Welcome
John William Tuohy lives in Washington DC
Greetings NYCPlaywrights
*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
DOWNTOWN LIVE
May 15 & 16, 22 & 23, 2021
12:30pm – 8pm
Downtown Live will bring 36 in-person performances to Lower Manhattan on May 15-16 and 22-23.
The performances will be staged at unexpected locations around the neighborhood, including a covered loading dock (4 New York Plaza), an arcade along the Stone Street Historic District (85 Broad Street) and a plaza with harbor views near The Battery (1 Battery Park Plaza). After a year of lockdowns, these in-person shows offer audience members a long-awaited chance to see LIVE theatre, contemporary performance, and music and to explore all that Lower Manhattan has to offer.
Artists participating in Downtown Live include:
Pulitzer Prize finalist and celebrated writer and performer Eisa Davis with Kaneza Schaal
Obie Award-winning, Off-Broadway favorite playwright and actor David Greenspan with Jamie Lawrence
Popular downtown music and storytelling duo James & Jerome
Hip-hop, spoken word and performance artists Baba Israel & Grace Galu
Classical singer/musical theatre composer and performer Katie Madison
Artistic Director of the Obie-Award winning theater The Tank and accomplished director Meghan Finn with playwright/actress Kaaron Briscoe
Genre-bending songwriter, theatre-maker & solo performer Ellen Winter with Machel Ross
Award-winning New York-based Brazilian Theater Company, Group .BR
Lucille Lortel Award-winning performer Kuhoo Verma with Justin Ramos
Performances occur throughout the day. See exact performance times and make reservations through The Tank's website - thetanknyc.org/downtown-live
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
The Woodward/Newman Award is an exclusive honor offered by Bloomington Playwrights Project, started through the support of Joanne Woodward, Newman’s Own Foundation, and the Newman family, celebrating Paul Newman & Joanne Woodward’s tremendous history of work on stage and screen.
It presents the best unpublished play of the year with a cash prize of $3,000 and a full production as part of BPP’s Mainstage season, along with travel reimbursement.
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The Robert J. Pickering / J.R. Colbeck Award for Playwriting Excellence
This annual award was established to honor past member and playwright, Bob Pickering, and to provide a vehicle for playwrights to see their works produced. Over 30 plays have been produced over since 1984. In 2020, the award was renamed to also honor longtime BCCT member and Pickering director, J.R. Colbeck. $200 is awarded for first place, $50 for second place and $25 for third place.
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Golden Thread produces passionate and provocative plays from and about the Middle East that celebrate the multiplicity of its perspectives and identities. We are a developmental catalyst and vibrant artistic home to artists at various stages of their careers. We bring the Middle East to the American stage, creating treasured cultural experiences for audiences of all ages and backgrounds.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** OUTDOOR THEATER ***
Moliere in the Park
We believe provocative and high caliber theater performed in public spaces and available to all, has the power to unite communities. It affords everyone who wishes to participate an opportunity to reflect, rejoice, see each other, and share. Moliere in the Park was born out of the desire to meet Brooklynites in their backyard and offer a space, within an already wonderfully rich park, where all would feel
invited to take part.
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The Historic Shepherd of the Hills Outdoor Drama is the action-packed live reenactment of the famous historical novel by Christian minister, Harold Bell Wright. Published in 1907, this beautiful story tells of life in the rugged Ozark Mountains of Missouri in the late 1800’s.
Over 90 actors and actresses, horses, sheep, mules and donkeys perform on a stage the size of a football field. There’s a shoot-out, the actual burning of a log cabin, a love story, a mystery and a moral message that is as true today as it was over a century ago. Over 8 Million Tickets Sold!
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For a regional theater, performing during a pandemic brings plenty of challenges: Actors in face masks. Smaller casts due to social distancing. Moving performances outdoors.
But this summer there’s something else the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey expects to face as well: cicadas.
In a few weeks, billions of cicadas from Brood X are expected to go from quietly feeding on roots underground to emerging on the surface throughout the country, including in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. Residents will notice their presence — arriving for the first time in 17 years — by a distinctive shrill they emit to draw mates.
