NGC 2174, Mystic Mountain
Welcome
John William Tuohy lives in Washington DC
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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OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
The American Playwriting Foundation is accepting applications for The 2023
“Picket Plays,” a Ten Minute Play Award created to support WGA writers who are
unable to work due to the current strike.
Six ten minute plays will be chosen by our selection committee, and each
winning writer will be awarded $10,000. The winning plays will be performed at
Theatre Row by a company of Relentless actors, who may include Wayne Brady,
Billy Crudup, Vincent D’Onofrio, Gina Gershon, Walton Goggins, Ethan Hawke,
Natasha Lyonne, Sam Rockwell, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Liev Schreiber, Yul Vazquez,
and others. Additionally, five finalist plays will be selected and awarded
$1000 each.
***
Veterans Repertory Theater (VetRep) is launching a full-length play competition
for playwrights who meet one of the following criteria:
~ current or former US military, law enforcement, fire, EMS, foreign service,
or intelligence service veteran OR
~ immediate family member of a current or former military, law enforcement,
fire, EMS, foreign service or intelligence service veteran (“immediate family
member” means: parents, siblings, children and spouse.)
***
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.
August 2023 prompt: A super powers prompt. Write a ten page maximum scene or a
five page maximum monologue about a society where everyone has the same super
power, but one individual loses that power. The scene is about incidents that
happen to that individual, or the monologue is about what goes through their
mind as they deal with their new existence.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site
at https://www.nycplaywrights.org
***
*** GATSBY IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN ***
The copyright on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby expired on the first
stroke of 2021 and the book entered the public domain.
The classic 1925 novel of love foiled, ambitions foisted, class and betrayal
sold fewer than 25,000 copies before Fitzgerald died. It has since sold nearly
30 million. I gave our daughter the copy I had in high school when she read it
last year. The Great Gatsby has been turned into stage productions, an opera,
five film versions, a Taylor Swift song and inspired innumerable prequels,
spinoffs and variations.
More...
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/02/952737126/opinion-the-great-gatsby-enters-public-domain-but-it-already-entered-our-hearts
***
Finally set loose in the public domain, “Gatsby” is now the common property of
creative artists and unscrupulous entrepreneurs who will run faster, stretch
out their arms farther. We’ll see new illustrated editions, scholarly editions,
cheap knockoff editions (beware) and editions with introductions by John
Grisham and others. Fitzgerald’s lines could make their way into more songs,
plays and operas. I suspect Nick will finally come out of the closet, and those
East Egg lushes will reappear in the 1420s, the 1720s and space. We might
endure radical movie adaptations that will make us nostalgic even for Baz
Luhrmann’s authorized desecration in 2013.
Among the authors who waited for Fitzgerald’s copyright to expire is Michael
Farris Smith. Several years ago, he conceived the bold and arduous project of
writing a prequel to “The Great Gatsby.” Now unencumbered by legal
restrictions, he’s published “Nick,” a story about the years leading up to Nick
Carraway’s move to Long Island, where he falls under the spell of that charming
gangster.
More...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/for-gatsby-fans-2021-will-be-the-start-of-remakes-first-up-nick/2020/12/28/a6c7256a-4921-11eb-a9d9-1e3ec4a928b9_story.html
***
In the formerly deserted ballroom of a Midtown Manhattan hotel, on a morning in
early May, work lights shone on piles of tile and metal debris. A gramophone
stood atop a table beside bolts of shimmering cloth. Artificial flowers spilled
from bins. A stack of old-timey suitcases reached the ceiling. Plastic coated
the carpets. Dust coated the plastic. In just a month, the doors of this space
were scheduled to open onto opulent interiors, meant to evoke the moneyed New
York of a century ago. For now, I counted a dozen separate folding ladders and
choked on the particulate swirling in the air of this construction zone. Ain’t
we got fun.
