Welcome
John William Tuohy lives in Washington DC
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
Art House Productions is a performing and visual arts center established in
2001 and located in Jersey City, NJ. Art House is a home for adventurous
artists, audiences, and ideas. We engage, inspire, entertain, and challenge
audiences with ambitious performing and visual arts programs. We provide arts
education programs that promote life-long learning to a diverse community and
celebrate the essential power of the arts to illuminate our common humanity.
While New Jersey residency is not a requirement for the INKubator program, we
are seeking playwrights with some kind of association to New Jersey.
***
The WOMEN’S WORK LAB for short plays provides a supportive and nurturing
environment to emerging and mid-career women playwrights while maintaining a
rigorous feedback process that leads to production within six months.
Six playwright members are selected each year, along with a similar number of
directors. The LAB meets monthly (Sundays) from February through June, allowing
for time in between sessions for writers to continue to develop and revise
their work in response to specific feedback from the dramaturgical team.
Members are expected to bring work to each session beginning with the
development of an original short play BASED UPON AN ASSIGNED THEME.
***
Flint Repertory Theatre is seeking new plays and musicals for the 2023 New
Works Festival April 28-30, 2023.
The New Works Festival is an annual weeklong event featuring staged readings
and workshops of new plays and musicals. Playwrights and composers from around
the country are in residence in Flint during the process, which includes
post-show audience discussions.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at
https://www.nycplaywrights.org
***
*** THEATER ON THE HIGH SEAS ***
On a recent afternoon, dancers roamed the halls in crop tops and buns. One
stretched into a wide split on the floor. There are 14 dance studios, 15
rehearsal rooms, a recording studio, gymnasiums and auditoriums. Exercise
equipment lines some hallways. Nearby are living accommodations for 470 of the
performers.
Often dismissed in the past as second-tier, cruise entertainment has evolved to
a genre that Royal Caribbean says commands some of the best talent and
technology around.
Several of the main characters in “Mama Mia” are from the Broadway version of
the show. While New York theater has struggled to turn profits with its small,
intimate venues, fickle crowds and finite real estate, the cruise industry’s
onboard audience is growing exponentially.
Royal Caribbean is building five ships in the coming years, each with a
custom-built theater with sophisticated stages and high-tech effects. A few
years ago, they built a small plane with a 22-foot wingspan that now flies over
the audience in every production of “FLIGHT: Dare To Dream.”
“The stages that they have on the ships, the technology is far better than it
ever was on a Broadway stage, even 10 years ago,” said Greg Graham, who was the
resident choreographer for “Billy Elliot” on Broadway before coming to the
cruise line to choreograph “Hairspray.”
More...
https://www.readingeagle.com/2019/05/12/theater-at-sea-cruises-into-high-gear/
***
Here at Wilson Butler Architects, we have 20+ years of experience working with
Royal Caribbean and their brands, facing these challenges head-on. Some call us
Theater Architects, some call us Cruise Ship Designers, but we see ourselves as
creative collaborators who design with a bold spirit and adventurous mind. So,
without further ado, here are five factors that impact WBA’s decision making
and planning when we design theaters at sea.
Space is at a Premium
Everything must be designed in a compressed environment without sacrificing
comfort. And there is always a balance to be struck between personal and public
space. To maximize public space, clever design and lighting treatments are
often used to increase comfort.
With space at a premium, priorities must be made. Let’s talk legroom! Guest
comfort is always paramount and seats on board are designed to be just as
comfortable (if not more so) than those found on land. Legroom is designed to
be quite comfortable, as are the dimensions of the theater seats.
More...
https://www.wilsonbutler.com/news-article/4134-2/
***
How had the artists landed here, on a 2,770-passenger luxury cruise ship, which
on this particular night was docked in Manhattan, en route to Miami? Among the
three of them, they have choreographed for Broadway, television, opera, music
videos, museums and other arenas. But as Taj said when they recently got
together for a video interview, a foray into cruise ship entertainment was “not
something any of us expected to be on the timeline of our careers.”
“We definitely had a moment of: A cruise ship — did they get the right people?”
Pinkleton said, recalling his confusion when he and Taj, who are represented by
ICM Partners, were invited by their agents to pitch a show to Virgin Voyages, a
new adults-only cruise line founded by the British billionaire Richard Branson.
“I think we had a very narrow idea of what making a show for a ship would
mean.”
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/01/arts/dance/virgin-voyages-dance-cruise.html
***
When that first ship began to move, I was singing 'I Dreamed a Dream' fromLes
Miserables and it happened all of a sudden, in the middle of the show. I
realized I had to get through a performance, while finding my sea legs, in
front of a thousand people.
I've worked as a singer and performer on around 15 cruise ships now and they're
always a bit "wow." Some are more traditional and classic in style,
very Titanic-esque, and others are neon coloured and bright, like a mini city.