The Morris County theater’s outdoor stage, located in Florham Park, is surrounded by trees and other greenery — which artistic director Bonnie Monte expects will be fertile ground for the insects.
More...
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Melissa and Clark Nicholson founded Popcorn Hat Players Children’s Theatre (PHP) and Harrisburg Shakespeare Company (HSC) in 1991 and 1994, respectively. The companies merged to become Gamut Theatre Group (GTG), “Home of the Classic Story,” in 2001, combining their missions to focus on presenting and preserving classic plays and classic stories in new and exciting ways. A mission based around the classics necessitates an unwavering focus on educational engagement, and GTG is proud of the fact that its educational initiatives rival the size and scope of theatre companies nearly ten times our budgetary size. All members of GTG’s full-time staff form our Core Company of actors and have professional theatre credits. Additionally, all staff members are involved in teaching in the Gamut Theatre Academy, which annually offers 15-20 classes and camps, for nearly 500 students in the greater Harrisburg area.
More...
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The season premiere of “Unto These Hills” signals an exciting, new day in Cherokee—one with extra considerations and safety precautions for you and your family. More than six million people have loved the heart-wrenching action and soaring triumph of this telling of the Cherokee story. Since its debut on July 1, 1950, “Unto These Hills” has told the tale of Cherokee life from 1780 to the twenty-first century. This is the original production, the Kermit Hunter version, performed again under the stars.
Bring a blanket, a mask, and an appetite for heart-pounding drama.
As you enjoy the fresh air and the 2,100-seat, newly renovated Mountainside Theatre, it’s easy to get lost in the Cherokee story of struggle and uplifting triumph. Experience the power of Cherokee performing arts in a live production certain to move you. And now, in a safe and secure venue.
More...
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Why I Will Never Produce Another All-Female Outdoor Show Again
This summer, my company Maiden Phoenix Theatre Company produced an all-female version of The Winter’s Tale by William Shakespeare. The production was free to all and produced in a local city park. And after that experience I know one thing for sure: I am never producing another outdoor all-female show again. Ever. And neither should you.
Let me explain.
We performed in a local park in Somerville, Massachusetts. It had to be free and open to the public in accordance with our permit from the city. The show was cast with a group of ten young women. The director, most of the designers, the stage manager, and our full administrative staff were female.
More...
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The Origins of Shakespeare in the Park
Every summer, in large cities and small towns across America, William Shakespeare commandeers the public parks. The local Shakespeare in the Park festivals are almost always free and, to be candid, of varying production values. For some people, it’s the only theatre they’ll see all year.
So how and why did this summer ritual begin?
Most people will point to the genius of Joseph Papp, the founder of the esteemed Public Theater in New York City. In 1954, Papp began offering free productions of Shakespeare plays in parks on the Lower East Side. He later moved the plays to Turtle Pond in Central Park, where audiences grew to the thousands. Papp kept the plays free, but not without a fight. He found a vociferous adversary in New York’s most famous and curmudgeonly park commissioner, Robert Moses, who demanded that Papp charge $1-$2 per ticket to cover the cost of replacing grass damaged by the theatre goers. Papp refused, and the two battled it out in court for roughly one year, during which Moses circulated an anonymous letter calling Papp a communist.
More...
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Sylvester Stallone is a writer
Sylvester Stallone is a writer
who stood his ground for his work. Before Rocky was released, Stallone was so
broke he made a soft porn film to pay the rent and was even forced to sell his beloved
dog Butkus outside of a liquor store for $25.00 because he couldn't afford to
feed him. He wrote the screen play for Rocky at age (at the age of 30) in three
and half days. The studios offered him $360,000 for the screenplay (About the
equivalent of $1.7 million today) with the understanding that James Caan would
play the lead. But Stallone wanted the lead because he created the character and
understood him, so he said no to the money. After a lot of negotiations, he
took $30,000 and got what he wanted. The firs thing he did was to buy back his
dog. Rocky has earned almost a half billion today.