This was the intended site of the Gatsby Mansion, the setting of the “The Great
Gatsby: The Immersive Show,” a theatrical performance of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s
1925 novel that opens on Sunday at the Park Central Hotel, the latest in a very
long, heavily sequined line of “Gatsby” adaptations. That novel — yearning,
lyrical, mordant — tells the story of Jay Gatsby, a millionaire bootlegger and
minor gangster, who remakes himself in a disastrous attempt to win Daisy
Buchanan, the society girl he once loved.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/19/theater/great-gatsby-immersive-nyc.html
***
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s legendary novel The Great Gatsby comes to new life in
this world-premiere musical with a score by international rock star Florence
Welch (Florence + The Machine) and Oscar and Grammy Award nominee Thomas
Bartlett (Doveman), and a book by Pulitzer Prize winner Martyna Majok (Cost of
Living).
Gatsby is staged by Tony Award-winning director Rachel Chavkin (Hadestown;
Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812; Moby-Dick) with choreography by
Tony Award winner Sonya Tayeh (Moulin Rouge!).
Gatsby will be produced at American Repertory Theater by special arrangement
with Amanda Ghost and Len Blavatnik for Unigram/Access Entertainment, and
Jordan Roth, in association with Robert Fox. Hannah Giannoulis serves as
co-producer.
More...
https://americanrepertorytheater.org/shows-events/gatsby/
***
Korean producer Chunsoo Shin has announced the creative team set to adapt the
novel for a Broadway-bound stage musical. The project will feature music and
lyrics by Tony nominees Nathan Tysen (Paradise Square) and Jason Howland
(Beautiful: The Carole King Musical), and a book by Jonathan Larson Grant
winner Kait Kerrigan (The Mad Ones). Marc Bruni (Beautiful: The Carole King
Musical) is attached to direct, with Mark Shacket of Foresight Theatrical
serving as executive producer. A private industry reading of the musical will
take place this December, and a regional production is being planned for the
2023-24 season.
More...
https://www.theatermania.com/broadway/news/great-gatsby-musical-broadway-bound_94624.html/
***
Why do we keep reading The Great Gatsby? Why do some of us keep taking our time
reading it? F. Scott Fitzgerald kept it short. A week is unwarranted. It should
be consumed in the course of a day. Two at most. Otherwise, all the mystery
seeps away, leaving Jay Gatsby lingering, ethereal but elusive, like cologne
somebody else is wearing.
I have read The Great Gatsby four times. Only in this most recent time did I
choose to attack it in a single sitting. I’m an authority now. In one day, you
can sit with the brutal awfulness of nearly every person in this book—booooo,
Jordan; just boo. And Mr. Wolfsheim, shame on you, sir; Gatsby was your friend.
In a day, you no longer have to wonder whether Daisy loved Gatsby back or
whether “love” aptly describes what Gatsby felt in the first place. After all,
The Great Gatsby is a classic of illusions and delusions. In a day, you reach
those closing words about the boats, the current, and the past, and rather than
allow them to haunt, you simply return to the first page and start all over
again. I know of someone—a well-heeled white woman in her midsixties—who reads
this book every year. What I don’t know is how long it takes her. What is she
hoping to find? Whether Gatsby strikes her as more cynical, naive, romantic, or
pitiful? After decades with this book, who emerges more surprised by Nick’s
friendship with Gatsby? The reader or Nick?
More...
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2021/01/11/why-do-we-keep-reading-the-great-gatsby/
***
What inspired you to write ‘Gatsby?”
Well, the truth? I was put on contract. But, in terms of actually writing,
because I think there is such a thing that happens because of adaptations where
you’re sitting in front of this piece of work that someone has already poured
countless hours and bits of their life, you know, poured themselves into this
piece of writing and you are just sitting in front of it and now it’s your job
to do something with it. That can be incredibly intimidating, especially when
the someone who did all of that pouring of affection is Scott Fitzgerald. I
think I must have sat down and read “The Great Gatsby" about three times
before I let myself put any words on the paper. It was a lot of research on the
front end and a lot of just burying myself into any Gatsby I could get my hands
on: any adaptations, any analysis, research, research papers, people’s just
offhand thoughts. I was just collecting. I was like a sponge. I had to get all
of it and then finally after three months into all of it I was like OK we’ve
just got to sit down and write it. So then I started writing.
