*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

 *** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

North Park Vaudeville and Candy Shoppe is looking for:
1. Short new plays (no more than 12 pages, less is fine) that are easily staged and have casts with no more than four people. Our theater is very small and we normally use a minimal set concept in this festival. We have to be able to change sets in just a few minutes as we do six to seven plays each evening of the festival. We don't have space for large casts.

***

New Works/New Voices (NWNV) is an initiative at the Syracuse University Department of Drama created to support the development of musicals by writers and composers whose perspectives have been historically underrepresented in the musical theater canon. NWNV is seeking completed musicals or musicals-in-progress from teams who are interested in developing their work with undergraduate BFA students.

***

Blank Page Theatre Co. is looking for playwrights and directors for our 4th Annual Summer New Works Festival. Every year, Blank Page Theatre Co. picks a theme that reflects the social climate of the year and focuses on pieces and works that support the theme.  This year's theme is: DEI


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


*** ROTTEN REVIEWS & REJECTIONS ***

The book is available to borrow for free online at the Internet Archive.
https://archive.org/details/pushcartscomplet00hend

***

UNCLE VANYA
Anton Chekov
performed in New York, 1949

If you were to ask me what UNCLE VANYA is about, I would say about as much as I can take.

Robert Garland, Journal American

***

A DOLL'S HOUSE
Henrik Ibsen

It was as though someone had dramatized the cooking of a Sunday dinner.

Clement Scott, Sporting and Dramatic News 1889

***

GHOSTS
Henrik Ibsen
Performed 1891, London

The play performed last night is 'simple' enough in plan and purpose, but simple only in the sense of an open drain; of a loathesome sore unbandaged; of a dirty act done publicly.

Daily Telegram


***

ROMEO AND JULIET
William Shakespeare
Performed in London, 1662

March 1st - To the Opera and there saw Romeo and Juliet, the first time it was ever acted, but it is a play of itself the worst that ever I heard in my life, and the worst acted that ever I saw these people do...

Samuel Pepys, Diary

***

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
William Shakespeare
Performed in London, 1662

The most insipid, ridiculous play that I ever saw in my life.

Samuel Pepys, Diary

***

KING LEAR
William Shakespeare
1605

This drama is chargeable with considerable imperfections.

Joseph Warton, The Adventurer 1754

***

HAMLET
William Shakespeare
1601

It is a vulgar and barbarous drama, which would not be tolerated by the vilest populace of France, or Italy... one would imagine this piece to be the work of a drunken savage.

Voltaire, (1768), in The Works of M. de Voltaire 1901

***

OTHELLO
William Shakespeare
1604

Pure melodrama. There is not a touch of characteriziation that goes below the skin.

George Bernard Shaw, Saturday Review 1897

***

ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
William Shakespeare
1606

To say that there is plenty of bogus characterization in it... is merely to say that it is by Shakespeare.

George Bernard Shaw, Saturday Review 1897

***

JULIUS CAESAR
William Shakespeare
Performed in London, 1898

There is a not a single sentence uttered by Shakespeare's Julius Caesar that is, I will not say worthy of him, but worthy of an average Tammany boss.

George Bernard Shaw, Saturday Review

***

ARMS AND THE MAN
George Bernard Shaw
Performed in London, 1894

Shaw may one day write a serious and even an artistic play, if he will only repress his irreverent whimsicality, try to clothe his character conceptions in flesh and blood, and realize the difference between knowingness and knowledge.

William Archer, World

***

MAJOR BARBARA
George Bernanrd Shaw
Performed in London, 1905

There are no human beings in MAJOR BARBARA: only animated points of view.

William Archer, World

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*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

 *** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

The Gallery Players in Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York, is seeking plays for its 29th Annual Black Box New Play Festival to be held in January (exact dates to be determined) 2026. Each play selected will be given a black box production with non-equity actors.

***

Paris Junior College Department of Drama's 11th Annual Pyro PlayFest is looking for bold, original short plays that explore the heart of creativity — the human spirit, invention, imagination, and the drive to express. Whether you tackle these ideas literally, abstractly, or metaphorically, we want to experience the spark that fuels your storytelling.

