*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
The Ten-Minute Musicals Project 2022
Stories 1.0 is the full-length musical comprised of works selected in the first
several rounds. Several works in Stories 1.0 were workshopped in San Francisco,
New York City, Miami, and Nashville over the years. Individual segments have
been independently workshopped in Dallas, Chicago, London, and Boston.
SEEKING: Complete original stage musicals which play between seven and twenty
minutes. Works which have been previously produced are acceptable, as are
excerpts from full-length shows, if they can stand up on their own.
***
Fresh Words-An International Literary Magazine is accepting submissions for
Special One Act Play Anthology 'Hello Godot!'. The One Act Play must have GODOT
(Reference 'Waiting for Godot') as a character OR motif OR there should be
recurring reference of GODOT in the work.
***
The Decameron Project - LA, in partnership with International Arts Media, LLC,
is seeking new one minute plays and screenplays for in-person and virtual
presentations.
A 100 x1 min play festival is being planned for fall 2022 in Los Angeles, while
some plays will be presented virtually.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site
at https://www.nycplaywrights.org
***
*** MOLIERE'S 400th BIRTHDAY ***
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, better known as Molière, was born on January 15, 1622.
Born into money, he spent years working as an actor in Paris, before picking up
a pen to create some of the best-known plays in French history. Borrowing
elements from the Italian Comedia dell’arte, Molière’s plays lovingly poke fun
at the French aristocracy, and were so beloved by French society that they
earned him patronage from nobility and royalty, even King Louis XIV and his
brother, Philippe I, Duke of Orléans. He is often thought to have invented the
“comedy of manners,” a dramatic genre which satirizes the artificial cult of
courtesies constructed by the well-heeled. The playwright remains so
influential, long after his death in 1673, that French is often referred to as
“the language of Molière.”
Some of Molière’s more famous works include Tartuffe, about a vagrant who fakes
divine wisdom in order to be taken into the home of a wealthy family; and The
Misanthrope, about an aristocrat who struggles to reject the hypocrisies of his
mien while still falling prey to their attractions. These and many more will be
brought back to the stage this year as France celebrates the playwright’s 400th
birthday.
At the center of this project is the Comédie-Française, one of the only state
theaters in France, and the oldest active theater company in the world, dating
all the way back to 1680. Since 1799, the troupe has been housed in the Salle
Richelieu, which was originally built in 1790 to be an opera house, and is
located in Paris’s central 1st arrondissement.
More...
https://frenchly.us/france-goes-wild-for-molieres-400th-anniversary-with-months-of-plays/
***
If there’s a playwright every French-speaking student has studied, it’s
Molière! It’s impossible to not have read the plays Les Fourberies de Scapin
(“The Impostures of Scarpin”) or Le Médecin malgré lui (“The Doctor in Spite of
Himself”): They’re on the syllabus at every school! And for good reason: The
name Molière is deeply connected to the French language, to the point of being
considered its greatest ambassador. But who was he? On the occasion of
Molière’s 400th birthday, let’s revisit his life, his works and the heritage he
left to posterity.
More...
https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/is-french-still-the-language-of-moliere
***
The Molière quarrel is immediately keyed by the celebration of his
four-hundredth birthday, or more exactly the four-hundredth anniversary of his
baptism—as with Shakespeare, that’s the first date we have for him—this past
January 15th. Last year, the actor Francis Huster passionately made the case
for the reinterment of Molière within the Panthéon, Molière’s remains having
had a long and slightly hair-raising cultural history of their own. Denied
burial by the Church with any pomp upon his death—which occurred on an evening
when, on stage, during a production of “The Imaginary Invalid,” he had
portrayed a man faking his death, a joke only he could have written—as
punishment for being an actor, his remains were discreetly interred in a church
graveyard in Paris. Then, during the Revolution, hard as it is to believe,
Molière’s coffin was dug up and, it is said, shown off in Paris, as a kind of
morbid celebration of his modest origins and as a rebuke to the Church for its
previous persecution of him.
More...
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/moliere-to-the-pantheon
***
But Molière is not just any playwright, and his failure to be inducted into the
Panthéon is not just any fait divers. During the 17th century, the
Parisian-born and bred Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, who took the stage name Molière,
reeled off an improbably long run of impossibly knee-slapping (and often
heartbreaking) plays, ranging from Tartuffe, or the Imposter and The
Misanthrope to The Miser and The Bourgeois Gentleman. His works have been
so widely translated and performed that just as English is known as the
“language of Shakespeare,” French is called “the language of Molière.” (So much
so that, a few years ago, several regional governments in France imposed French
as the principal language of communication at all public work sites. The law,
contested by the European Union and struck down by the central government, was
dubbed “la clause Molière.”)
More...