How long did it take you?
The rough draft was a matter of about a week or two. I think because I could
practically see the arc of myself writing it before I actually sat down because
I had already frontloaded all of this extra work. I wasn't having to stop in the
middle and look something up because I already knew. I had already looked it up
in advance.
More...
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FpF8GX9o-OeVX_fIM-C2cgj2cTJysZcklWF-qHvTxQg/edit
***
THE GREAT GATSBY at Project Gutenberg
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64317
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*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
For many years Steppenwolf Theatre Company has accepted unsolicited
submissions every July and August from Chicagoland writers only, but as of two
years ago, we now accept unsolicited submissions from unrepresented talent
everywhere, which has greatly increased our pool. In recognition of our
commitment to fostering unrepresented voices, during the months of July and
August, we invite unrepresented writers to submit a sample of their work to the
Steppenwolf Literary team using the form below. We look forward to learning
more about you and your artistry!
***
Calling all thespians! Harwood Museum of Art seeks 10-minute original plays on
the theme of “Harwood 100: Reflecting on Our Legacy. Envisioning the Future”
for production in January 2024.
The performing arts have been an integral part of the Harwood since its early years.
John Gaw Meem’s 1938 building addition included a communal theater room on the
second story. For over seventy years, this theater hosted hundreds of locally
created events and plays. The Harwood 100 Playwriting Competition is an homage
to this tradition and a community invitation to be part of telling the story of
the Harwood, its collections, and Taos history.
***
As Urban Stages (NYC) celebrates its 40th-anniversary season, we are thrilled
to announce a new play festival and invite submissions.
We are now accepting full-length plays that require 2 actors. Winning plays
will receive a staged reading in January-February 2024 and will be seriously
considered for a full production on our Off-Broadway stage.
Cast and Character Size: For this festival, we are interested in plays that
work within the confines of a two-actor cast. However, there is no limit to the
number of characters a play can contain as long as there is doubling, and two
actors can perform the entire play. es who will grace our stages for years to
come.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site
at https://www.nycplaywrights.org
***
*** THE FABULOUS INVALID ***
In just the past few months, major regional theaters in Chicago and Los Angeles
have suspended performances until at least next year, while New York’s famed
Public Theater canceled its beloved Under the Radar festival and laid off 19
percent of its staff.
These losses and many others have inspired renewed calls for the government to
save America’s nonprofit professional theaters. What strikes me about these
calls isn’t that they’ve been sounded time and again to no avail. It’s that
there are still people who believe that these institutions — struggling in
cities big and small across the country — should be rescued in their current
form.
That’s not to say the government shouldn’t fund the arts. Of course it should,
especially in times of profound crisis such as these. Art is a vital national
concern: It gives us meaning It’s the food of the soul. And we’re going to need
well-fed souls in the years ahead.
But too many theaters have ceased to serve this function. The closings,
cancellations and plummeting ticket sales — only worsened by the pandemic —
attest to that. Theater leaders should read the writing on the wall instead of
continuing to beat on a closed door.
More...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/09/how-to-save-american-theater/
***
Seattle’s ACT Contemporary Theater has reduced the length of each show’s run by
a week. In Los Angeles, the Geffen Playhouse will no longer schedule
performances on Tuesdays, its slowest night. Philadelphia’s Arden Theater
Company expects to give 363 performances next season, down from 503
performances the season before the pandemic.
Why is this happening? Costs are up, the government assistance that kept many
theaters afloat at the height of the pandemic has mostly been spent, and
audiences are smaller than they were before the pandemic, a byproduct of
shifting lifestyles (less commuting, more streaming), some concern about the
downtown neighborhoods in which many large nonprofit theaters are situated
(worries about public safety), and broken habits (many former patrons,
particularly older people, have not returned).
