** THEATER ON THE HIGH SEAS ***
On a recent afternoon, dancers roamed the halls in crop tops and buns. One
stretched into a wide split on the floor. There are 14 dance studios, 15
rehearsal rooms, a recording studio, gymnasiums and auditoriums. Exercise
equipment lines some hallways. Nearby are living accommodations for 470 of the
performers.
Often dismissed in the past as second-tier, cruise entertainment has evolved to
a genre that Royal Caribbean says commands some of the best talent and
technology around.
Several of the main characters in “Mama Mia” are from the Broadway version of
the show. While New York theater has struggled to turn profits with its small,
intimate venues, fickle crowds and finite real estate, the cruise industry’s
onboard audience is growing exponentially.
Royal Caribbean is building five ships in the coming years, each with a
custom-built theater with sophisticated stages and high-tech effects. A few
years ago, they built a small plane with a 22-foot wingspan that now flies over
the audience in every production of “FLIGHT: Dare To Dream.”
“The stages that they have on the ships, the technology is far better than it
ever was on a Broadway stage, even 10 years ago,” said Greg Graham, who was the
resident choreographer for “Billy Elliot” on Broadway before coming to the
cruise line to choreograph “Hairspray.”
More...
https://www.readingeagle.com/2019/05/12/theater-at-sea-cruises-into-high-gear/
***
Here at Wilson Butler Architects, we have 20+ years of experience working with
Royal Caribbean and their brands, facing these challenges head-on. Some call us
Theater Architects, some call us Cruise Ship Designers, but we see ourselves as
creative collaborators who design with a bold spirit and adventurous mind. So,
without further ado, here are five factors that impact WBA’s decision making
and planning when we design theaters at sea.
Space is at a Premium
Everything must be designed in a compressed environment without sacrificing
comfort. And there is always a balance to be struck between personal and public
space. To maximize public space, clever design and lighting treatments are
often used to increase comfort.
With space at a premium, priorities must be made. Let’s talk legroom! Guest
comfort is always paramount and seats on board are designed to be just as
comfortable (if not more so) than those found on land. Legroom is designed to
be quite comfortable, as are the dimensions of the theater seats.
More...
https://www.wilsonbutler.com/news-article/4134-2/
***
How had the artists landed here, on a 2,770-passenger luxury cruise ship, which
on this particular night was docked in Manhattan, en route to Miami? Among the
three of them, they have choreographed for Broadway, television, opera, music
videos, museums and other arenas. But as Taj said when they recently got
together for a video interview, a foray into cruise ship entertainment was “not
something any of us expected to be on the timeline of our careers.”
“We definitely had a moment of: A cruise ship — did they get the right people?”
Pinkleton said, recalling his confusion when he and Taj, who are represented by
ICM Partners, were invited by their agents to pitch a show to Virgin Voyages, a
new adults-only cruise line founded by the British billionaire Richard Branson.
“I think we had a very narrow idea of what making a show for a ship would
mean.”
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/01/arts/dance/virgin-voyages-dance-cruise.html
***
When that first ship began to move, I was singing 'I Dreamed a Dream' fromLes
Miserables and it happened all of a sudden, in the middle of the show. I
realized I had to get through a performance, while finding my sea legs, in
front of a thousand people.
I've worked as a singer and performer on around 15 cruise ships now and they're
always a bit "wow." Some are more traditional and classic in style,
very Titanic-esque, and others are neon coloured and bright, like a mini city.
I originally worked as a guest entertainer where you fly out, spend a week on
board performing and then leave. Then, I spent a couple of years as part of the
production cast, so I would be on board for months at a time. When you're a
guest entertainer you're treated as a guest and you have all those privileges
and when you're on board for a long contract, you live in crew quarters. Crew
cabins vary, but as a performer you're treated very well. I've generally had a
small double cabin with my own bathroom and a porthole. Of course, there are
crew bunk bed cabins and cabins without natural light, so it is different for
everyone.
More...
https://www.newsweek.com/im-cruise-ship-singerthis-what-its-like-behind-scenes-cruise-1671693
***
I never thought to find myself performing Shakespeare on a cruise. Less than a
year before, I had graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), the
London drama school whose alumni roster includes Vivian Leigh, Ben Whishaw, Ralph
Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, and Alan Rickman. (There’s a tiny locked room at the
top of the building we referred to as “Alan Rickman’s Room.”) My dream had
always been to work for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon. I
have always preferred theatre; I never wanted to be a movie star (though don’t
get me wrong: if Spielberg rings, I’m not going to be precious about it).
But it was never my dream to perform for cruise passengers on a ship in the
middle of the Atlantic. When I took the job, I felt as if I’d been exiled from
London theatre before I’d really got going. Even now, casting directors glance
at my CV and say, “Oh, you worked on a…cruise.”
More...
https://the-toast.net/2015/03/11/performing-shakespeare-cruise/
***
There has always been a stigma, I feel personally, with performers that work in
cruise ships and theme parks. We are often told that's a great experience, but
you know what? You probably shouldn't put it on your resume and you should
probably, you know not focus it for when you're auditioning, not make it an
important part of your career because you know, you want to do musicals and,
and that's really looked upon in a negative light. And that has always been
something that is really bothered me because how is that any different than
someone being in a musical? How has that make you any less important or any
less talented or experienced as a performer? And now we even have cruise ships
and theme parks that are doing musicals are not just what we would call a quote
review show or a variety show, but the amount of work that goes in is equally
as important as just being in a musical or a play. And that's something that's
always never really settled, right with me, especially with our, our history
with cruise ships and theme parks.
More...
https://ashleeespinosa.com/blog/breaking-the-fourth-wall-podcast-cruise-ships
***
More than 400 years after Hamlet was performed by a ship’s crew anchored off
west Africa in the first known production of a Shakespeare play outside the
British Isles, the bard is once again taking to the high seas.
In evidence that all the world is indeed a stage, the Royal Shakespeare Company
(RSC) has signed a three-year deal with Cunard for productions aboard the
company’s flagship cruise liner, Queen Mary 2.
Passengers will be able to enjoy a new one-hour compilation piece, Boundless As
the Sea, described by the RSC as “a unique blend of Shakespeare’s iconic love
scenes”, in the ship’s purpose-built theatre.
The onboard cast will also lead a series of workshops exploring their craft,
and “intimate, informal events” in which actors will perform favourite sonnets
and speeches, and answer questions from the audience.
More...
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/jan/13/a-tide-in-the-affairs-of-shakespeare-the-bard-meets-cunard-in-rsc-cruise-deal
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