Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

 

*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

 

PSA, the Journal of the Pirandello Society of America (www.pirandellosociety.org/psa-journal), seeks submissions of short dramatic pieces (5 to 30 minutes of expected performance time) inspired by Luigi Pirandello’s short stories, for publication in the next or future issues.

Dramaturgies could take several shapes such as:
1. adaptations for the stage of a single short story
2. adaptations that combine two or three stories
3. dramatic development of a section of a short story
4. monologues/dialogues of characters who appear in the short stories
5. dramatic situations that entail the reading/recitation of passages from the short stories

***
Live & In Color is looking for playwrights, composers, and lyricists of color and/or other underrepresented communities interested in developing their new musical in the Fall of 2024. The selected musical submission will have a two-week workshop in the fall at The Bingham Camp in Salem, Connecticut culminating in a staged presentation to an invited audience.

MUSICAL SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
The musical must be performed:
 - with 4 actors (or less)

All submissions should include:
 - Single page synopsis
 - Single page character breakdown
 - Demo of score (2-3 songs)
 - Sample of dialogue (~15 pages)
 - Brief production/development history (properties with prior full productions not accepted)

***
Voices of Women Theatre Festival 2024
Submit Your 10-Minute or 60-Minute Play

In conjunction with Women’s History Month, Powerstories Theatre is proud to host the fourth annual international Voices of Women Theatre Festival live in the USF College of the Arts and online, utilizing our season theme, “Critical Issues Take Center Stage.”

As part of our 2024 Season, we will be doing a hybrid program – a combination of in-theatre staged reading productions during the first week and digital, view-on-demand performances in the second week. The international festival offers an artistic platform empowering, encouraging, and enabling diverse voices to inspire audiences worldwide through the gift of sharing strong voices and meaningful stories. Powerstories is proud to provide opportunities for artists and playwrights of all genres to share their original short and full-length plays and musicals with our expanding community and audiences near and far.

*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***


*** WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME ***

“What the Constitution Means to Me,” a challenging exploration of American legal history sparked by a student oratory competition, will be the most produced play at U.S. theaters this season, according to a survey released on Wednesday.

The play, written by Heidi Schreck, will have at least 16 productions around the country, according to a count by American Theater magazine.

The magazine conducts an annual survey of theaters to determine which shows, and which playwrights, are most popular. Productions of “A Christmas Carol” and works by Shakespeare, which are always widely staged, are excluded. The survey covers theaters that are members of the Theater Communications Group, the national nonprofit organization that publishes the magazine.

“What the Constitution Means to Me” was staged on Broadway in 2019, with Schreck starring, and it was filmed for Amazon. (The play has a three-person cast, including a young person who debates the lead actress about the merits of the Constitution.)

More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/18/theater/what-the-constitution-means-to-me-most-staged-play.html

***

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

'What the Constitution Means to Me' playwright and star Heidi Schreck has a long, personal relationship with the document that begins 'We the People.'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjybjCD2a9k

***

Broadway's What the Constitution Means to Me | Talks at Google
Heidi Schreck, Mike Iveson, Thursday Williams, and Rosdely Ciprian from the Broadway production of What the Constitution Means to Me discuss their groundbreaking play. The play was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Direct from its revolutionary Off-Broadway run, "WHAT THE CONSTITUTION MEANS TO ME" has arrived on Broadway for a limited engagement. This boundary-breaking play breathes new life into our Constitution and imagines how it will shape the next generation of American women.