Playwrights
Sat 5/8/2021 5:15 PM
Greetings NYCPlaywrights
*** FREE THEATER ONLINE ***
GREAT PERFORMANCES | UNCLE VANYA
Tony Award nominee Conor McPherson breathes new life into Anton Chekhov’s masterpiece with his acclaimed adaptation of the drama, portraying life at the turn of the 20th century filled with tumultuous frustration, dark humor and hidden passions.
S48 E18 | 2:24:55 | AIRED: 5/7/2021 | EXPIRES: 6/4/2021 |
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
The MTB Audio Drama Scriptwriting Competition celebrates exciting aural storytelling with a $250 first prize and $100 second-place prize. Authors retain all script rights.
The theme for 2021’s competition is adventure and comedy scripts that engage and amuse audiences.
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Announcing JOOK’s 2nd Annual Summer Spotlight Series celebrating Southern writers and new Southern plays! After the success of the first series and the subsequent workshop of Seth McNeill’s NATCHETOCHES in 2020, this uplifting project returns for a second round of submissions.
We are open to reading new works by writers from the South: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia.
We're also open to reading new plays by writers outside of these states if the work is set in the South.
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BETC’s new play development program, Generations, features the work of parent playwrights with children under 18. The name comes from BETC’s goals for the program: to welcome all generations into the theater to see new plays, and to empower playwrights to generate new work.
Each season, BETC selects one playwright through a national competition to join us in Boulder for a one-week residency. During the residency week, the playwright works with a professional director, dramaturg, and actors to develop the selected script. The week concludes with a public reading and post-reading conversation.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE & THEATER ***
CAN A ROBOT AND A THEATRE HAVE SOMETHING IN COMMON?
100 years ago, the word “robot” was invented by the Czechoslovak brothers Karel and Josef Čapek. The word appeared for the first time in Karel’s theatre play titled R.U.R. premiered in 1921. The play is about humanoid robots who seem happy to work for humans at first, but later a robot rebellion leads to the extinction of the human race. The play achieved a fast international success when it was performed not only in Prague but also in London, New York or Chicago.
Karel Čapek was one of the first people who thought of a potential threat if machine-robot inventions happen too fast or without a regulation. Did he predict the threats of the 21st century? Or… are robots no danger for us? So far, robots can perform many quite easy tasks, but we want to challenge them!
To celebrate the centenary of invention of the word “robot” we wanted start a project to know if a robot can write a theatre play. Do you think artificial intelligence is able to create an enjoyable theatre script? Can a robot become a playwright like its own father Karel Čapek 100 years ago? We found out the answer on 26 February 2021 during a premiere of the first play written by AI titled “AI: When a Robot Writes a Play”. The play watched 18 450 devices (perhaps up to 30 000 people).
More...
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One hundred years ago, a play by the Czech author Karel Čapek introduced the word “robot,” telling the story of artificial factory workers designed to serve humans. Now, in a metanarrative twist, a robot itself has written a play. And it premieres online today.
“It’s a kind of futuristic Little Prince,” says dramatist David Košťák, who oversaw the script. Like the classical French children’s book, the 60-minute production—AI: When a robot writes a play—tells the journey of a character (this time a robot), who goes out into the world to learn about society, human emotions, and even death.
The script was created by a widely available artificial intelligence (AI) system called GPT-2. Created by Elon Musk’s company OpenAI, this “robot” is a computer model designed to generate text by drawing from the enormous repository of information available on the internet. (You can test it here.) So far, the technology has been used to write fake news, short stories, and poems. The play is GPT-2’s first theater production, the team behind it claims.
More...
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Computers, at their Turing core, are discrete state machines, i.e. all Turing-complete computers can be sufficiently described by a set of possible discrete states and transition rules (Turing 1936; Hopcroft and Ullman 1979). Importantly, these states are, in the last instance, physical states: configurations of electric charges in the vast integrated circuitry of the hyperobject (Morton 2013) that is the computer. “There is no software”, as Friedrich Kittler famously states (Kittler 2013). Computers are thus fluid, ever-changing objects, jumping from one state to the other, with countless repetitions, loops, and variations.