***

Nomad Theatre seeks 6-10 short plays to be a part of our upcoming show, Order in the Court in September 2025 in Normal, IL. Submissions will open on May 12th and close on June 16th, 2025. Selected plays must take place in a courtroom. We encourage you to use the space creatively. They must be unpublished and unproduced at the time of submission.

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


*** SCIENCE, FICTION & THEATER ***

On a bare stage, actor Hank Stratton, playing the role of Werner Heisenberg in Michael Frayn's acclaimed play Copenhagen, muses on the impossibility of self-knowledge. The fictional Heisenberg is agonizing over his role in the Nazi effort to build an atomic bomb and finds himself unsure of his own motivations.

For four years on the London stage, two years on Broadway, and in cities across Europe and America, Copenhagen has defied the conventional wisdom that science and art cannot co-exist. Despite or perhaps because of its heady mix of quantum physics and moral dilemmas, it has been popular with critics and audiences alike; it won the Tony Award for Best New Play in 2000 and was filmed for presentation this fall to U.S. public-television audiences. As New York Times critic Ben Brantley put it, "Who would have ever thought that three dead, long-winded people talking about atomic physics would be such electrifying companions?"

Yet the success of Copenhagen has not been an isolated phenomenon. In recent years, science has become a surprisingly popular subject for playwrights. According to our best count, more than 20 plays on a scientific theme have opened in a professional production over the last five years, although none has yet matched Copenhagen's popular success. At the very least, science is in vogue on stage as it has never been before. The best of these plays go far beyond using science as an ornament or a plot device. They seriously embrace scientific ideas and grapple with their implications. In an era when traditional dramatic subjects such as dysfunctional families have become tired, playwrights have found the lives and discoveries of real scientists to be full of dramatic possibilities and thought-provoking metaphors.

More...
https://www.americanscientist.org/article/science-as-theater

***

In the quarter century that followed, the Sloan Foundation has supported the development and dissemination of hundreds of plays on scientific and technological themes through commissions, rewrite grants, and production support.

Quick references to the program usually cite a pair of early, celebrated successes, both of which opened on Broadway in 2000: David Auburn’s Tony- and Pulitzer-winning Proof, whose Manhattan Theatre Club production was supported by Sloan; and Michael Frayn’s Tony-winning Copenhagen, which Sloan helped to introduce to U.S. audiences after its success in London by sponsoring a symposium about the piece’s creation, as well as giving PBS a $1 million grant to film the play.

What really sets the program apart is the sheer number of artists and audience members its grants have touched in some way. To date, the theatre program has funded more than 450 of the 3,000-plus proposals it has received for new plays, and has supported more than 100 productions, not just in New York (the heart of its operations) but at some 50 theatres around the world.

Many have been produced at the foundation’s closest partner theatres: Ensemble Studio Theatre (EST), Manhattan Theatre Club (MTC), and audio producer LA Theatre Works (LATW). (London’s National Theatre is another current partner; previous partners include Playwrights Horizons and the Magic Theatre, and seed grants administered through EST have recruited numerous other theatres across the U.S. to produce Sloan commissions.)

More...
https://www.americantheatre.org/2024/03/20/the-unpredictable-experiment-25-years-of-sloan-science-plays/

***

Great plays about science do exist. I can think of no more eloquent evocation of the second law of thermodynamics than Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, and in The Doctor's Dilemma, George Bernard Shaw used "an exact record of an actual discovery in serum therapeutics" to inspire a sprightly and affecting comedy. There are more, but not many more – Brecht's Galileo, Dürrenmatt's The Physicists. And several that are certainly very good: David Auburn's Proof, Michael Frayn's Copenhagen, Rolin Jones's The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow. (And, yes, I realise how overwhelmingly male that catalogue is. Even more so than the sciences themselves.) So what makes for a successful play about science and why is it so difficult to achieve?

Taking the subway home after two and a half hours of Lovesong, I proposed this question and my friend said she thought that when confronted with what she called "the real", playwrights find themselves in thrall. They get so overwhelmed by actual laws of the universe that they forget those of dramatic construction. I'm not sure I agree. It seems to me that in most plays about science that I see – often those sponsored by the Alfred P Sloan Foundation, an organisation with a nifty mission to encourage playwrights to tackle science, but with indifferent results – any actual science is little more than name-checked in favour of some soap opera about the struggles of its diviner. Such a method ignores the fact that though new discoveries are inherently interesting, the same cannot be said of the discoverers themselves.

