** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
TIGER TAIL
by Tennesee Williams
Produced by Shakespeare Downtown
Audience members will be able to get free tickets the day of the performance starting at 6:00 pm at Castle Clinton National Monument located at The Battery.
[http://address=Battery%20Park%20Viaduct,%20New%20York,%20NY%2010004,%20United%20States&auid=3871846077770729621&ll=40.703478,-74.016806&lsp=9902&q=Castle%20Clinton%20National%20Monument]https://maps.apple.com/
Performances will start at 6:30 pm and finish at 8:30 pm.
There will be no intermission.
The play will run for two more days: June 21 & 22
https://www.shakespearedowntown.org/tickets.html
*** ANOTHER UNSOLICITED TESTIMONIAL ***
"Thanks so much to NYC Playwrights! My short play 'Our Daily Bread' was published last month by Fresh Words, an international literary magazine, in its Hello Godot issue, and this week Mini Plays Review, an international journal of short plays and monologues, published another of my plays, "The Cradle's Rocking."
So grateful for all that you do for playwrights and the theater community! Mark Rosati (Instagram @marksrosati, Bluesky @msrosati.bsky.social)
Thanks for sharing Mark! 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
Things that go bump in the night? Ghost, goblins, and monsters? Nightmares of showing up to work naked? What puts the SCARE in you? We are seeking plays that have an element – or a heaping cup – of fear. Scare us or force us to laugh till we die with horror plays and musicals, including a great spoof. Plays must be BOO–themed, which means scary, eerie, or horrifying in some way.
Plays must have a running time of 15 minutes or less (which roughly translates to 15 pages) to qualify for the weekly contest. Each week a winner – selected by audience vote – receives the honor of “Best of the Week” and $100 prize.
***
We at UP Theater Company believe that World Premieres are overrated. We know that all new plays that receive production runs of three weeks or less are just about ready to open by the time they close. That’s why we are putting out a call for new plays that have had a single production of three weeks or fewer.
***
The Science Playwriting Competition brings science and theatre together for the dissemination of scientific knowledge through an intriguing lens — providing inspiration for plays that lead to exciting ways of learning about science. Rooted in artistic expression, the best science plays can be exceptional works of art that aesthetically convey scientific concepts, potentially resulting in further explorations in both disciplines. In this way, science and theatre may learn from each other, through their common goals of investigating and gaining an understanding of the significance of science and how the world works.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** LES MISERABLES ***
The U.S. Army Chorus certainly made an impression after they sang "Do You Hear the People Sing?" from the musical Les Misérables at the Governors Ball—and it seemingly went right over MAGA's heads.
The song, a standard from a musical that is at its heart about social injustice, includes lyrics like “Will you join in our crusade? // Will you be strong and stand with me?” as it explores the theme of an oppressed working class rising up against a despotic regime.
But that seemed to go completely over the head of Dan Scavino, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, who said it was a "great honor to attend" the event.
President Donald Trump—who, along with billionaire Elon Musk, is actively eroding checks and balances throughout the government—included the anthem in his 2016 and 2024 campaign events, but many on social media have pointed out the irony of his administration continuing to support its message now that he’s returned to office.
More...
https://www.comicsands.com/army-chorus-les-mis
"Thanks so much to NYC Playwrights! My short play 'Our Daily Bread' was published last month by Fresh Words, an international literary magazine, in its Hello Godot issue, and this week Mini Plays Review, an international journal of short plays and monologues, published another of my plays, "The Cradle's Rocking."
So grateful for all that you do for playwrights and the theater community! Mark Rosati (Instagram @marksrosati, Bluesky @msrosati.bsky.social)
Thanks for sharing Mark! 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
Things that go bump in the night? Ghost, goblins, and monsters? Nightmares of showing up to work naked? What puts the SCARE in you? We are seeking plays that have an element – or a heaping cup – of fear. Scare us or force us to laugh till we die with horror plays and musicals, including a great spoof. Plays must be BOO–themed, which means scary, eerie, or horrifying in some way.
Plays must have a running time of 15 minutes or less (which roughly translates to 15 pages) to qualify for the weekly contest. Each week a winner – selected by audience vote – receives the honor of “Best of the Week” and $100 prize.
