Opportuities for Playwrights

 

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*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

Attention Playwrights! Memoriam Development is seeking submissions for our fifth production of ‘Nightshade’ a one act horror anthology show.

This year, in addition to the horror genre, we are adding the theme “Love Can Be a Nightmare”. Delve into the darkest corners of your imagination, or just draw from your own experiences dating in 2023 (it's scary out there) and submit your most sinister, disturbing and macabre stories to our jury.

***

PLAYground Festival seeks TYA plays
The Purple Crayon Players are committed to expanding representation for young people, and see PLAYground as an opportunity to to reflect the diverse experiences of young people today.
Plays must be intended for audiences between 5 and 18 years old, though they are not required to appeal to this entire age range.

***

The Gallery Players in Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York, is seeking plays for its 27th Annual Black Box New Play Festival to be held in January 2024. Each play selected will be given a black box production with non-equity actors. Playwrights must be available, if not in person, via Zoom or some other virtual venue for rehearsals and use this as an opportunity to continue work on their play.

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


*** BARBENHEIMER ~ LIVE ON STAGE ***

Barbenheimer is an Internet phenomenon that began circulating ahead of the simultaneous theatrical release of two blockbusters that have been widely regarded as dissimilar in style and content, Barbie and Oppenheimer, on July 21, 2023...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbenheimer

***

When Nora Helmar slammed the door behind her and walked out of her husband’s home in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, the reverberation echoed through the succeeding century. Since the play’s premiere in 1879, generations of feminists have drawn inspiration from that act of rebellion. Did you know that one of those women was Barbie?

The delightfully twisted vision of Nora in Barbie’s Dreamhouse is the central image of Doll, a new production from Theater Couture, playing through November 19 at PS 122. The high-camp company has come up with equally perverse juxtapositions on previous occasions: Charlie’s Angels working for Charles Manson (Charlie!), for example, or the tabloid story of drag queen Dorian Corey, who had a mummified corpse in her closet crossed with Edgar Alan Poe (Tell-Tale). This time, Ibsen’s classic is dragged kicking and screaming into the next century decked in the trappings of Mattel’s popular plastic toy. “There’s going to be some serious pink!” promises Erik Jackson, the playwright.

“This is Barbie pre-Liberation,” explains Jackson, who also penned Charlie! and Tell-Tale. The idea, he reports, came from the show’s director, Joshua Rosenzweig. “He sees Barbie as the first independent woman,” Jackson continues. “This woman was doing her own thing in the 50s and 60s. She was single, she was a stewardess, an astronaut, and a beauty contestant. She owned her dream home and had a dream car. Sure, she saw Ken–but only occasionally, when the mood struck her!”

More...
https://www.theatermania.com/new-york-city-theater/news/barbie-doll_1045.html

***

Ideas are monolithic in the Keen Company’s revival of “In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer.” Heinar Kipphardt’s 1969 play adapts the transcripts of the 1954 governmental inquiry that questioned whether Oppenheimer — known as “the father of the atomic bomb” — was a true patriot or an unrepentant Communist whose hesitancy about the development of U.S. weaponry constituted treason. Trying to consider the entire McCarthy era, Kipphardt explores not only the question of nuclear war but also the roles dissent and nonconformity can play in American democracy.

The play never simplifies its arguments. Every character — including Oppenheimer (Thomas Jay Ryan), the government attorneys arguing over his patriotism and the panel of scientists who will judge him — delivers an intricate speech on war, weaponry or the value of independent thought. Beautifully wrought, these monologues demand close attention as they wend toward their conclusions, and Kipphardt’s writing always offers the reward of a surprising or inflammatory insight.

Everything about Carl Forsman’s production insists on the gravitas of the words. Nathan Heverin’s four-tier, inverse pyramid set creates an imposing chain of command, from judges to defenders to prosecutors to witnesses. Power seems to crash down on Oppenheimer, a lone figure sitting at the bottom of the heap.

More...
https://variety.com/2006/legit/reviews/in-the-matter-of-j-robert-oppenheimer-1200515667/

***

On April 29, 2002, the woman who created Barbie died. I guess I missed the news that day. A New York Times op-ed written about Ruth Handler said that “perhaps Barbie’s most significant attribute is her capacity to make people wonder what she would be like if she were really human. But to imagine Barbie as a real woman is to imagine her subject to time itself. It is to imagine her with real politics, real worries, a constant struggle with the memory of her own once ideal figure. Above all, it is to imagine her with a voice.”