We find the same kind of objects in theater. We could even say that we find only the same kind of objects in theater: on stage, objects are never static, never resting, always recontextualized with the flow of time. They change when the lighting changes, when the scene changes, when they are picked up or put down. They even change under the gaze of the audience. After all, in the theater, the spectator has the freedom to let their gaze flow freely and focus only on parts of the image that is constructed before them. More importantly however, all of these states are discrete because they are composed. The mis-en-scene establishes a set of theatrical states and transition rules that include each and every thing on stage.
More...
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From the Electric Mouth further capitalizes on the virtual sphere by using technology to speed up the writing process, AI Generation Manager Justin Evans said. As script-writing lead, Evans said there have yet to be any technological challenges despite using AI as a writing tool for the first time. The AI is fed with content from commercials and game shows such as National Public Radio’s “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” he said. These texts are then used to build the machine’s neural network, which takes the content, learns from it and creates a new script.
Using artificial intelligence has accelerated the script process to a roughly one-week period, Evans said, creating more flexibility for ThEM and its global participants. However, he said he still has to keep the unpredictable AI within the realm of what would be interesting to a human audience. The main concern with this technology, he said, is its tendency to favor overly mundane topics, which can derail the entertainment aspect of the project. On the other hand, there is also a risk of the script becoming really random and absurdist, but such abstract elements contribute to the playful goal of the project, Cohen said.
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Annie Dorsen, a Brooklyn-based director and writer, has been named a recipient of the 2019 MacArthur Fellowship. Her work features a blend of theatrical drama and artificial intelligence — and they involve singing laptops, chatbots and an “algorithmic” take on Shakespeare.
The fellowship, often referred to as the “genius” grant, awards $625,000 to “talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits,” according to the MacArthur Foundation, which announced its new recipients Sept. 25.
Theater and A.I. might not seem like a natural pairing, but Dorsen recently told the Los Angeles Times that “the double nature of theater seems very similar to computer-generated language.”
She first got the idea to combine tech and theater after reading the essay, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” which was written in 1950 by Alan Turing. In it, he posits that humans can artificially produce the effect of thinking.
“The relationship between computer science, machine learning and theater is a strong one, and a fertile ground for exploration,” Dorsen told the Los Angeles Times. “Both have to do with the uncertainty between truth and illusion — what you can trust, how you know what you know, and do your eyes deceive you.”
More...
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The use of expanding technology such as AI (artificial intelligence), AR (augmented reality), VR (virtual reality) in theatre today is encouraging and presents wonderful challenges to storytellers throughout the world. Watch as we follow the teams of Krzysztof Garbaczewski of Dream Adoption Society and the creative visionaries behind Frankenstein AI at The Columbia University School of the Arts’ Digital Storytelling Lab develop, demonstrate, and perform with new technology that enhances the audience experience and shows us all what is possible in the next generation of storytelling.
For more information on Digital Storytelling Lab visit http://www.digitalstorytellinglab.com.
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Measuring Audience and Actor Emotions at a Theater Play through Automatic Emotion Recognition from Face, Speech, and Body Sensors
Abstract: We describe a preliminary experiment to track the emotions of actors and audience in a theater play through machine learning and AI. During a forty-minute play in Zurich, eight actors were equipped with body sensing smartwatches. At the same time, the emotions of the audience were tracked anonymously using facial emotion tracking. In parallel, also the emotions in the voices of the actors were assessed through automatic voice emotion tracking. This paper demonstrates a first fully automated and privacy-respecting system to measure both audience and actor satisfaction during a public performance.
More
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Random Plot Generator
The aim of this writing prompt is to help you develop a story-line. When you click the buttons, they will generate two characters, a setting, a situation and a theme. Your job is to put the elements together and come up with an idea for a story.
You can change an element by clicking the button again.
Main character Character 2 Setting Situation Theme Character action
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