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/23/theater/regional-theater-crisis.html
***
Theater has always been a risky endeavor. Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Dangling
Conversation” asked “Is the theater really dead?” back in 1966. The current
situation, however, risks building to an unprecedented crisis: the shuttering
of theaters across the country and a permanent shrinking of the possibilities
of the American stage. For those of us in New York, it might be easy to look at
Broadway’s return to pre-Covid audience numbers and think it signals something
like normal. But Broadway in its current form depends on nonprofit theaters to
develop material and support artists. Nonprofit theaters are where many recent
hits — including “A Strange Loop” and “Hamilton,” both of which won Pulitzer
Prizes — started out.
So how do we avoid this catastrophe? Just as in other areas of recent American
life where entire industries were imperiled — banks, the auto industry — this
crisis requires federal intervention.
That’s right: The American nonprofit theater needs a bailout.
Regional and nonprofit theaters were in trouble well before 2020 and the force
majeure of the pandemic. Most regional and nonprofit theaters were built on a
subscription model, in which loyal patrons paid for a full season of tickets
upfront. Foundation grants, donations and single ticket sales made up the
balance of the budgets.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/19/opinion/theater-collapse-bailout.html
***
One morning last August I visited Williams College in Massachusetts to teach a
workshop on “building a life in the arts” with a group of racially,
geographically, and economically diverse young people working at the
Williamstown Theatre Festival. Later that night I attended a show at the
theater, where I saw these idealistic apprentices taking tickets from,
ushering, and selling merchandise to an overwhelmingly white audience—mostly
over 60 and, judging by appearances, quite well-off. The social and cultural
distance between the aspiring artists at Williamstown and their theater-going
audience couldn’t have been more pronounced. This gulf is quite familiar to
most producers and practitioners of the performing arts in America; it plays
out nightly at regional theaters, ballets, symphonies, and operas across the
country.
The current state of the arts in this country is a microcosm of the state of
the nation. Large, mainstream arts institutions, founded to serve the public
good and assigned non-profit status to do so, have come to resemble exclusive
country clubs. Meanwhile, outside their walls, a dynamic new generation of artists,
and the diverse communities where they live and work, are being systematically
denied access to resources and cultural legitimation.
More...
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/01/the-state-of-public-funding-for-the-arts-in-america/424056/
***
The Great White Way has already become a kind of Disney World with dirt and
real crime, an attraction that the people who used to support it can afford to
visit only once a year. Even if Broadway is cleaned up, the author argues, the
changes in New York City guarantee that it will never be what it was
A CITY IS A MACHINE THAT WORKS BY INERTIA. By virtue of their solidity and
expense, large buildings act as a brake on social change. Each one, from the
most squalid tenement to the ritziest hotel, represents a way of life that has
jelled into just this form and is jealous of its right to continue as is. Thus
neighborhoods in the process of gentrification acquire graffiti threatening
death to yuppie invaders, and all bastions of privilege hire doormen to defend
them from riffraff. Finally, however, no single building, no street, no
neighborhood, can hold its own against the glacial advance of larger social
forces.
Right now such a social glacier is poised at the edge of New York City’s
already much eroded theater district. For many decades inertial real-estate
values, abetted by landmark-designation legislation, have earned Broadway the
dubious epithet “Fabulous Invalid.” In the nineties the Fabulous Invalid is
destined to become the Inglorious Corpse, and the Great White Way to become a
graveyard for great white elephants, as, one by one, the thirtysix theaters
left in the Broadway area find themselves unable to attract either shows or
audiences.
More...
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1991/03/the-death-of-broadway/669591/
***
The most conclusive evidence that the source of the theater's financial
problems is to be found elsewhere is the proportion of the budget allocated to
the stagehands' unions. When we examined actual accountants' statements for a
sample of Broadway productions, we found that outlays for stage crews
constituted well under per cent of either production operating costs in every
case, and in fact were closer to 2.5 per cent of total operating costs. In
effect, if one could eliminate not only featherbedding outlays but the entire expenditure
for stage crews, it would mean only a 3 or 4 per cent reduction in total
costs—certainly not the difference between a hit production and one that is a
financial catastrophe.