I went to a play this past Friday night called “I Am Barbie,” and we no longer have to imagine Barbie with a voice. She spoke, via actress Ivy Castle-Rush in the titular role, and she had lots to say about her life & times.

Notes from the playwright, Walton Beacham, say:

“Barbie celebrates her 50th birthday by reminiscing about her careers, her relationship with Ken and other characters from her life, who express their own opinions about Barbie. An important motif is Barbie’s breasts as cultural icon, symbol and statement of feminine status, power and vulnerability. Two of the characters, Midge’s mother and Barbie’s creator Ruth, develop breast cancer.”

More on that in a sec.

The play was my introduction to Ruth Handler. I must admit, I’d never given Barbie’s creator much thought. Although more than 1 billion Barbies have been sold in more than 150 countries, and although Barbie even has her own Hall of Fame, in Palo Alto, CA, I never thought much about  her. I have bought Barbie dolls, clothes, and accessories as birthday gifts for Macy’s friends, but knew nothing of Barbie’s story or that of her creator.

More...
https://pinkunderbelly.com/2011/05/23/i-am-barbie/

***

The Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Carson Kreitzer explores the life of one of the greatest American scientific minds of the twentieth century. J. Robert Oppenheimer, the lead scientist in the quest to unlock the secrets of atomic energy in the 1940s, spent the latter part of his life trying to make sense of the impact of his research. Under his direction, a number of the greatest physicists of the day, some Jewish and exiled, where secluded in the American South West and given unprecedented resources to pursue their research. From their work emerged one of the most terrible weapons the world has ever seen—the atomic bomb. Speaking about his work on the project, Oppenheimer famously quoted from the Bhagavad Gita, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” What happens when the pragmatic forces of the military co-opt unshackled scientific freedom?

More...
https://www.browntaps.org/the-love-song-of-j-robert-oppenheimer/

***

Barbie, it turns out, is a brunette. That is, Erin Elizabeth Coors, the actress playing Barbie here, has short-cropped brown hair tucked under her flowing blond wig.

That's right. After 47 years as a perky-breasted plastic prop, and six as an animated fairy-tale princess on the small screen, the consummate pink icon of little-girlhood is breathing, singing, dancing and even flying across the stage in her first live show. Actress Barbie Has a Dark Little Secret

"This one talks and you don't have to press anything," Abby Reinhart, 9, said after the opening performance of "Barbie Live in Fairytopia" here on Saturday at the 80-year-old Palace Theater, the start of a planned two-year tour across 80 cities. "We've never known she would come to life. Now I finally get to hear her in real life."

Taking product placement to new heights, the show -- called a "kidsical" for combining traditional children's-theater interaction with Broadway-caliber costumes and 12 original songs -- is Mattel's latest effort to buttress a brand battered by competition in recent years. Nowadays, a doll is never just a doll but a multimedia experience, so perhaps it was inevitable that Barbie, whose Web site and DVD's already top the charts with the under-6 set, would join Dora the Explorer, the Rugrats and Winnie the Pooh on stages around the country.

More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/03/theater/actresss-dark-secret-remains-secure-in-barbie-live-in-fairytopia.html

***

The most gripping moments in “Oppenheimer,” the sprawling drama by British playwright Tom Morton-Smith about the man dubbed “the father of the atomic bomb,” are the brainstorming meetings of scientists racing against their German counterparts during World War II to invent the most destructive weapon in the history of humanity.

The play, a Royal Shakespeare Company hit that is receiving its American premiere by Rogue Machine Theatre at the Electric Lodge in Venice, doesn’t need any prerequisites. Theater and history majors will find as much to chomp on as engineering students in a script that at times resembles an overstuffed course catalog. While the science isn’t exactly sexy, it’s often dramatically scintillating.

Physics is made fascinating as characters with PhDs and awkward social graces gather to illustrate with their bodies the process of splitting the atom. These eggheads have an electric current running through them as they map out equations, their eyes agog not so much with patriotism as with math.