More...
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2010/jul/26/science-plays-stoppard

***

The Internet Science Fiction Theatre Database (ISFTDB) of Cyborphic primarily consists of contemporary plays, i.e. published and/or produced in the 21st Century. Some key texts of sci-fi theatre from the 20th Century are included in a separate section. For a more complete list of 20th Century science fiction plays, see Ralph Willingham’s appendix in his 1993 book Science Fiction and the Theatre.

Our Database is primarily focused on science fiction theatre, yet also features related genres; in short, everything that falls under the umbrella terms Speculative Fiction and Fantastika (such as Horror, Contemporary Fantasy and the Weird) and works of Science Theatre as well are also of interest. Finally, a bibliography of related studies and articles is included in its own section. For the reader’s convenience these are mostly non-academic sources readily available online, but some academic studies are included as well.

Abbreviations: SF (Science Fiction), H (Horror), F (Fantasy), W (Weird. Works considered “Lovecraftian” will be in this category), AF (Afrofuturism) and ST (Science Theatre)

A Number by Caryl Churchill. Royal Court Theatre. UK. 2002. SF

The Intelligent Design of Jenny Chow by Rolin Jones. South Coast Repertory. US. 2003. SF

Mercury Fur by Philip Ridley. Plymouth Theatre Royal. UK. 2005. SF (dystopian)

A Disappearing Number, co-written by the Théâtre de Complicité and Simon McBurney. Theatre Royal, Plymouth. UK. 2007. ST

More...
https://www.cyborphic.com/database

***

Plays

 *** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***

Missouri Baptist University Theatre's Musical Theatre Showcase
Featuring Missouri Baptist University Theatre's Musical Theatre Bachelor of Fine Arts majors, this showcase features music from beloved productions as well as some new and original work from New York composers, including an opener by Alyssa Payne.

Monday, May 12 · 2 - 3:30pm EDT

The Theater Center
210 West 50th Street New York, NY 10019

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/missouri-baptist-university-theatres-musical-theatre-showcase-tickets-1325235959429?aff=ebdssbdestsearch


*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

All playwrights, regardless of military affiliation, are invited to enter Salem State University’s 10-Minute Playwriting Contest. However, preference will be given to those with a direct military connection. This includes active-duty military, reservists, National Guard, Veterans, and direct family of any of these.

The theme of the play should directly touch on military service and/or how military service affects a community. The contest and festival look to recognize and celebrate those that have served and currently serve. We are looking to bring together a variety of voices exploring both the challenges and the victories and positive influences that Veterans have on our community.

***

Vidalia Winter Yield seeks 10-minute plays
We're accepting submissions for our Winter Yield collection of 10-minute plays to be produced in January 2026. The setting for this show is the airport. It can be at the gate, ticket counter, baggage claim, etc… as long as it’s in the airport (not on an airplane).

***

The inaugural Green Mountain New Play Festival is now accepting submissions for its summer 2025 festival, taking place August 8-10, 2025 as part of the brand-new Green Mountain Shakespeare Festival, a division of Plainfield Little Theatre at The CreativeCampus@Goddard in Vermont.

This exciting new venture is dedicated to fostering bold, original voices in contemporary playwriting. Selected playwrights will receive a staged reading with professional directors and actors.

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


*** THEATER & EMPATHY ***

My favorite of Mr. Kushner’s characters is the woman who delivers the monologue that is the entire first act of “Homebody/Kabul,” his 2001 drama about Afghanistan. She is identified only as the Homebody, and her section of the play, delivered from a chair “in a pleasant room in her home in London,” is nothing more nor less than a sustained act of empathy, as she tries to envision what it must be like to live in Afghanistan, and how that country came to be as it is. Her point of view is both questioning and affirmative, enriched by a passionate longing to understand an exotic worldview.

