The Frank Moffett Mosier Fellowship for Works in Heightened Language for 2023-2024.
Monetary award to playwright: $3000 for works with a running time of at least
40 minutes.
Submissions must be in a heightened version of the English language in order to
provide a meaningful challenge to the actors. This includes, but is not limited
to, works using metre, verse, rhyming schemes, pidgins, creoles, and
code-switching.
***
Relentless Award 2024 ~ The Relentless Award, established in honor of Philip
Seymour Hoffman and his pursuit of truth in the theater, is the largest annual
cash prize in American theater awarded to a playwright in recognition of a new
play.
***
Heartland Theatre Company is seeking eight 10-minute original plays to be
considered for production in June of 2024 as part of our 21st annual 10-Minute
Play Festival. This year, the theme is GHOSTS.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site
at https://www.nycplaywrights.org
***
*** PSYCHOLOGY OF THEATER ***
Why do we need live theatre? Many artists suggest that theatre can improve
empathy for those who are different from ourselves, but until recently, there
has been little research on the psychology of attending live shows. This is
surprising, since theatre has been a major part of our lives both recently and
throughout history. For example, before the pandemic, according to Americans
for the Arts, about 44 million Americans attended non-profit theatres in the
United States each year.
My colleagues and I set out to investigate the effects of attending live
theatre.
More...
https://spsp.org/news-center/character-context-blog/psychology-live-theatre-can-seeing-theatre-increase-empathy
***
Elliott Loverin, a junior majoring in Psychology with a minor in musical
theater, is focused on the intersections of developmental, abnormal and social
psychology. He’s also intrigued by the interactions between individual
psychopathology and group dynamics, especially in young people.
“Gaining insight into the processes that govern human behavior inspired me to
pursue psychology, and its diverse applications allow me to investigate the
topics I find interesting within the field.”
Loverin’s theater career began with an audition for “A Christmas Carol” at the
Berkshire Theatre Group in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Although he wasn’t cast,
the 10-year-old was invited to perform in the background chorus for the annual
holiday concert.
More...
https://trinity.duke.edu/news/psychology-student-hones-critical-thinking-skills-theater
***
Drama therapy is the intentional use of drama and/or theater processes to
achieve therapeutic goals.
Drama therapy is an embodied practice that is active and experiential. This
approach can provide the context for participants to tell their stories, set
goals and solve problems, express feelings, or achieve catharsis. Through
drama, the depth and breadth of inner experience can be actively explored and
interpersonal relationship skills can be enhanced.
More...
https://www.nadta.org/what-is-drama-therapy
***
Community-based theater is a form of sociopolitical theater that takes a
critical position toward social issues, often focuses on creating original
works, aims to raise awareness, and works to alleviate social frustrations and
conflict. This form of theater functions from a community-citizen empowerment
and social justice perspective and is designed to be inclusive ( 4 ). Community-based
theater activities often exist outside mainstream theater institutions and are
intended to benefit not only individual participants but also communities and
societies ( 5 ). These are interdisciplinary and hybrid practices based within
a wide variety of contexts around the world. Community-based theater projects
emphasize the dialogical nature and ongoing process of creating empowering
workshops and performances. These are often grounded in established theoretical
or logistical structures, such as Playback Theater, Sociodrama, Theatre of the
Oppressed, or Agit-Prop Theater.
More...
https://ps.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/ps.2010.61.3.306
***
“Actors work hard to embody and personify their characters,” Sherman said. “If
they just pretend to be a character, their performance is not genuine.” When a
musical’s character experiences mental illness and other characters react to
that illness, she continued, actors “really want to portray the illness
accurately. They have to get in touch with that emotional internal experience
to portray a character accurately on stage.”
While inhabiting a character is central in a performance, Sherman said her
study participants told her it can also present personal challenges.
“What you take in you become,” Sherman said. “That is why musical theater is so
potent. It can do beautiful things, but it can also do damage.”
More...
https://www.minnpost.com/mental-health-addiction/2021/08/study-investigates-mental-health-themed-musicals-significant-toll-on-performers/
***
“I wanted to get ahead on the lunches,” Diana tells her husband, Dan, as she
frenetically lines up slices of white bread on the floor and begins piling on
the lettuce and mayo.
That is the moment in “next to normal,” the new musical at the Booth Theater,
when Dan (J. Robert Spencer) realizes it is time for his manic-depressive wife
(Alice Ripley) to go back into therapy. As artistic portrayals of mental
illness go, the moment is fairly tame. Wonder Bread doesn’t have the same
dramatic bam as, say, gouging out the eyes of six horses (as in “Equus”). But
that quotidian element is perhaps what makes “normal,” which opened on Broadway
on Wednesday, so unusual.
Mental illness on the stage and screen is often portrayed in extreme ways, and
not just for dramatic effect. In Western culture psychic pain has tended to be
seen as the territory of the artist, visionary, rebel and genius, from Emily
Dickinson to Sylvia Plath and Friedrich Nietzsche to John Forbes Nash Jr. So it
should be no surprise that madness is often used to signify creativity,
sensitivity or spiritual and intellectual depth.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/theater/19cohe.html
***
“Our findings indicate that collaborating with the theatre industry could be
helpful in producing theories about social interaction that could also be
investigated in the real world,” said Dwaynica Greaves, lead author of the
study. In particular, the researchers are hoping that future work in this space
can focus on how participation in theatrical activities might help people with
autism.
This is the first time that neuroscientists have been able to record brain
activity in actors during their performances, Greaves added. The actors were
fitted with brain imaging technology while they rehearsed scenes from
Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The researchers then proceeded to call
out each actor’s name while they were performing, measuring brain activity in
the prefrontal cortex.
Their findings, published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, showed that
when actors heard their names while performing, their response was suppressed
in the brain region associated with self-awareness. These results were
consistent across the six actors who were tested during rehearsals, several
times a week. While they were not performing, the actors responded normally
when called by name.
“The shout of a person’s own name is a powerful and compelling sound which
normally makes the subject turn their head. It also engages the prefrontal
cortex of the brain. However, our findings suggest that actors may learn to
suppress their sense of self as they train in the theatre and take on a
different character,” Greaves said.
More...
https://www.theswaddle.com/brain-activity-of-actors-shows-they-really-do-lose-themselves-while-performing
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