***
We at UP Theater Company believe that World Premieres are overrated. We know that all new plays that receive production runs of three weeks or less are just about ready to open by the time they close. That’s why we are putting out a call for new plays that have had a single production of three weeks or fewer.
***
The Science Playwriting Competition brings science and theatre together for the dissemination of scientific knowledge through an intriguing lens — providing inspiration for plays that lead to exciting ways of learning about science. Rooted in artistic expression, the best science plays can be exceptional works of art that aesthetically convey scientific concepts, potentially resulting in further explorations in both disciplines. In this way, science and theatre may learn from each other, through their common goals of investigating and gaining an understanding of the significance of science and how the world works.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** LES MISERABLES ***
The U.S. Army Chorus certainly made an impression after they sang "Do You Hear the People Sing?" from the musical Les Misérables at the Governors Ball—and it seemingly went right over MAGA's heads.
The song, a standard from a musical that is at its heart about social injustice, includes lyrics like “Will you join in our crusade? // Will you be strong and stand with me?” as it explores the theme of an oppressed working class rising up against a despotic regime.
But that seemed to go completely over the head of Dan Scavino, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, who said it was a "great honor to attend" the event.
President Donald Trump—who, along with billionaire Elon Musk, is actively eroding checks and balances throughout the government—included the anthem in his 2016 and 2024 campaign events, but many on social media have pointed out the irony of his administration continuing to support its message now that he’s returned to office.
More...
https://www.comicsands.com/army-chorus-les-mis
***
VP JD Vance, who was booed alongside second lady Usha Vance while attending a symphony at the Kennedy Center in March, proudly touted his facetious misreading of the musical, writing on social media: “About to see Les Miserables with POTUS at the Kennedy Center. Me to Usha: so what’s this about? A barber who kills people? Usha; [hysterical laughter].” In a follow-up tweet explaining his wildly obvious joke, he added, “That’s apparently a different thing called Sweeney Todd.”
Trump allegedly knows a lot more about the megamusical, which, like most of his favorite pop-cultural touchstones, hails from the 1980s. When announcing his third presidential run in 2022, he walked onstage to the protest anthem “Do You Hear the People Sing?”—a song that the US Army Chorus also performed at the 2025 White House Governors Ball. Meanwhile, the Obamas once bonded over their distaste for the show.
More...
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/shocker-donald-trump-jd-vance-les-miserables-kennedy-center
***
Michelle and Barack Obama review Les Miserables
We sat side by side in the theater, both of us worn out after a long day of work. The curtain went up and the singing began, giving us a gray, gloomy version of Paris. I don't know if it was my mood or whether it was just Les Misérables itself, but I spent the next hour feeling helplessly pounded by French misery. Grunts and chains. Poverty and rape. Injustice and oppression. Millions of people around the world had fallen in love with this musical, but I squirmed in my seat, trying to rise above the inexplicable torment I felt every time the melody repeated.
When the lights went up for intermission, I stole a glance at Barack.
He was slumped down, with his right elbow on the armrest and index finger resting on his forehead, his expression unreadable.
"What'd you think?" I said.
He gave me a sideways look. "Horrible, right?" I laughed, relieved that he felt the same way.
Barack sat up in his seat. "What if we got out of here?" he said. "We could just leave."
Shared on X/Twitter - https://archive.ph/ioqPt
***
Globally, it’s the most famous French musical. One hundred and thirty million people have seen Jean Valjean face off against Javert, in 22 languages; its downtrodden characters have taken to the barricades in London’s West End nearly continuously since 1985.
Everyone knows “Les Misérables.” Everyone — except the French.
In a strange twist of fate, “Les Miz,” an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s sweeping novel about justice, poverty and the social reality of 19th-century France, has never been popular in the country of its birth. Despite being created by two Frenchmen, the composer Claude-Michel Schönberg and the lyricist Alain Boublil, it has only been performed in Paris twice since the 1980s. The 2012 film adaptation, starring Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway, also performed poorly at the French box office.
Now a major new stage production, set to open at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on Wednesday, aims to make “Les Misérables” a star at home, too — with the enthusiastic assent of its creators.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/19/theater/les-miserables-paris.html
***
Globally, it’s the most famous French musical. One hundred and thirty million people have seen Jean Valjean face off against Javert, in 22 languages; its downtrodden characters have taken to the barricades in London’s West End nearly continuously since 1985.