A second symptom which has misled some diagnosticians is the notion that greedy
theater owners and/or producers keep audiences away by charging astronomically
high admission fees in order to rake in excessive profits. In the first place,
it must be said that even commercial theater is no gold mine for most of its
entrepreneurs and investors. Those in the business estimate that no more than
one in six or seven productions ends up as a “hit.”
In the second place, the charge of profiteering is not substantiated by the
level of ticket prices, although there is no question but that the price of
theater seats has risen. An orchestra seat at a musical comedy now costs from
$12 to $15, while in 1926.27—Broadway's heyday in terms of total number of
productions—the same seat cost about $4.50, or a third of what it costs today.
However, in 1926 the dollar was worth about 2⅔ as much as it is today. Thus,
after inflation, the present price of theater tickets has hardly risen at all
relative to the general price level. Indeed, since per capita income has risen
some 2½ times in purchasing power during this period, it is certainly not true
that potential patrons are less able to afford the theater today than they were
in the “good old days.”
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/06/02/archives/what-ails-the-fabulous-invalid-its-not-what-you-think-what-really.html
***
Kaufman and Hart coined the phrase "the fabulous invalid" to describe
the resilience of the theater despite continual pronouncements of its demise.
In 1940, The New York Times referred to it as "a fond phrase that will
probably stick," and the phrase has indeed entered the vernacular.[9][8]
In his 2001 biography of Hart, Steven Bach wrote that the play's title was
"the most enduring thing about it."[6]
More...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fabulous_Invalid
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*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
Sundog is seeking new/original, one-act plays about our favorite boats, the
Staten Island Ferries. Original plays not previously produced or published,
with a signed note affirming that. 10-25 minutes in length and set on the
Staten Island Ferry (Note: they are not performed on the Ferry).
Set in a contemporary time period. Strong priority will be given to plays with
2 characters, however, 3-character plays will be considered. No special set
pieces other than benches or railings found on the Ferry, limited and easily
accessible props/costumes, and no unusual sound or lighting effects.
***
Fifteenth Street Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, a Quaker meeting
in NYC, seeks plays about the contribution Black women made in 19th-century
America.
***
Topanga Actors Company is currently accepting submissions for its second Short
Play Festival to be performed at the Topanga Library in Topanga Canyon,
California on November 4 & 5 and November 18 & 19, 2023
Submissions for the festival are open to playwrights worldwide, but plays
should be aimed at an English-speaking audience.
Pieces should be original ten- to- fifteen minute plays; stand-alone shorts.
Any theme, any genre, no musicals. We are looking for up to 20 short plays.
Following established TAC protocols, plays will be presented as enhanced staged
readings.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site
at https://www.nycplaywrights.org
***
*** SOME LIKE IT HOT ***
The film was inspired by a 1935 French farce titled Fanfare d’Amour (Fanfare Of
Love), about two musicians, Jean (Fernand Gravey) and Pierre (Julien Carette)
who, unable to find work, dress as women to get the only job they can find in
an all-women band. Both men fall in love with band members, complicating
matters and necessitating hilarious quick changes between dresses and suits.
When a theatre owner falls in love with Pierre it eventually blows their
secret. In the film, Gravey’s love interest, bandleader Gaby, was played by
Australian actor Betty Stockfeld.
The story and screenplay were co-written by German screenwriters Michael Logan
and Robert Thoeren, who had fled Germany in 1933 after the Nazis came to power.
After the war they returned to Germany and in 1951 remade the film as Fanfaren
der Lieben. In that version two men, Hans and Peter, alternate between wearing
black face to work in an all-black jazz group and wearing dresses to work in an
all-female band.
More...
https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/some-like-it-hot-survived-an-unpunctual-and-forgetful-marilyn-monroe-to-become-a-movie-classic/news-story/2031000ebee0a84b9ea8b17386811f33
***
Exerpt from Fanfare d'Amour (in French)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-EVRQhpbYs
***
With his pants off and his flapper skirts and wig on, Curtis was ill at ease
when filming began he walked onto the set markedly discomposed. Lemmon,
however, clomped on to the set waving happily to the crew and introducing
himself with “Hi, I’m Daphne!” “You create a shell and you crawl into
it,” is the way he later described it.