More...
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/theater/reviews/la-et-cm-oppenheimer-review-20181005-story.html

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The Tylenol Murders

The actress helen Wood and her decline into porn

*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

South Street Players (southstreetplayers.org) is seeking original, short (10 mins preferred, 15 mins maximum) plays for its 13th Annual Tri-State Theatre Festival.

The festival, which receives more than 300 scripts annually, is committed to presenting the finest and most unique original, short plays written by local playwrights from New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. The event also serves as an artistic fundraiser, with all proceeds going to SSP to help maintain its commitment to producing high-quality, extremely engaging theatrical experiences for our audiences.

***

Go Try Play Write - the prompt for the month of July 2023 is:
A poetic meeting prompt. A ten page maximum "meet cute" between two people, but written in some form of poetic verse. This would be like the first meeting between Juliet and Romeo. Free verse, iambic pentameter, haikus, dactylic hexameter, in rhymed couplets, in alliteration, etc. Even rap! Pick a form, state what it is in the title, and make it work for the scene. We know you can do it!

***

L’Esprit Literary Review publishes work written in the fearless, risk-adept, and revolutionary spirit of High Modernism. We accept short fiction, creative non-fiction, novel extracts, drama, literary criticism, book reviews, artwork, and photography. General submissions are currently open.

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


*** 19TH CENTURY MELODRAMA ***

The word "melodrama" derives from "melody [in] drama" (like opera); melodrama at its finest aspires to have the tone and the repetitive waves of building emotion of an opera or a symphony. In melodrama, the plot is sensationalized and emotional and the dialogue is bombastic and sentimental. Characters tend to be thinly sketched, flat Stock Characters (the hero or heroine might face problems from a "homewrecking temptress" or an aristocratic villain). Melodramas are often accomplished by dramatic, emotional music.

It's usually associated with everyone acting like a Large Ham, but it's actually about specific emphasis on any dramatic situation. This is done by amping up the perceived scale and emotional response on everything. Basically, every little hurdle becomes a mountain, every setback a tragedy of Greek proportions, and the official couple will be Star-Crossed Lovers over the tiniest things, usually thanks to outside interference and Poor Communication Kills. The difference between melodrama and drama is that the latter aims for realism; the conflict(s) are based on more logical and reasonable events and usually tend to have more calmer moods.

Note that this isn't the same as stage actors speaking loudly and making broad movements. That's just a necessity of stage acting. This is when the actors portray the characters (or the characters are written as) being akin to teenagers with a very small, Soap Opera scale world. Every success, kiss, and snub will carry the sting of a legendary story. Essentially, what to us would be a pinprick gains the pathos of a rending wound.

More...
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Melodrama

***

The Dog of Montargis

I entered Pixérécourt’s play with the help of three sources: Alexander Lacey’s Pixerécourt and the French Romantic Drama (Toronto: The University of Toronto Press, 1928), Louis James’s “Taking Melodrama Seriously: Theatre, and Nineteenth-Century Studies” (History Workshop no. 3 (Spring 1977): 151-158), and Marvin Carlson’s “The Golden Age of the Boulevard” (The Drama Review: TDR vol. 18 no. 1, Popular Entertainments (March 1974): 25-33). The Dog of Montargis seems to epitomize the genre with its transparent struggle between Aubri (the hero) and Macaire (the villain), its depiction of virtuous love in the amorous coupling of the mute Florio and the young Lucille, and its crew of type characters such as Blaise (the niais who provides local color) and, of course, Dragon, Aubri’s faithful canine friend without whom Macaire would surely get away with his vile deeds.

With that ensemble, the play may appear completely ridiculous for students. But wait! Before we pass judgment, we should watch the trailer for Stephen Spielberg’s War Horse (http://www.youtube.com/v/B7lf9HgFAwQ) and ponder how precisely melodrama has infused popular culture with its simple yet effective depiction of an ordered world in which everyone can tell right from wrong and good from evil.

More...
http://www.theater-historiography.org/2012/03/16/blog4_melodrama-part-2/

***

Suffering, Spectacle, Spells: ‘Harry Potter’ as Vintage Melodrama
The authors of the latest installment have set the Time-Turner back to the 19th century.