Everyone knows “Les Misérables.” Everyone — except the French.
In a strange twist of fate, “Les Miz,” an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s sweeping novel about justice, poverty and the social reality of 19th-century France, has never been popular in the country of its birth. Despite being created by two Frenchmen, the composer Claude-Michel Schönberg and the lyricist Alain Boublil, it has only been performed in Paris twice since the 1980s. The 2012 film adaptation, starring Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway, also performed poorly at the French box office.
Now a major new stage production, set to open at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris on Wednesday, aims to make “Les Misérables” a star at home, too — with the enthusiastic assent of its creators.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/19/theater/les-miserables-paris.html
***
It was, however, Francis King in the Sunday Telegraph who pithily summarised what many of us felt, when he described the show as "a lurid Victorian melodrama produced with Victorian lavishness". And that's exactly why it has run so long. Victor Hugo's novel wrestles with all kinds of big themes: social injustice, redemption through love, the power of providence. On stage all this is boiled down to the triumph of a good man, Jean Valjean, over the cop who relentlessly pursues him. Essentially, it's The Fugitive with songs. And any notion that the show provides a searching account of the social oppression that led to the 1832 uprisings was scotched by a poll taken during the Broadway run, when a majority of theatregoers said they thought it all took place during the French revolution.
Les Mis succeeds because it is spectacular Victorian melodrama. Nothing wrong with that. What irked some of us back in 1985 was the claim by the original directors, Trevor Nunn and John Caird, that we were watching a piece of High Seriousness that required the resources of the RSC to stage. You could also argue, as I would, that Les Mis, by ditching spoken dialogue in favour of a through-composed score, led the musical down a false trail: away from the fun of wit, satire and romance towards the pomposities of pop-opera. But the fact is that audiences love Les Mis. What I find intriguing is that we think we live in a very cool, smart, cynical age. Yet, when the chips are down, what we really crave is a contest of good and evil, and lashings of spectacle. Just, in fact, like our Victorian ancestors. Plus ça change, plus c'est la meme show.
More...
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2010/sep/21/les-miserables-25-year-anniversary
***
THERE WERE PEOPLE who told me ''Les Miserables'' was going to be wonderful and people who told me it was going to be terrible. The truth - or my reactions, at least - turned out to lie somewhere in the middle. If the lyrics were often little more than doggerel, and if the score often seemed the musical equivalent of doggerel, there were compensations in Colm Wilkinson's rightly acclaimed Jean Valjean, in a few of the supporting performances, in the scenery and lighting, and, every now and then, in a genuinely striking dramatic effect. But none of it added up to Victor Hugo.
How could it have done? The novel is vast and sprawling and dense with detail; any dramatization, however skillful, is bound to sacrifice an enormous amount, and there are important episodes - the Waterloo chapters in particular, which the musical understandably skips - that it is very hard to imagine being successfully transferred to the stage.
If you formed your idea of ''Les Miserables'' solely on the basis of the Royal Shakespeare version, or if you knew of Victor Hugo only by hearsay, the aspect of the book for which you would probably be least prepared is its originality. Hugo's reputation today tends to be that of a rather obvious rhetorician, a master of eloquent cliches. But start reading him and you will quickly find yourself confronted by the workings of a bold and unconstrained intelligence.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/19/theater/new-york-les-miserables-distinctive-stirring-version-still-victor-hugo-s.html
***
Boublil and Schonberg's international career started with their musical adaptation of Hugo's Les Miserables. Like La Revolution Francaise, Les Miserables started as a concept album released in June 1980. A few months later, Robert Hossein directed the stage version at the Palais des Sports. The revised English version, produced by Cameron Mackintosh and directed by Trevor Nunn and John Caird of the Royal Shakespeare Company, opened in London on Oct. 8, 1985 and on Broadway Mar. 12, 1987 with Colm Wilkinson and Frances Ruffelle in both productions. The rest is history. The musical has been seen by more than 40 million people worldwide.
More...
https://playbill.com/article/for-claude-michel-schonberg-its-cest-la-guerre-com-101103
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