The shells he and Curtis created in Some Like It Hot were designed in
part by one of the twentieth-century’s preeminent drag artists, Barbette, whom
Billy fondly remembered from his own days in Berlin and Paris, and was lured
out of semi-retirement (at Wilder’s behest) to teach Lemmon and Curtis how to
effectively transform themselves - not into women, but into drag queens. Wilder
flew Barbette in from Texas to train Lemmon and Curtis in the art of female
impersonation. It wasn’t just a matter of seeing to it that their chests
were properly shaved, their eyebrows plucked to the correct degree, their hips
padded just so. Barbette’s lessons were those of a performance artist,
not a costumer. She taught them, tried to teach them, how to walk: about
how you cross your legs in front of each other slightly, which forces your hips
to swing out, subtly but noticeably, with each step. Tony Curtis was a perfect
student as far as Barbette was concerned. Under her tutelage, Curtis’s
Josephine was a model of classic, discreet femininity. Lemmon, however,
couldn’t be taught. Daphne was a disaster. Lemmon wouldn’t follow Barbette’s
rules.
More...
https://www.kurtfstone.com/new-blog/2019/11/2/glimpses-behind-the-silver-screen-some-like-it-hot
***
As far as I’m concerned Some Like it Hot is a perfect comedy. Part screwball,
part spoof of 1930’s gangster films, part romance, part musical, and filmed in
glorious black and white at the iconic beachfront Hotel Del Coronado in San
Diego. Throw in the flawless chemistry of the perfectly cast leads – Tony
Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Marilyn Monroe – under the direction of the brilliant
Billy Wilder, and one cannot help but expect comedic perfection.
The plot centers around Curtis and Lemmon as Chicago jazz musicians who
accidentally witness Chicago’s 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Escaping the
mob, they find sanctuary with Sweet Sue’s Society Syncopators, an all-girls
jazz orchestra conveniently leaving Chicago for a three week gig in Florida. In
order to ‘hide in plain sight’ as members of the troop however, the two men
must pose as women. Enter the Achilles heel of their plan in the form of
the luscious Marilyn Monroe as the innocent yet voluptuous and distracting
Sugar Kane, and the stage is set for a beautifully choreographed plot of
intertwining complications.
Based on the 1935 French film Fanfare of Love, Billy Wilder and writer I.A.L.
Diamond modernized the tale which follows two out of work musicians looking for
employment during the depression – the twist was added by Wilder who introduced
the gangster sub-plot, adding urgency and comedy to the original storyline.
More...
https://footeandfriendsonfilm.com/2020/03/02/revisiting-some-like-it-hot-1959/
"Some
Like It Hot" movie available on Daily Motion for free.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x800zxs
***
The comic premise of straight men disguised in drag flopped with audiences in
the recent Broadway musical versions of Tootsie (about a struggling actor
trying to succeed by pretending to be female) and Mrs. Doubtfire (a divorced
man dressing as a nanny to be near his kids). Enlightened audiences didn’t want
to see drag (and female identities) co-opted by cisgender hetero men in order
to sneakily achieve their male goals. But the new Broadway musical remake of
Some Like It Hot has found a way around that pitfall. While the classic 1959
Billy Wilder movie centers on two straight male musicians on the lam and hiding
out as part of an all-girl band after witnessing a gangland massacre, the stage
version takes pains to include an evolution for one of those characters, which
I’ll get to later. (Spoiler alert!) The Republicans who’ve been demonizing drag
queens—but only queer ones; they’re not about to cancel Milton Berle
reruns—will be uncomfortable here, and will retreat back to the movie instead.
And that’s OK with me, especially since this delectable show looks to be a big,
spangled hit anyway.
The film is a raucous romp that derives a lot of pleasure from the fact that
two big movie stars—Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon—were prancing around in dresses
at a time when that was still considered over the top and subversive. In the
RuPaul’s Drag Race era, when people around the globe know how to “Sissy that
walk”—and when trans people are now heroes who stomp shooters with their
heels—the musical’s two leads may be less shocking, but they are even more
appealing.