That monologue mirrors Mr. Kushner’s own, deeply emotional curiosity about lives beyond his own. I won’t say he is a nonjudgmental writer. He has as strong and righteous a sense of morality as any contemporary dramatist I can think of. But he works hard at trying to enter the minds (and mind-sets) of alien sensibilities. This is integral to his talent as a playwright, and I assume it is a large part of what was being honored by CUNY (specifically, by John Jay College). As far as I can see or read, nothing he has said or done publicly is a violation or contradiction of that spirit that is the basis of his talent.

More...
https://archive.nytimes.com/artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/05/theater-talkback-the-honorable-tony-kushner/

***

Can attending live theatre improve empathy by immersing audience members in the stories of others? We tested this question across three field studies (n = 1622), including a pre-registered replication. We randomly assigned audience members to complete surveys either before or after seeing plays, and measured the effects of the plays on empathy, attitudes, and pro-social behavior. After, as compared to before, seeing the plays, people reported greater empathy for groups depicted in the shows, held opinions that were more consistent with socio-political issues highlighted in the shows, and donated more money to charities related to the shows. Seeing theatre also led participants to donate more to charities unrelated to the shows, suggesting that theatre's effects on pro-sociality generalize to different contexts. Altogether, these findings suggest that theatre is more than mere entertainment; it can lead to tangible increases in empathy and pro-social behavior.

More...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002210312100038X

***

Podcast: Mark Phelan on The Role of Theatre in Invoking Radical Empathy

In this episode of Talking about Methods, Professor Linda Mulcahy talks to Dr Mark Phelan (Queen's University Belfast) about the role of theatre in invoking radical empathy. He explains how playwrights and practitioners are effectively dealing with the legacies of political violence and traumatic history and demonstrates their importance for public memory.
For more information on this episode, please visit frontiers.csls.ox.ac.uk.

https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/talking-about-methods-3983408/episodes/mark-phelan-on-the-role-of-the-212408153

***

Race and the Classics: An Argument for Empathy

In Pearl Cleage’s Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous (2019), the character Anna creates a radical solo show in which she performs August Wilson’s monologues in the nude. Her sister comments, “You stopped doing Naked Wilson because you didn’t want to live in your rage and then you made your reputation doing Lady Macbeth, Medea, Clytemnestra, Hedda Gabbler. Those are some very angry women.” Anna replies, “That’s different. It’s not my personal rage, so it comes from a different place altogether” (Cleage 13). The gap between lived and imagined experience—a crucial distance—allows Anna, a Black woman in the United States, to access and convey “rage” in her staging of ancient Greek and late nineteenth-century Norwegian characters without causing continual distress to herself.

We propose that this gap requires further exploration, especially when classic texts are reenvisioned through the casting of actors whose lived experiences of race differ from those of the characters they play. Centering on the corporeal and identarian distance between racialized (and ethnicized) adaptations of classics, we contend that these spaces between the lived (the actor), the performed (the character), and the witnessing (the theatregoer) exist as zones of potential empathetic connection. These connections are multidirectional and, as suggested in Cleage’s play, can be restorative.

Telling Our Stories

In 1996, August Wilson famously stood before the attendees at the Theatre Communications Group annual convening and critiqued the professional theatre community—notably major regional and Broadway theatres—for failing to stage stories by Black artists about Black life. He confronted a system in which nonwhite actors of color were restricted mostly to roles not originally envisioned for them:

To mount an all-black production of a Death of a Salesman or any other play conceived for white actors as an investigation of the human condition through the specifics of white culture is to deny us our own humanity, our own history, and the need to make our own investigations from the cultural ground on which we stand as black Americans. It is an assault on our presence, and our difficult but honorable history in America; and it is an insult to our intelligence, our playwrights, and our many and varied contributions to the society and the world at large. (“Ground”)

More...
https://www.jhuptheatre.org/theatre-topics/online-content/issue/volume-34-issue-2-july-2024/race-and-classics-argument-empathy

***

The first time I cried at the theatre, I was eleven. It was a local production of West Side Story, and after being altogether unimpressed by the film, I wasn’t expecting much. Yet, when I could clearly see the tears on Maria’s face as she held Tony’s lifeless body, even from my cushioned seat, I was right there with her. I had never been in love. I had never lost someone I loved. I was not a Puerto Rican immigrant from the 1950s. I was sure the actress didn’t necessarily share the same history as well, but there she was embodying that pain. There I was, feeling my heart wrench with everyone else’s in the room, audience and performer alike, and understanding a mix of emotions I had never encountered. It was education. It was connection. It was power.