When novelist J.K. Rowling, playwright Jack Thorne, and director John Tiffany announced that they were collaborating on a Harry Potter sequel stage play, the idea seemed charmingly old-fashioned. To have a bestselling author decide that the adventures of her beloved hero Harry should be continued as a play, not as a book or film, felt like a throwback to an era when theatre was at the center of pop culture. As it turns out, the resulting play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child—currently selling out on London’s West End, and being mulled for a Broadway transfer, but most available to fans in book form, as a playscript—feels like a throwback in other ways too. In essence, it is a 19th-century melodrama for the 21st century.

More...
https://www.americantheatre.org/2016/09/20/suffering-spectacle-spells-harry-potter-as-vintage-melodrama/

***

“Melodramatic is a derogatory term these days because it’s come to us as a synonym for bad acting,” says Frace, an assistant professor at the school. “But that’s a misunderstanding that I think has come via bad imitation of an external form without really knowing where it came from.”

Where it came from is France, and its glory days were in the 19th century. The Two Orphans was written in 1874 by Frenchmen Adolphe d’Ennery and Eugene Cormon. Like all melodramas, it features fairly straightforward good and evil characters, with the good characters repeatedly getting into dangerous situations from which they must rescue themselves or be rescued.

“Melodrama exists to lead the characters to emotional crises, one after another, just so we can bring the actor downstage into the spotlight for their shining moment where they reveal who they are and what they’ve suffered,” Frace says.

Quite the anathema today, when the most admired actors disappear into their characters and achieve success through understatement. But 19th century France was a different kind of time and place. The spectators for melodramas were poor people who came to the theater to see the actors. And having come, they wanted to see those actors emote. As Frace puts it:

More...
https://www.washington.edu/news/2009/04/23/enter-the-world-of-melodrama-as-it-was-really-done-in-school-of-dramas-the-two-orphans/

***

Hippodrama, horse drama, or equestrian drama is a genre of theatrical show blending circus horsemanship display with popular melodrama theatre. Kimberly Poppiti defines it as, "plays written or performed to include a live horse or horses enacting significant action or characters as a necessary part of the plot." Arthur Saxon defines the form similarly, as “[...] literally a play in which trained horses are considered as actors, with business, often leading actions, of their own to perform.” Evolving from earlier equestrian circus, pioneered by equestrians including, most famously, Philip Astley in the 1760s, it relied on drama plays written specifically for the genre; trained horses were considered actors along with humans and were even awarded leading roles. Anthony Hippisley-Coxe described hippodrama as "a bastard entertainment born of a misalliance between the circus and the theatre ... that actually inhibited the development of the circus".

More...
https://www.horsepropertiesinternational.com/hippodrama

***

The characters in melodrama are all based off of strong stereotypes. The typical scenario in melodrama was as follows: The hero is love with the heroine, and the other way around. The villain, with his sidekick clown, plans to have the heroine for himself via nefarious means (kidnapping, blackmail, etc). The heroine does not love the villain back, and wants to be free of him. The wise and elderly person comes in, and tells the hero where the villain has taken his true love away, and the hero then sets off in attempt to save the heroine. When the rescue is complete, the hero and heroine live happily ever after. Stereotypical “stock” characters remained the same throughout the plot, never developing.

The Hero: male, brave, moral, handsome, reliable (status = middle class +)
The hero is a brave character, who has the potential to do anything. He is the character who will typically save the heroine from her misery via the hands of the villain. The hero will fight the villain in order to get his true love back into his heart.
The hero will enter onto the stage with grand and confident steps. With the first hand leading the way, the other hand will rest on his hip, and the hero will walk in a circle till he reaches his desired position. From there, he will create the teapot stance, by having his hands in the same place, although with first hand ending in a higher position, exclaiming his role as hero. His voice is booming with courage and his head is typically raised up, assuming his status.

More...
https://sites.google.com/marsden-hs.nsw.edu.au/melodrama/stock-characters

***

At the turn of the 18th century, audience were ready to go over the top, and get some really, really dramatic theater in their lives. Like, a dog dueling a man type of dramatic. In London, only two theaters were licensed, but entertainment entrepreneurs figured out that musical entertainments weren't subject to the same restrictions. So, incidental music was invented, and the melodrama was born. And then switched with another infant. And later tied to train tracks, but rescued at the last minute. And so forth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxzz31ww4M4&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtONXALkeh5uisZqrAcPKCee&index=29

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The mob and the porn explosion

*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

 

The Henley Rose Playwright Competition for Women was founded by Yellow Rose Productions, with permission of Beth Henley, to encourage and recognize the new works of female playwrights. The Henley Rose Playwright Competition for Women aims to give voice to the stories of this generation and to bring into the spotlight important works that have been crafted.

