NGC 2174, Mystic Mountain
Nina Leen
Nina Leen (died January 1, 1995) was a Russian-born American photographer, a constant contributor to Life. Leen emigrated to the United States in 1939, she had also lived in Italy and Switzerland. Her first photographs to be published in Life in April 1940 were of tortoises at the Bronx Zoo, taken with her Rolleiflex camera. While she never became a staff photographer at Life, she contributed as a contract photographer until the magazine closed in 1972.
Leen was a prolific photographer of fashion for Life and was long married to the fashion photographer Serge Balkin. She was recognized with inclusion by Edward Steichen of two of her photographs in The Family of Man international touring exhibition; one a photograph of a child at a blackboard, the other, several generations of an Ozark farming family (later selected by Carl Sagan for the 12-inch Voyager golden records).
OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
The Eric H. Weinberger Award for Emerging Librettists is a juried cash and
production grant given annually to support the early work and career of a
deserving musical theatre librettist.
The winner will receive $2,000 to help with cost-of-living expenses. The
winning musical will receive development assistance in the 2023 New Works
Development Program of Amas Musical Theatre, culminating in an Amas Lab
production with New York theatre professionals.
***
NEXT ACT!, now in its thirteenth year, is an expansion of Capital Repertory
Theatre’s (theREP) commitment to the development of new work. The multi-day
summit is also designed to complement the Upper Hudson Valley’s rich diverse
populations. NEXT ACT! New Play Summit 13 will take place in late April and
early May 2024 (exact dates coming soon) and will swirl around the theatre’s
World Premiere Production that came from the 2022 Summit. The annual summit
will feature readings of several never-before produced plays, with additional
events throughout the summit.
theREP is looking for scripts that use theatre to address injustices,
inequities, and cultural collisions, providing a voice for the unheard on
stage, in the workplace, the Capital Region and beyond. Specifically seeking
scripts with racial, ethnic, generational, religious and gender diversity.
Scripts that engage art and social justice.
***
Every month, Kumu Kahua’s artistic director Harry Wong III will select a
writing prompt on the first day of that month. We’re looking for 5-page
monologues or 10-page scenes based on that prompt. The prompt for the month of
October 2023 is:
A Trick or Treat prompt. Write a ten (10) page maximum scene about a group of
kids who retaliate with a trick against a house and someone that didn't give
them a treat on Halloween night. As always, have fun with this. Act out your
childhood revenge fantasies, but don't forget about the consequences.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site
at https://www.nycplaywrights.org
***
*** ISRAEL & THEATER ***
My theater company in Needham was created by Jewish immigrants and refugees
from Eastern Europe. As a company, we stand with Israel. As an artist and a
human being, I stand with Israel. (Are we alone?)
Last Friday, Oct. 6, was our opening night for Arlekin’s production of
"Just Tell No One." Written by Natal’ya Vorozhbit and Oksana
Savchenko of the Worldwide Ukrainian Play Readings, it premiered at Lincoln
Center last year with Bill Irwin and Jessica Hecht, as well as David Krumholtz
and Tedra Millan of Broadway’s "Leopoldstadt." "Just Tell No
One" is a play about the human consequences of war in Ukraine, my homeland
(is it?), which I fled as a Jewish refugee with my family when I was 11, seeking
refuge in the U.S. where we thought we’d be safe. Jewish relatives and friends
from that part of the world also fled, and many of them are now your neighbors
in the U.S.; a few even became a theater company. Others escaped to Israel, a
new homeland (is it?) for them, where they thought they would be safe.
More...
https://www.wbur.org/news/2023/10/13/arlekin-players-igor-golyak-israel
***
Despite being highly commercial and insufficiently subsidized, Israeli theatre
in the 2000s is nonetheless very much alive. On any given day, about half of
the plays showing in Israel are original Hebrew works. Foreign directors often
envy the brisk, interesting, and involved atmosphere on Israeli stages and in
rehearsal rooms. Each year, more theatre classes are given in Israeli high
schools and more theatre teachers are trained. Acting schools have to reject
growing numbers of theatre aspirants.
More...
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/israeli-theatre/
***
When Seattle-based playwright and theater director Lauren Goldman Marshall
first staged her original musical about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in
1991, she had recently embarked on a journey of self-discovery prompted by the
First Intifada. Working alongside Palestinian collaborators, she produced a
heartfelt show meant to celebrate “seeing the other.”
Thirty years later, that show, “Abraham’s Land,” has been revived for a new
generation. A new adaptation was staged in Seattle this summer (2021)...