More...
https://www.villagevoice.com/2022/12/11/review-updating-and-upgrading-the-movie-broadways-some-like-it-hot-hits-all-the-right-notes/
***
"Nobody's Perfect" - The Making of 'Some Like It Hot' with Monroe,
Curtis & Lemmon
This amusing TV documentary details the making of the classic 1959 Billy Wilder
comedy 'Some Like It Hot,' starring Marilyn Monroe, and features interviews
with Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon, as well as director Billy Wilder and other participants
in the movie's production. The programme was first shown in 2001 and is
uploaded here with all due acknowledgements.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CH7sXaXe5A
***
Taking a classic film comedy — especially one that plays fast and loose with
gender and sexuality — and turning it into a big Broadway musical is far from a
sure thing in these contemporary times. But the creative team of the latest
stage musical version of the 1959 movie “Some Like It Hot” brings fresh
perspectives and a different kind of fun to the iconic film that memorably
starred Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe.
This stage production boasts swell performances, dandy twists and turns,
razzmatazz dancing and a whole lotta energy (under the savvy, playful direction
and choreography of Casey Nicholaw) — all of which should please new audiences
without alienating fans of the original. If the songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott
Wittman (“Hairspray,” “Smash”) don’t always score high marks, well: Nobody’s
perfect.
The musical’s narrative very loosely follows the original screenplay by Billy
Wilder (who also directed the film) and his collaborator I.A.L. Diamond. (In
the program credits, the show is “based on the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer motion
picture,” without giving any nod to the original writing duo.) The new script
by Tony Award-winner Mathew López (“The Inheritance”) and Amber Ruffin — with
Christian Borle and Joe Farrell giving “additional material” — re-adjusts the
film’s time and setting from the last hurrah of the Roaring ’20s to the tougher
job market — and stylish Art Deco period — of 1933, nicely realized through Scott
Pask’s sets and Gregg Barnes’ costumes.
More...
https://variety.com/2022/legit/reviews/some-like-it-hot-review-broadway-musical-1235457002/
***
‘Some Like It Hot’ Q&A | SAG-AFTRA Foundation Conversations On Broadway
Actors NaTasha Yvette Williams (‘Chicken and Biscuits’, ‘Waitress’),
Adrianna Hicks (‘Six’, ‘The Color Purple’), Christian Borle (‘Legally Blonde’,
‘Something Rotten’), J. Harrison Ghee (‘Kinky Boots’, ‘Mrs. Doubtfire’), Kevin
Del Aguila (‘Frozen’, ‘Peter and the Starcatcher’), director/choreographer
Casey Nickolaw (‘Aladdin’, ‘The Book of Mormon’), composer/lyricist Marc
Shaiman (‘Hairspray’, ‘Catch Me If You Can’), and lyricist Scott Wittman
(‘Hairspray’, ‘Catch Me If You Can’) share stories and insight from their
performances in ‘Some Like It Hot’. Moderated by Richard Ridge, BroadwayWorld
for the Conversations on Broadway series. This interview is part of the
SAG-AFTRA Foundation Conversations series, an essential resource for actors,
filmmakers and students of discussions with performers, exploring the process
and profession of acting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10rqGceQDvs
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Opportuities for Playwrights
*** SCRIPTHEALER: NEW WRITING FOR TELEVISION WORKSHOPS WITH FRANCINE VOLPE
& AURIN SQUIRE ***
FRANCINE VOLPE (P-Valley, Tokyo Vice) packs everything she knows about
developing and writing TV content into this Zoom course.
AURIN SQUIRE (The Good Fight, Evil) shows you how to develop thoughts into
compelling ideas that meet industry standards.
Session 1: August 4-6, 6-9:30 ET
The right path to your original pilot script: craft a blueprint for pitching
your show.
Session 2: August 11-13, 6-9:30 ET
Interactive “mock writers’ room” ~ Francine and Showrunners listen to pitches
and offer mock general meetings and mock staffing interviews.
Pricing $900. More
HERE. Sign up: scripthealer@yahoo.com.
*** 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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