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/01/moliere-pantheon-honor-macron-denial.html
***
Unfortunately, one of the disadvantages of having your statue literally placed
on a pedestal in the center of your country’s capital city is that your
theatrical output will inevitably be regarded with solemn reverence and with
the utmost seriousness, leading to productions that try to squeeze every drop
of tragic import from each scene. I have seen many a turgid production of
Molière’s theater in France, where the audience has maintained a mournful
silence, seemingly not even daring to laugh, just in case their laughter might
be mistaken for frivolity. Luckily, in recent years, theater directors have
begun to recognize both that Molière’s plays are hilarious and that laughter
and profundity are not mutually exclusive.
More...
https://www.parisupdate.com/moliere/
***
TARTUFFE
https://youtu.be/VKm7_CFNIn8?t=3
Tartuffe,
comedy in five acts by Molière, produced in 1664 and published in French in
1669 as Le Tartuffe; ou, l’imposteur (“Tartuffe; or, The Imposter”). It was
also published in English as The Imposter.
Tartuffe is a sanctimonious scoundrel who, professing extreme piety, is
taken into the household of Orgon, a wealthy man. Under the guise of
ministering to the family’s spiritual and moral needs, he almost destroys
Orgon’s family. Elmire, Orgon’s wife, sees through Tartuffe’s wicked hypocrisy
and exposes him.
--
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Why Musso & Frank Grill Was Beloved By Literary Greats
BY JEN PENG
A legend in its own right, Musso
& Frank Grill has been a pivotal part of the history of Hollywood. Since it
first opened its doors in September 1919, the oldest restaurant in Hollywood
has been a favorite of Hollywood's biggest stars: Charlie Chaplin has a booth
named after him here — the only one in the restaurant with a window, where
Chaplin used to sit to keep an eye on the horse that he would race to
restaurant against Douglas Fairbanks with — and Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra,
and Steve McQueen all had their preferred booths, tables, and seats, writes the
Hollywood Reporter.
Musso's was beloved by more than just the stars that graced the big screens. In fact, as current owner Mark Echeverria notes to NPR, Musso's actually started out as a "writer's hangout." It was a second home to some of the biggest literary names of the 20th century, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, T.S. Elliot, Alduous Huxley, John Steinbeck, Dorothy Parker, Kurt Vonnegut, and Charles Bukowski, notes the restaurant's history page.
Timing and location, location,
location
In the 1930s, in the new era of
talkies, Hollywood studios actively recruited writers as they needed story and
dialogue for movies and "every noteworthy literary figure came out West to
write for films." At the time, the Screen Writers Guild was located across
the street from Musso's, and writers started spending a lot of time at the
restaurant. As Philippe Garnier, writer of "Scoundrels & Spitballers:
Writers and Hollywood in the 1930s" notes to Criterion, Musso's Back Room
was one of the few places that "a highly paid scriptwriter could not lord
it over a barely published but talented novelist." Stanley Rose Bookshop,
another popular literary hangout, was also right next door to Musso's.
And so it was at Musso's that F.
Scott Fitzgerald would proofread his novels and Raymond Chandler would write
parts of "The Big Sleep" over drinks in the Back Room. When the Back
Room closed in 1955, the tradition carried on in the New Room with a new
generation of writers, including Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, and Charles
Bukowski. Today, bestselling author Michael Connelly goes to Musso & Frank
"all the time for a great martini," noting to the Hollywood
Reporter that, "those martinis are the cure for writer's block."
Aspiring writers can still sit at the exact same bar that the literary greats
did — when the Back Room closed, the bar was moved to the New Room — and enjoy
a timeless martini with a sidecar on ice
Snooks Eaglin
Fird Eaglin Jr. (January 21, 1936–
February 18, 2009), known as Snooks Eaglin, was an a guitarist and singer based
in New Orleans. His vocal style was reminiscent of Ray Charles; in the 1950s,
when he was in his late teens, he sometimes billed himself as "Little Ray
Charles".
He played a wide range of styles of music
within the same concert, album, or even song: blues, rock and roll, jazz,
country, and Latin. In his early years, he also played acoustic blues. Eaglin
lost his sight not long after his first birthday and spent several years in the
hospital with other ailments. Around the age of five he received a guitar from
his father and taught himself to play by listening to and playing along with
the radio. He was given the nickname "Snooks" after a radio character
named Baby Snooks.
His ability to play a wide range of songs
and make them his own earned him the nickname "The Human Jukebox."
Eaglin claimed in interviews that his musical repertoire included some 2,500
songs.
At live shows, he usually did not prepare
set lists and was unpredictable, even to his bandmates. He played songs that
came to him on stage, and he also took requests from the audience.