I originally worked as a guest entertainer where you fly out, spend a week on
board performing and then leave. Then, I spent a couple of years as part of the
production cast, so I would be on board for months at a time. When you're a
guest entertainer you're treated as a guest and you have all those privileges
and when you're on board for a long contract, you live in crew quarters. Crew
cabins vary, but as a performer you're treated very well. I've generally had a
small double cabin with my own bathroom and a porthole. Of course, there are
crew bunk bed cabins and cabins without natural light, so it is different for
everyone.
More...
https://www.newsweek.com/im-cruise-ship-singerthis-what-its-like-behind-scenes-cruise-1671693
***
I never thought to find myself performing Shakespeare on a cruise. Less than a
year before, I had graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), the
London drama school whose alumni roster includes Vivian Leigh, Ben Whishaw, Ralph
Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, and Alan Rickman. (There’s a tiny locked room at the
top of the building we referred to as “Alan Rickman’s Room.”) My dream had
always been to work for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon. I
have always preferred theatre; I never wanted to be a movie star (though don’t
get me wrong: if Spielberg rings, I’m not going to be precious about it).
But it was never my dream to perform for cruise passengers on a ship in the
middle of the Atlantic. When I took the job, I felt as if I’d been exiled from
London theatre before I’d really got going. Even now, casting directors glance
at my CV and say, “Oh, you worked on a…cruise.”
More...
https://the-toast.net/2015/03/11/performing-shakespeare-cruise/
***
There has always been a stigma, I feel personally, with performers that work in
cruise ships and theme parks. We are often told that's a great experience, but
you know what? You probably shouldn't put it on your resume and you should
probably, you know not focus it for when you're auditioning, not make it an
important part of your career because you know, you want to do musicals and,
and that's really looked upon in a negative light. And that has always been
something that is really bothered me because how is that any different than
someone being in a musical? How has that make you any less important or any
less talented or experienced as a performer? And now we even have cruise ships
and theme parks that are doing musicals are not just what we would call a quote
review show or a variety show, but the amount of work that goes in is equally
as important as just being in a musical or a play. And that's something that's
always never really settled, right with me, especially with our, our history
with cruise ships and theme parks.
More...
https://ashleeespinosa.com/blog/breaking-the-fourth-wall-podcast-cruise-ships
***
More than 400 years after Hamlet was performed by a ship’s crew anchored off
west Africa in the first known production of a Shakespeare play outside the
British Isles, the bard is once again taking to the high seas.
In evidence that all the world is indeed a stage, the Royal Shakespeare Company
(RSC) has signed a three-year deal with Cunard for productions aboard the
company’s flagship cruise liner, Queen Mary 2.
Passengers will be able to enjoy a new one-hour compilation piece, Boundless As
the Sea, described by the RSC as “a unique blend of Shakespeare’s iconic love
scenes”, in the ship’s purpose-built theatre.
The onboard cast will also lead a series of workshops exploring their craft,
and “intimate, informal events” in which actors will perform favourite sonnets
and speeches, and answer questions from the audience.
More...
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/jan/13/a-tide-in-the-affairs-of-shakespeare-the-bard-meets-cunard-in-rsc-cruise-deal
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I’m launching a study of Geometry
I’m launching a study of Geometry, simply because I don’t
know anything about it and I feel that I should know at least something about
it. Here’s a basic definition: Geometry is a branch of mathematics that
deals with the measurement, properties, and relationships of points, lines,
angles, surfaces, and solids
So, with that, I’ll
start with the photos you see here. These are called “rotor clouds” and their
spiraling pattern is the effect of a cloud generating a billowing wave pattern,
which is a very rare occurrence. They happen when there is a severe vertical
shear between two air streams, producing the upper-level winds to blow faster
than the lower-level winds.
To my writer friends….
You won’t develop a style of your own by dreaming about it or
talking about it. You develop a style of your own by writing. It is ONLY by writing that you will develop your
style.
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
Every month, Kumu Kahua’s artistic director Harry Wong III will select a
writing prompt on or by the first day of that month. We’re looking for 5-page
monologues or 10-page scenes based on that prompt; the due date for submissions
will always be the last day of the month. The prompt for the month of August
2022 is: An initial meeting between 2 college freshmen in their dorm room from
different parts of the USA. For example, a local girl leaves Hawaiʻi for
college where she shares a room with a girl from Sudbury, Massachusetts.
***
Canthius is an intersectional feminist magazine that publishes poetry and prose
by writers of marginalized gender identities, including trans, Two Spirit,
non-binary, agender, cis women, genderqueer, GNC, and intersex writers. We are
committed to publishing diverse perspectives and experiences and strongly
encourage Indigenous women, Black women, and women of colour to submit. We also
welcome submissions in Indigenous languages.