But much has changed in the intervening decades, from the trajectory of peace
efforts to sentiments among American Jews to ideas in the theater world about
what constitutes meaningful representation on stage.
More...
https://www.timesofisrael.com/30-year-old-play-about-israeli-palestinian-conflict-resurfaces-minus-palestinians/
***
Philadelphia’s InterAct Theatre Co. produces plays that “provoke conversation”
about sensitive topics, according to a recent press release.
Beginning on April 1 (2022), it will take on perhaps the most difficult
conversation in Jewish life: the Israel-Palestine conflict.
“Settlements,” written by Seth Rozin, a Jewish playwright and InterAct’s
producing artistic director, is about “a resident theater at a Jewish Community
Center which finds itself pulled in conflicting directions when it commissions
a new play about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” according to a press
release detailing the show.
Rozin wrote the play over several years after reading a 2014 Washington Post
story about a similar incident, in which a Washington, D.C., theater director
was dismissed from his JCC home after commissioning a play about Israeli
soldiers killing Palestinians. Rozin said he feels it’s important to explore
not who’s right and who’s wrong in the conflict, but why it’s so difficult to
discuss.
More...
https://www.jewishexponent.com/new-play-explores-israel-palestine-conflict/
***
Contemporary resonances abound for the century-old play The Dybbuk by S.
An-sky, as a new collection of research articles implies. Israeli director
Diego Rotman, one of the contributors, even notes that in Hebrew letters, COVID
is dybbuk spelled backwards.
Similarly, the drama itself retains an eerie historical-contemporary echo. Its
plot tells of a young woman possessed by the spirit of her dead beloved in a
19th century shtetl in the Pale of Settlement, a western region of the Russian
Empire where permanent residency by Jews was allowed.
In Jewish folklore dating back at least to the 1500s, a dybbuk is the
dislocated soul of a dead person that occupies the body of someone still
living. In An-sky’s narrative (spoiler alert!) the young lovers wind up dead,
with even more lamenting and morbidity than Shakespeare’s ill-fated Romeo and
Juliet.
More...
https://forward.com/culture/563005/dybbuk-century-an-sky-caplan-moss-jewish-play/
***
iSRA-DRaMA:
International Exposure of Israeli Theatre
November 22-26, 2023
In light of recent events, we wish to address Israel’s current situation. As
you may be aware, Israel is currently facing a severe security crisis. In an
unprecedented act of war, Hamas launched a massive, brutal attack on Israeli
civilians. This attack has resulted in a significant number of casualties,
injuries, and the kidnapping of innocent civilians, including children and the
elderly.
It is a time of profound sadness and uncertainty for Israel, and regrettably, the
crisis is far from over, as a war looms on the horizon.
As for the Theater Exposure, we would like to ask for your patience, as the
situation is dynamic, and circumstances may change.
We will keep you updated and informed of any changes or adjustments.
Let us all hope for better times.
More...
https://exposure.dramaisrael.org/
Israeli
Dramatists Website
https://dramaisrael.org/en/
***
For the three weeks between the first day of Rosh Hashanah and the end of
Simchat Torah, it’s hard to get anything done in Israel. With so many holidays
in rapid succession, businesses open sporadically, bureaucratic necessities
remain pending and many cultural events are put on hold.
In New York, though, a community of Israeli artists is overflowing with
activity: Throughout the month of October, the Israeli Artists Project (IAP) is
hosting the Stav Festival: A Celebration of Israeli Arts and Culture at the
14th Street Y. Featuring dozens of artists working in an array of media,
festival events include performances by standup comics and musicians alongside
productions of award-winning Israeli plays. Artists will provide workshops on
everything from folk dancing or belly dancing to painting.
Named for the Hebrew word for autumn, the Stav Festival was originally slated
for May 2020, when it would have been the Aviv (or Spring) Festival, but the
COVID-19 pandemic meant that it had to be postponed. In his opening remarks at
last week’s kickoff event, IAP president Yoni Vendriger said that the more than
three-year delay may have been for the best. “We’ve had plenty of time to
curate a month of events that bring together artists from so many walks of
life,” he said.
Among the many and varied events is the New York debut of “The Holylanders,” an
original play by Moria Zrachia. Originally commissioned and presented by
Israel’s Cameri Theatre in Hebrew as “Shalom Lach Eretz,” this new,
English-language version was adapted and directed by her brother and longtime
collaborator, Matan Zrachia.
More...
https://www.jta.org/2023/10/04/ny/a-monthlong-celebration-of-israeli-arts-and-culture-comes-to-the-14th-street-y
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