***

Livonia Community Theatre is requesting submissions of short plays (approx. 5-20 minutes) for our winter production, LITTLE LOVE STORIES. We are looking for tales of love in all its shapes and forms, whether romantic, platonic, fulfilled or unrequited, and any color of the LGBTQIA+ rainbow.

***

Remy Bumppo seeks translations of foreign-language plays and/or new versions of existing plays, fictions, histories, memoirs, or other source materials. We encourage writers who believe a text needs a fresh voice or particular cultural, political, or social points of view in order to deliver a story to a modern audience.

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

*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

13th Annual National Jewish Playwriting Contest
We are currently seeking unproduced full-length (65+ minutes) plays and musicals that focus on aspects of 21st Century Jewish identity, culture, and ideas, and the complex and intersectional nature of contemporary Jewish life.

***

Women's Playwrights Circle open to women-identified playwrights
Preference will be given to women playwrights who are in PA, NY, NJ, CT, and DE. To be explicit, BIPOC, trans, cis and gender fluid women and those who identify on the spectrum of woman are welcome and encouraged to apply.

The first 100 applications will be considered for a spot in this year's Circle. Out of those who apply, 8-10 playwrights will be chosen to participate. Participation consists of attending up to 36 mandatory weekly (mostly) meetings (over the course of the year) to share pages, receive feedback and to develop their work. The summer session will focus on readings of full-lengths that may/may not be open to the public, depending on the determination of the playwright and the program's director.

***

The EVOLUTION FESTIVAL will present four original works of theater, dance, music, and interdisciplinary performance by NYC-based artists from September 4 to October 1, 2023, at The Center at West Park in New York City.

We are seeking existing works in progress that are ready to share with audiences but have not yet had a world premiere. Works should be evening-length: at least 45 minutes and not more than two hours.

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

Fresh Words-An International Literary Magazine is open for submissions for its Special One Minute Comic Plays Anthology titled 'LAAFTRRRRR'
1. The play should be a 1 minute comic play/monologue.
2. We shall not accept works promoting or glorifying- violence, sexual abuse, racism , hatred or any political ideology.

***

Masque & Spectacle open for submissions for 10-minute plays
While traditional plays are welcome, we are particularly interested in innovative and/or interdisciplinary texts that break new ground, either in relation to their subject matter, or in how the text itself is performed/written/represented on stage.

Playwrights may submit one previously unpublished 10-minute play for consideration. The script should be accompanied by a cover letter, which includes your name, address, phone number, and email address. Proper playwriting format should be used. If you are uncertain about this format, several examples can be found online.

***

Clamour Theatre Company is accepting applications starting 6/19/2023 for Clay & Water 2024, our Sixth Annual Playwrights' Retreat and New Play Reading Series.
Five playwrights will be selected to participate from March 16 - March 22, 2024.

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

The unsolved murder of Judith Mae Anderson

The Chicago Unione Siciliana

Detective Mike Hammond The Cain mirder and informants

Homocide Detective Mike Hammond Was Kennith Hansen a seriel killer

Podcast with Detective Michael Hammond The Ray Ryan Murder Case

Dominick Galiano AKA the Hunk

It was bound to happen The murder of Tony Chiaramonti

Lefty Rosenthal was a snitch

The tale of two Chicago Popes

Deco is wonderful

 

*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

The Northport One-Act Play Festival is an opportunity to showcase one-act plays and offer the theater community an opportunity to produce a performance of those plays.
There is NO FEE to submit an application and play for consideration to be in the Festival. You may submit up to 2 plays for the Festival. A separate application must accompany each play submitted.

***

22nd Annual Pick of the Vine short play festival
Only short plays (under 15 minutes) submitted through this process will be considered.
The THEME for this year’s Festival is: NEW BEGINNINGS
Submissions this year will be scored upon 1) the quality of the writing, 2) producibility, and 3) how well it addresses the theme.