Fifteen-year-old Heidi Schreck earned her college tuition by winning Constitutional debate competitions across the United States. Now, the Obie Award winner recalls her teenage self in order to trace the profound relationship between four generations of women in her own family and the founding document that dictated their rights and citizenship. This hilarious, hopeful and "achingly human" (Exeunt Magazine) exploration features Schreck alongside Mike Iveson, Rosdely Ciprian and Thursday Williams and is directed by Obie Award winner Oliver Butler.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Lok9jIfqc

***

After enjoying an acclaimed extended off-Broadway run, Heidi Schreck’s elaborate public debate experiment, What the Constitution Means to Me, has finally bowed on Broadway. The move to Broadway bestows a bit of pomp on the proceedings that may be a little paradoxical. In fact, Schreck’s entire project is to de-pompify the US Constitution — to remove some of its mystique and attempt to reinvigorate the creaky living document.

Schreck does this primarily by enlisting that most energized and impassioned of citizens to help her: the teenage girl. For most of the play, the teenager in question is Schreck herself, bringing all the ebullience of a typical teen girl, in her case one obsessed with witches, theater, and Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing. For the final third, she debates one of two actual teenagers, freshman Rosdely Ciprian and senior Thursday Williams. A champion debater in high school, Schreck paid for her college tuition by debating the merits of the Constitution through a string of American Legion competitions — a time she clearly sees as a nostalgic moment when 15-year-old her began to own her ideas and her self-expression.

Though Schreck is in some sense an unreliable narrator, we believe in the portrait she presents of her younger, vibrant, and earnest self. By upfronting her hardworking ability to pay her way through college, she deliberately frames her younger counterpart as an idealized character, an emblem of the American dream. Who better, then, she suggests, to guide us through a meditation on democracy?

More...
https://www.vox.com/2019/4/17/18310288/what-the-constitution-means-to-me-review-heidi-schreck

***

On a recent Thursday, in a sunny rehearsal space downtown, the playwright, actor, and TV writer Heidi Schreck stood near a lectern draped with red-white-and-blue bunting. She was rehearsing a work in progress, “What the Constitution Means to Me,” onstage now at the Wild Project, in Summerworks, Clubbed Thumb’s annual festival of new plays. She spoke to the audience with friendly authority. “When I was in high school, I earned all the money I eventually used to pay for college by doing speeches about the Constitution across the country,” she begins. “I would travel from American Legion hall to American Legion hall, in big cities like Denver or Sacramento, to give speeches about the Constitution, win the money, and put it in a safe-deposit box.” Her competing in the American Legion’s lucrative annual competition was a scheme cooked up by her parents, a high-school debate coach and a high-school history teacher, to help her gain confidence and tuition money at once.

More...
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/sarah-larson/in-heidi-schrecks-new-play-teen-girls-talk-about-the-constitution

***

GO BEHIND THE CURTAIN TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE US CONSTITUTION

The Gilder Lehrman Institute has collaborated with the producers of the exciting new Broadway play What the Constitution Means to Me by playwright and two-time Obie Award–winning actor Heidi Schreck, showing at the Helen Hayes Theater, to reveal how the US Constitution came to be, how it has evolved, and how it affects our lives every day. Explore the links below for Civil Rights, Constitutional Convention and Ratification, Freedom of Speech and Assembly, Impeachment, Women's Rights.

https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/curriculum/what-constitution-means-me

***

Does being an actress make you more cognizant of the female roles in your plays?

Yes, absolutely. There are all kinds of terrific female roles out there. There are also terrible female roles. And, when I was acting more often, I went and auditioned for some of those terrible female roles, and it definitely ignited a fire in me to write only the most interesting female roles I possibly could. I like to write complicated, weird women because those are the kind of parts I would want to play. That’s always very important to me. Especially since there’s a surplus of incredible actresses in their 30s to early 40s. There are so many brilliant women, and I just felt like there needed to be more parts for these women because there’s not enough work for the amount of talent.

And you’re combining the acting and writing soon?

In January I’m doing this solo play that I wrote called What the Constitution Means to Me. It’s an evening of me talking about the Constitution. I hope it’s funny.

There’s a lot of comedy to be mined in the Constitution.

There’s a lot of comedy.

More...
https://www.theintervalny.com/interviews/2014/09/an-interview-with-heidi-schreck/

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