The original version of "That's All Right" by Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup
Crudup was credited as the composer of Presley's "That's
Alright, Mama", but despite legal battles into the 1970s, reportedly never
received royalties. An out-of-court settlement was supposed to pay Crudup an
estimated $60,000 in back royalties, but never materialized. There was some
confusion about the date of death because of his use of several names,
including those of his siblings. He died of complications of heart disease and
diabetes in March of 1974
David Murray
David
Keith Murray (born February 19, 1955) is a jazz saxophonist and composer who
performs mostly on tenor and bass clarinet. He has recorded prolifically for
many record labels since the mid-1970s. He lives in New York City.
Murray
was born in Oakland, California, United States. He attended Pomona College for
two years as a member of the class of 1977, ultimately receiving an honorary
degree in 2012.
He
was initially influenced by free jazz musicians such as Albert Ayler, Sonny
Rollins, Ornette Coleman and Archie Shepp. He gradually evolved a more diverse
style in his playing and compositions. Murray set himself apart from most tenor
players of his generation by not taking John Coltrane as his model, choosing
instead to incorporate elements of mainstream players Coleman Hawkins, Ben
Webster and Paul Gonsalves into his mature style.
Despite
this, he recorded a tribute to Coltrane, Octet Plays Trane, in 1999. He played
a set with the Grateful Dead at a show on September 22, 1993, at Madison Square
Garden in New York City. His 1996 tribute to the Grateful Dead, Dark Star, was
also critically well received.
Murray
was a founding member of the World Saxophone Quartet with Oliver Lake, Julius
Hemphill and Hamiet Bluiett. He has recorded or performed with musicians such
as Henry Threadgill, James Blood Ulmer, Olu Dara, Tani Tabbal, Butch Morris,
Donal Fox, McCoy Tyner, Elvin Jones, Sunny Murray (no relation), Ed Blackwell,
Johnny Dyani, Fred Hopkins, Don Pullen, Randy Weston and Steve McCall. David
Murray's use of the circular breathing technique has enabled him to play
astonishingly long phrases
Awards
In
1980 David Murray was named Village Voice Musician of the Decade.
Murray
was honoured with the Bird Award[9] in 1986.
He
was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1989
David
Murray and his band earned a Grammy Award in 1989 in the Best Jazz Instrumental
Group Performance category for Blues for Coltrane: A Tribute to John Coltrane
In
1991 he was honoured with the Danish Jazzpar Prize
Newsday
named him Musician of the Year in 1993
He
was given an Honorary Doctorate Degree in Music, Pomona College in 2012
He
was awarded a legacy grant by the California Arts Council in 2021
Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Giovanni Antonio
Monteverdi (May 1567 – November 1643) was an Italian composer, string player,
choirmaster, and priest. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a
pioneer in the development of opera, he is considered a crucial transitional
figure between the Renaissance and Baroque periods of music history.
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Much of Monteverdi's output,
including many stage works, has been lost. His surviving music includes nine
books of madrigals, large-scale religious works, such as his Vespro della Beata
Vergine (Vespers for the Blessed Virgin) of 1610, and three complete operas.
His opera L'Orfeo (1607) is the earliest of the genre still widely performed; towards
the end of his life he wrote works for Venice, including Il ritorno d'Ulisse in
patria and L'incoronazione di Poppea.
While he worked extensively in
the tradition of earlier Renaissance polyphony, as evidenced in his madrigals,
he undertook great developments in form and melody, and began to employ the
basso continuo technique, distinctive of the Baroque. No stranger to
controversy, he defended his sometimes novel techniques as elements of a
seconda pratica, contrasting with the more orthodox earlier style which he
termed the prima pratica. Largely forgotten during the eighteenth and much of
the nineteenth centuries, his works enjoyed a rediscovery around the beginning
of the twentieth century. He is now established both as a significant influence
in European musical history and as a composer whose works are regularly
performed and recorded.
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
Wordsmyth Theater Company (Houston, TX) is now accepting one-act or two-act
play submissions for our New Play Reading Series for 2023. Six plays will be
selected, with one slot reserved for a Houston, TX playwright and another slot
reserved for a bilingual play — any language. Each selected playwright will be
paired with a director and cast. The play will then be read in front of an
audience and the audience will be invited to stay after for a moderated
discussion of the play. We do expect the playwright to be in attendance for the
reading.
***
Eden Theater Company allows for emerging playwrights to develop a new play with
ETC artists. The playwright collaborates with Eden’s Artistic collective to
better hone the structure, characters and arcs in their playwriting. We hope
that the work developed provides an empathetic vantage into different experiences,
and states of spiritual being.
We are calling for playwrights to submit an application to participate in our
lab series, and are especially seeking New York City playwrights who feel their
voice is marginalized, by their age, gender, race, ethnicity or beliefs.