***

FLEAS ON THE DOG SUBMISSIONS OPEN FOR ISSUE 14
Fiction: We take pretty much everything. Mainstream, traditional, literary, barbaric yawps, flash, metafiction, experimental, sci/fi, speculative, fantasy, mystery, micro, nano, grunge, bad (but it better be good!), modernist, post-modernist, spamlit, kitschlit, retro, metro, outsider, novel excerpts, graphic stories, even comics.   Our only criterion is quality.
Plays: Any style up to five acts.

https://www.nycplaywrights.org

The real story behind the Hemingway short story, The KIllers

Giancana moves in on the Black gamblers on the south side

The Daddino's

The wasted life of Jerry Scarpelli, hitman

The begining and end of the Northside Gang

The Gilholley gang, Studdy Looney, Red barker and the battle for Chicago...

The execution of the Car Barn Gang

The Mona Marshall scandal

Bridewell prison 1900-1920s

Foible

  

  

That’s where foible comes in handy. Borrowed from French in the 1600s, the word originally referred to the weakest part of a fencing sword, that part being the portion between the middle and the pointed tip. The English foible soon came to be applied not only to weaknesses in blades but also to minor failings in character. The French source of foible is also at a remove from the fencing arena; the French foible means "weak," and it comes from the same Old French term, feble, that gave us feeble.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS

  

 

*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

For spring/summer 2023, City Fox Books is looking to publish a limited series of full-length plays written for stage. We would like to see plays which are unconventional, and are particularly interested in plays which are surreal, experimental, absurdist, existentialist or politically subversive in nature. Plays must have at least 2 characters.

***

Emerging Artists Theatre (EAT) is seeking submissions for their Fall Spark Theatre Festival NYC. The festival is scheduled to run October 30th through November 19th.
Spark Theatre Festival NYC showcases polished works-in-progress. Many of the pieces that are showcased at the festival are being presented in front of an audience for the first time. Each participant is given the option of doing a talkback following their performance, where they are given the chance to ask the audience for feedback on their work.

***

The Advance Theatre Festival showcases dramatic readings of five new plays written and directed by female identifying and gender non- conforming IBPOC playwrights and directors, and a workshop presentation. If you are a playwright and your play is chosen to participate in the Advance Theatre Festival, Ruby Slippers Theatre in partnership with The Shadbolt Centre for the Arts will cover the costs of all rehearsals prior to the day of the reading, your technical rehearsal, promotion, theatrical venue, and all artists’ fees.


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


*** PULITZER PRIZE IN DRAMA 2023 ***

You are a writer, and you wrote a play about language. What did you learn about words?

I feel incredibly insecure about both my English and Farsi speaking abilities — I feel like I know 50 percent of each language, and I feel like I’m always bombing job interviews because the words never come to me in the way that I want them to come to me. This play was, of course, so much about my parents and immigrants and hoping that we can extend grace to people who are trying to express themselves in a language they didn’t grow up speaking, but I think it was also a reminder to be kind to myself.

What is it like to watch the play with audiences who are, presumably, mostly not Iranian Americans?

It’s light torture to watch your play with an audience around you. I just watch them watch the play. I remember in New York when we did it, it was hard to feel like we were getting the wrong kinds of laughs some nights. But I also have been really moved by the non-Iranian audiences who have come to see the play and have found themselves in it. That’s what you ask of an audience, and that’s beautiful.

More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/09/theater/sanaz-toossi-pulitzer-prize-english.html

***

“Someone said to me once, when they were talking about [Wish You Were Here], they were like, ‘The way these women talk, you’re making a point, right? That Muslim women, Middle Eastern women, speak this way,’” Toossi recalls, visibly perturbed. “Is it making a point when you’re just representing your own life? I don’t know. I just feel like that’s only something that would be tagged on a playwright of color, like, ‘Oh, you’re making a point talking about the very basic aspects of your life.’” And then she said something that was both brutally accurate and entirely unexpected, given the calmness of her tone: “People are more comfortable seeing, in a Middle Eastern play, a sexual assault onstage than a woman having her own period.”