***
DGF’s Fellows program 2022 - 2023
The Fellows program is a year-long New York City-based intensive for
professional dramatists who are looking to develop their existing work in the
next level of their careers. The Fellows is a free program, hosted by the
Dramatists Guild Foundation, to eliminate historical barriers of entry for many
emerging dramatists. This cohort of playwrights, composers, lyricists, and
librettists will work together under the guidance and leadership of
Award-winning dramatists to develop their current work in pursuit of further
development and production.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site
at https://www.nycplaywrights.org
***
*** ESPIONAGE & TREASON ***
Debate remains about Rosenberg’s complicity in spying by her husband, Julius.
But the play never really examines any of the contradictions of the testimony,
nor does it consider the implications of aiding the Russians at the dawn of the
Cold War. Instead, Ms. Beber, a cousin of the Rosenbergs, depicts Ethel (Tracy
Michailidis) as a blameless wife and mother, guilty of nothing worse than
feeding her son ice cream for dinner and worrying about her weight.
The set never wavers from Ethel’s prison cell, even as the play tours her past
and present. Like a morbid episode of “This Is Your Life,” the play runs from
her days as a high school thespian (she starred as St. Joan) right up to the
electric chair. Loraine (Adrienne C. Moore of “Orange Is the New Black”),
Ethel’s imaginary cellmate, guides these recollections. A figure in flowing
clothes and hoop earrings, Loraine is prone to statements like this: “I’m
multicultural, endlessly dimensional, exuding, including but not excluding
anything.”
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/11/theater/ethel-sings-revisits-the-mccarthy-era-rosenberg-execution.html
***
Certainly, this is an explosive subject. Arnold was not only the hero of the
Battle of Saratoga who stood up to his superiors, but also a corrupt war
profiteer. And his motives for betraying his emerging country are intriguingly
ambiguous.
Nelson's true concern is not so much Arnold's treason, but the hypocritical,
bone-chilling, self-righteous patriotism of politicians who evoke God at every
opportunity. Obviously, the playwright is commenting on our present-day
leaders, down to their demand for blind loyalty.
Only one scene has real power. It comes toward the end when the British
commander, Sir Henry Clinton, tries to get Arnold to agree to be exchanged for
Major John Andre, whom the Americans have captured and threatened with hanging.
Thanks to the sophisticated, lively playing of Nicholas Kepros as Clinton, a
man with a sexual yen for Andre, the scene is compelling. For once, dramatic
forces are joined and the outcome, although historically known, is filled with
suspense.
More...
https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/general-america-35585/
***
Hugh Whitemore’s PACK OF LIES the new play at the Royale, tells a cold war spy
story about KGB agents and purloined NATO secrets, but its author won't settle
for entertaining the audience with anything as trivial as a suspense yarn. This
is a play about the morality of lying, not the theatrics of espionage, and, in
Mr. Whitemore's view, lying is a virulent disease that saps patriots and
traitors alike of their humanity.
More…
https://www.nytimes.com/1985/02/12/theater/theater-pack-of-lies-at-the-royale.html
***
Plenty of playwrights try to draw parallels between America’s past and present.
So it can take a minute watching “André,” a play about the Revolutionary United
States that opened on March 10 at the Metropolitan Playhouse, to remember that
this is not a stilted look back at history through the lens of hindsight. “André”
is the story of the British officer who helped Benedict Arnold to turn his
coat. It was written in 1798, when the events it dealt with were still fresh,
and the question of how the Republic should behave in wartime was crucial to
the still-forming identity of a new nation. Plus ça change. ...
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/16/theater/reviews/16andr.html
***
The past year has seen a significant surge in the number of spies and informers
plying their trade in new English-language plays. Doug Wright's "I Am My
Own Wife," about an East German transsexual who may have acted as an
informer during the Cold War, is currently on Broadway. This fall, the George
Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, N.J., launched the world premiere of Charles
Evered's "Wilderness of Mirrors," about agent recruitment at Yale in
the 1940s. Evered, who teaches writing at Emerson College, based the piece in
part on Robin W. Winks's 1987 book "Cloak & Gown."
More…
http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2003/12/28/spies_onstage_the_rise_of_the_espionage_play/
***
Mike Bartlett’s curious blank-verse drama Charles III became an international
hit. His new effort examines the cut-throat world of dark-web espionage. An
American traitor named Andrew (Edward Snowden presumably) is hiding out in a
Moscow hotel. Enter a flirty, giggling Irishwoman played by Caoilfhionn Dunne,
who claims to be British and who teases Andrew over his betrayal of his
homeland’s secrets. She evinces an interest in Oscar Wilde and the pair lock
horns over footling minutiae. Andrew points out that Barbie dolls are called
Sindy in the UK and this seems to demonstrate his familiarity with Britain. But
he fails to spot the false cadences of her accent and he doesn’t query her use
of the strange term ‘British Metropolitan Police’. And the name ‘Nick Leeson’
means nothing to him.