***
The Object Movement Puppetry Festival is an annual presentation of new short
works developed in residence at The Center at West Park. Curated by Maiko
Kikuchi, Rowan Magee, Marcella Murray, and Justin Perkins, Object Movement supports
the development of new puppetry and object theater by artists in the NYC metro
area, culminating in an annual festival of short performances.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site
at https://www.nycplaywrights.org
***
*** TRANSGENDER THEATER ***
The Civility of Albert Cashier is a folk/Americana musical with book by GLAAD nominated
writer Jay Paul Deratany, music by Joe Stevens and Keaton Wooden (lyrics by
Stevens, Wooden, and Deratany). Detailing the life of Civil War soldier Albert
DJ Cashier, who fought for the Union in over 40 engagements. At the end of his
when he retires to the Soldiers and Sailors home in Saunemin, Illinois, a
life-long secret is discovered. Albert was born Jennifer Hodgers.
More...
https://www.albertcashierthemusical.com/about
***
Two decades before Neil Patrick Harris dared to don a golden pair of go-go
boots to portray the “internationally ignored song stylist” know as Hedwig
Schmidt, John Cameron Mitchell and Stephen Trask were perfecting the act on the
New York City drag scene. In the wake of Hedwig and the Angry Inch‘s latest
theatrical incarnation — which just racked up eight Tony nominations — we
caught up with several of the creative minds who have contributed to Hedwig’s
past, present, and future to create an (appropriately) oral history.
More...
https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/gender-bender-an-oral-history-of-hedwig-and-the-angry-inch-185066/
***
AS ONE is a chamber opera in which two voices—Hannah after and Hannah
before—share the part of a sole transgender protagonist. Fifteen songs comprise
the three-part narrative; with empathy and humor, they trace Hannah’s
experiences from her youth in a small town to her college years—and finally
traveling alone to a different country, where she realizes some truths about
herself.
More...
https://www.asoneopera.com/history
***
Written by sisters Nicola and Stacey Bland, Call Me Vicky is a debut play based
entirely on a true story. This hard-hitting, comic production charts Vicky’s
transition from male to female in a time that was far less understanding than
the world we live in today.
It’s 1980 in Elephant and Castle. Martin and best friend Debbie are getting
ready for another night out at Martin’s favourite night spot, The Golden Girl –
one of Soho’s premier drag clubs. However, tonight is not a regular night out.
Tonight is the night that will change Martin’s life forever.
More...
https://thelivereview.co.uk/call-me-vicky-review-pleasance-theatre/
***
Karen Black’s performance as Joanne in Robert Altman’s Come Back to the Five
and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982) is the only trans performance by a
cisgender person that I love with no reservations. Her work is so precise and
hyper-specific that I still wonder to this day how she got to a place that
feels so naturalistic in its understanding of transness. Karen Black was not a
trans woman, and her work prior to this role was usually more acidic with an
outward comfort in playing proud women who were sidekicks for men and their
problems like Jack Nicholson’s Bobby Dupea in Five Easy Pieces (1970) or her
last act arrival in Easy Rider (1969). but with this performance she is dominant,
commanding and whole. It is the finest of her career.
Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean was a stage play before
Altman adapted it into a one-set film with a gimmicked mirror to elucidate the
shift between past and present. In this movie a gang of women who were in a
club called “The Disciples of James Dean” are reuniting twenty years after the
death of the actor in their small town of Woolworth, Texas. But there is
something the other women don’t know, and it’s that their old friend Joe (Mark
Patton, who is great here) is now going by Joanne, and her transformation acts
like a lightning bolt of passed time for all these women.
More...
http://curtsiesandhandgrenades.com/index.php/2021/05/24/the-performances-i-love-karen-black-in-come-back-to-the-five-and-dime-jimmy-dean-jimmy-dean/
***
Mark Howard moves away from his childhood home to a rural, upstate town in
search of a new type of family. When he picks up a stockroom position at the
town’s local orchard, he’s met with toxic masculinity and comes to terms with
his newfound male privilege. And during his first day, he befriends Dani
Thompson, a Black queer woman who’s opening her own gay bar. Over time, these
two very regular people form and find chosen family in one another and their
community.
More...
https://www.regularsmusical.com/about
***
The world premiere of a stage musical adaptation of the groundbreaking Amazon
series “Transparent” will highlight the 2022-23 season of Center Theater Group
in Los Angeles, the company announced Thursday.
The production, “A Transparent Musical,” features characters from the original
series about a sexagenarian parent in a Jewish Los Angeles family who comes out
as a transgender woman. The new musical comedy is billed as “a story of
self-discovery, acceptance and celebration.” It will have its world premiere in
May at the Mark Taper Forum.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/23/theater/transparent-musical-center-theater-group.html
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