That kind of out-of-left-field-but-so-truthful-it-hurts sensibility peppers Toossi’s plays too. Her breakout hit English takes place in a classroom in Iran, where citizens of different ages are learning English. It’s a concept rife for laughs, linguistic misunderstanding being well-worn fodder for comedy. Audiences do laugh initially: at students playing word games or having basic conversations in accented English about their favorite color. This lulls us into a state of comfort, though, for simple but powerful truths that knock us off our axis. As when the teacher, Marjan, remarks on the difficulty of keeping two languages in her brain: “My English, my Farsi—these two languages, they [war] in my head. And the Farsi is winning. Do you know, sometimes I think you can only speak one language? You can know two but…I feel like I’m disappearing.” Here, the bracket represents a word the character cannot find—a hyper-realistic flourish that mirrors how in real life, unlike in a play, it’s not always possible to find the right words.

More...
https://www.americantheatre.org/2022/04/28/sanaz-toossi-can-we-talk/

***

In 2018, Sanaz Toossi, the playwright, emailed me and asked if I could read for a part in her then thesis at NYU, called ENGLISH. I thought it was a beautiful role. I’ve done multiple readings of it throughout the years, including a zoom reading during the pandemic. Then in 2021, I saw the news that it was coming to the Atlantic. While I was not certain that the role would go to me, I was proud that the world was going to experience this play. Then, I was asked to come in for a work session with the creative team, and while it’s intimidating to have 15 people, in masks, silently judging your work, I thought to myself that I will do the role as I had done it before and live in its truth as I felt and experienced it. I approached the audition from the point of view that “this is what I’d do in the role if you give me the opportunity,” which frees you to be who you see the character to be in that moment, while giving you the freedom to change and receive direction as though you’re in rehearsal.

That’s how I like to approach my auditions. Working on an audition as though you’re already working on the project and not just auditioning for it, gives you more ease, confidence, and openness to be present and guided.

More...
https://frontmezzjunkies.com/2022/02/15/actress-activist-pooya-mohseni-on-her-role-in-sanaz-toossis-english/

***

If you were to peruse Sanaz Toossi’s Instagram you would find a recent headshot with the tongue-in-cheek caption, “i am an extremely serious artist.” She stares into the camera, head tilted, with a wistful gaze and with a gold necklace pulling focus from her dark black hair. The pendant, hanging on the gold chain, is Sanaz’s own name in Farsi.  

When asked about her views on language, Toossi said “I love that language fails us. It should.” She went on to describe her acceptance of the limitations of language. “I’ve tried to learn to be comfortable with the inability to fully encapsulate something”  

Toossi’s writing beautifully makes space for the limitations of language. When told by an interviewer that her use of language evokes a sense of homesickness, she responded “I’ve been looking for that term for a really long time because I think it defines all of my work. Homesickness.”  

Sanaz Toossi grew up in Orange County, California, always aware of her family's home in Iran. She was raised in a bilingual household, with parents whose native language was Farsi. “I was a weird theatre kid,” she said of her youth. “When I started writing plays, I was trying to bridge the gap between my Iranian-ness and my American-ness.”

Toossi went on to earn an MFA in playwright from NYU and had two Off Broadway plays premiere this year, at the age of 30. Toossi’s first play to receive a major production was English, which was set to premiere in 2020, but was postponed to 2022 due to the COVID pandemic. Called “a rich new play” by the New York Times, English is set in Iran in 2008 and follows four adults in an English language class as they anxiously prepare to take the Test of English as a Foreign Language (commonly known as TOEFL). One student, Roya, is in the class so she can learn English to speak with her granddaughter, who was raised in “The Canada” and doesn’t know Farsi.  

When the characters of English speak their native language, the audience hears it translated as English, without an accent. Whenever the students speak English, the audience hears English spoken with their accent. When asked about this theatrical approach, Toossi said “I'd played with this conceit before when trying to write a family drama. I grew up in a bilingual household, and I felt that for an audience to truly empathize with my [native Farsi-speaking] characters, I couldn't actually write dialogue in Farsi, because the Farsi would act as a barrier to understanding the characters' inner lives.” English was developed over multiple years, and Toossi’s perspective has shifted in this time. “I've changed my mind about this. I love hearing different languages onstage. It certainly does not keep me from engaging. And in a way, I was re-enforcing the notion of non-English as ‘other.’" Ultimately, her goal was to write a comedic and honest portrayal of the anxiety of trying to be understood.

More...
https://www.studiotheatre.org/plays/play-detail/2022-2023-english/Sanaz-Toossi-profile

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LEAH REDDY: What is your theatre origin story? How did you come to playwriting?