More…
https://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/07/a-spy-thriller-by-a-writer-with-no-knowledge-of-spying-or-thrilling-hampstead-theatres-wild-reviewed/
***
In
the opening moments of a play called “Treason,” the poet Ezra Pound, dressed
flamboyantly in cape, sombrero, flowing cravat, and ruffled shirt, speaks into
a microphone at a broadcast studio in Rome in 1941. “Kike Rosenfelt,” he
exclaims, “that snotty barbarian … If ever a nation produced efficient
democracy it has been in Germany … Eliminate Roosevelt and his Jews, or the Jews
and their Roosevelt … ”
In the middle of the play called “Treason,” Pound, now at St. Elizabeth’s
Hospital for the Insane in Alexandria, Virginia, is visited in 1955 by a young
American agitator named John Kasper, who does Pound one better with: “This ain’t
about poetry, Pops, this is about the Mission: Cleansing the Anglo-Saxon race
of befouling elements – Nigs, Yids, and the rest of the gutter trash. Write
that, Pops!”
More...
https://www.amny.com/news/poet-in-a-cage-long-before-guantnamo/
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Once again....WOW
The Dark Seahorse in Cepheus : Light-years across, this suggestive shape known as the Seahorse Nebula appears in silhouette against a rich, luminous background of stars. Seen toward the royal northern constellation of Cepheus, the dusty, obscuring clouds are part of a Milky Way molecular cloud some 1,200 light-years distant. It is also listed as Barnard 150 (B150), one of 182 dark markings of the sky cataloged in the early 20th century by astronomer E. E. Barnard. Packs of low mass stars are forming within, but their collapsing cores are only visible at long infrared wavelengths. Still, the colorful stars of Cepheus add to this pretty, galactic skyscape. via NASA
Wow....
NGC 6995: The Bat Nebula : Do you see the bat? It haunts
this cosmic close-up of the eastern Veil Nebula. The Veil Nebula itself is a
large supernova remnant, the expanding debris cloud from the death explosion of
a massive star. While the Veil is roughly circular in shape and covers nearly 3
degrees on the sky toward the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus), NGC 6995,
known informally as the Bat Nebula, spans only ½ degree, about the apparent
size of the Moon. That translates to 12 light-years at the Veil’s estimated
distance, a reassuring 1,400 light-years from planet Earth. In the composite of
image data recorded through narrow band filters, emission from hydrogen atoms
in the remnant is shown in red with strong emission from oxygen atoms shown in
hues of blue. Of course, in the western part of the Veil lies another seasonal
apparition: the Witch’s Broom Nebula. via NASA
Ghost Head Nebula taken with the Hubble Space Telescope.
Similar to the icon of a fictional ghost, NGC 2080 is actually a star forming
region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way
Galaxy. The Ghost Head Nebula (NGC 2080) spans about 50 light-years and is
shown in representative colors. via NASA
Cartwheel Galaxy PGC 2248
500 Million light years away in the aptly named constellation of
Sculptor, but a JWST breaks no sweat.
The IR composite image adds so much detail about the dynamics of the galaxy, the outer ring thought to be a shockwave emanating from centre as a smaller galaxy (not in this image) interacted as they passed by over 400 million years ago. The inner ring is also a similar event, and represents a dense area of star formation , both rings are expanding outwards. What I love about JWST images, is the abundance of galaxies in the background, Webb really picks up galaxies stretching back billions of light years.
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
Druid New Writing Script Submissions 2022
The company accepts plays in the English language. For the purposes of clarity:
Druid accepts translations of original plays into English which meet our
criteria.
For the open submission process, a reading panel assists the Artistic Director
in assessing your play and ensures that a range of perspectives are brought to
bear on each submission.
***
Athena Project’s new Read & Rant program seeks to combine the original
form’s sharing of theatrical work with the wider public with the new play
development aspects of Plays In Progress while also fostering collaboration
between playwrights and dramaturgs. We are initiating these changes to Read
& Rant with the goal to create digital opportunities for early and mid-career
playwrights, uplift women* writers and dramaturgs overall, and highlight
underrepresentation for women* in these positions.
***
Brave New World Repertory Theatre is seeking new play submissions for Brave New
Works: Ditmas Park 2022 Reading Series. This season, we are especially looking
to feature LGBTQIA+ stories.
Three original, full-length plays (under 120 pages) will be selected and given
minimally staged readings between January 10th – March 30th, 2022 (if we are
unable to have in-person readings due to COVID19, they will be done virtually).
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site
at https://www.nycplaywrights.org
***