SANAZ TOOSSI: I was a weird theatre kid, so I had always loved and gravitated to theatre. After I graduated college, I had a bit of a meltdown; I felt my life going in a direction that scared me. So I decided to take a leap.

LR: What inspired you to write English?

ST: A lot: the disrespect for immigrants, my own insecurities over my English and Farsi-speaking abilities, how devastating it is not to be understood.

LR: I’m struck by the approach you took to having the characters - all of whom are native Farsi-speakers - speak unaccented English to indicate that they’re speaking Farsi, and accented English when they’re speaking English in the play. Can you tell us how you landed on this approach?

ST: I'd played with this conceit before when trying to write a family drama. I grew up in a bilingual household, and I felt that for an audience to truly empathize with my (native Farsi-speaking) characters, I couldn't actually write dialogue in Farsi, because the Farsi would act as a barrier to understanding the characters' inner lives. I've changed my mind about this. I love hearing different languages onstage. It certainly does not keep me from engaging. And in a way, I was re-enforcing the notion of non-English as "other." Still, this conceit works for English, because to understand the difficulty of the English, you really have to understand the comfort of the Farsi and thus the tragedy of being robbed of your mother tongue.

More...
https://www.roundabouttheatre.org/get-tickets/upstage-guides-current/english/playwright-sanaz-toossi/

***

Of course, that’s the difference between language as hobby and language as destiny. These Iranian students’ future depends on passing the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). The anxiety and fear of failing permeates the actors’ performances, and there’s something else they’re even better at communicating: resentment. “English” was conceived as Toossi’s MFA thesis, and running around the edges of her play is the inherent patriarchy of formal education. Toossi tweaks that indictment by having the teacher be female, but the subjugation of the students by an illiberal force propagating Western culture remains. That’s tyranny. The other choice is chaos — let the students run the classroom and no one learns. “English” explores the tyranny, but fudges the chaos. For example, left unexplained is how one incompetent student eventually aces her test.

Theatergoers should know that “English” breaks through the shackles of that language by having the entire final scene spoken in Farsi. Surtitles are not provided. The last time I saw an English-language work with an entire scene performed in another language was Adam Guettel and Craig Lucas’ otherwise wonderful “The Light in the Piazza” in 2005. The idea is to put us in the uncomfortable position of the character(s). But we’re not in Italy, we’re not in Iran. We’re in a theater, and the feeling communicated is “I could be home watching ‘Jame Jam’ instead.”

More...
https://www.thewrap.com/english-off-broadway-review-sanaz-toossis-play-gets-lost-in-translation/

***

Marjan, who lived in the U.K., in the northern English city of Manchester, for nine years, tries to defuse the hostility, claiming, “English is not to be conquered. Embrace it. You can be all the things you are in Farsi in English, too. I always liked myself better in English.” But, she admits, for those nine years she was called “Mary,” not her real name, even though she said she liked it. “Marjan is not hard to say,” says Elham. “Our mothers get to name us. Not foreigners,” says Roya.

Marjan persists, sensing her pupils’ frustration at inviting “a foreign language into your body,” but she asks that in this classroom “we are not Iranian.” She wants them during the classes to “let go” of their Iranian-ness.

This isn’t easy. We see Roya trying to call her son, and not only stumbling over words, but over the distance—geographical and emotional—those stumbling words have come to emblemize. It is too much for her, asking Marjan why she treats Farsi like “a stench after a long day’s work.” She refuses to play along in a show-and-tell, defiantly bringing traditional Iranian music into class. “This is my song,” she says, sitting ramrod straight in her chair.

Elham wishes for a global history that had led to the primacy of the Persian Empire. Instead of being told to speak American, “All of us would speak Farsi.” They may agree about this, but Roya also says Elham is so obnoxious personally, in an English context she will have “no redeeming qualities.” This may be true, but Ashe adeptly makes all of Elham’s jagged edges—and there are many—totally understandable. Indeed, we cheer for her when she finally beats know-it-all Omid in a game of “Things you find in a kitchen.”

There are various twists as the play moves towards its conclusion, not cravenly deployed, but in the quiet, wry spirit of the play itself as it continues to question the relationships of language, identity, and place. It does not reach firm or didactic conclusions.

More...
https://www.thedailybeast.com/english-is-one-of-the-best-plays-in-new-york-right-now

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