Years, and hundreds of plays later, I found myself studying at length the science behind the importance of performance. Why is the experience so significant? I approached this question from both a cognitive scientific and an artistic perspective. As a result, my work consisted of theoretical and applied research, beginning with the creation of a 2016 documentary theatre production entitled The Stories We Are. The show was devised at Hampshire College by seven ensemble members who were asked to explore personal storytelling through a variety of performance mediums.

More...
https://howlround.com/plays-thing-0

***

An article in Medical Science Monitor suggests that empathy can be neurologically explained through two modes of processing: social mirroring and perspective-taking.

Social mirroring suggests that when we observe someone experiencing an emotion, our autonomic and somatic responses activate our own neural network connected to that emotion. Through this mirror neuron system (MNS), we can share an emotional state with someone by witnessing their experience in that state.

Perspective-taking involves a level of understanding that first requires us to distinguish ourselves from others. In doing this, we begin to understand someone else's unique desires, intentions and beliefs. Prefrontal areas of the brain responsible for mentalizing then activate, allowing us to develop a cognitive inference of someone else's mental state (also known as having a theory of mind).

Jenny Toutant, chief of engagement and education officer at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, says the live nature of theater is part of its power — a part that can facilitate these reactions.

"There's a dynamic and an ephemeral experience that is happening between the performers on stage and the audience members," Toutant says. "The way you breathe effects how somebody watching you breathes. There's some way that you're really connecting with people on a human level."

Lear says other artistic theatrical elements can heighten emotions evoked during the experience, unlike recorded mediums such as written text or film.

"When you are in a theater, you're feeling the vibrations of the music in your body; you are close to the actors; you are hearing them," Lear says. "That kind of embodied approach helps make it more of an emotional experience, as opposed to just an intellectual experience.”

More...
https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/research-links-increased-empathy-with-live-theater-experience

***

Actors develop a heightened affinity for empathy compared to the average person. Our craft revolves around the profound understanding and portraying of human emotions and experiences. Research from Boston College has shown that individuals receiving acting training exhibit "significant gains in empathy scores," suggesting that acting is a potent conduit for enhancing empathy.

Great actors possess a unique ability to astutely observe the world around them and emotionally relate to the experiences of others very quickly. This deep emotional connection enables us to immerse ourselves in unique characters and bring authenticity to their performances. Through awareness and emotional alchemy, actors are able to perceive and express empathy in a way that is both nuanced and powerful, often setting us apart from the “average person” in their capacity to understand and convey the complexities of human emotions and relationships.

More...
https://howlround.com/evolving-our-world-through-power-actors-empathy

Decimate

 

Decimate can mean both “to destroy a large number of (plants, animals, people, etc.)” or “to severely damage or destroy a large part of (something).”

 In ancient Rome it had a very singular meaning: “to select by lot and kill every tenth man of a military unit.” However, many words in English descended from Latin have changed and/or expanded their meanings in their travels. For example, we no longer think of sinister as meaning “on the left side,” and delicious can describe things both tasty and delightful. Was the “to kill every tenth man” meaning the original use of decimate in English? Yes, but not by much. It took only a few decades for decimate to acquire its broader, familiar meaning of “to severely damage or destroy,” which has been employed steadily since the 17th century.

sleuth

 

  When Middle English speakers first borrowed sleuth from the Old Norse word slōth, the term referred to the track of an animal or person. In Scotland, sleuth hund referred to a kind of bloodhound used to hunt game or track down fugitives from justice. In 19th-century U.S. English, sleuthhound, soon shortened to sleuth, began to be used for a detective. From there, sleuth slipped into verb use to apply to what a sleuth does.

Norman Rockwell

 

Good words to have

 

Archetype’s origins are in two Greek words: the verb archein, meaning “to begin,” and the noun typos, meaning “type.”

 

Uniquity: From French unique, from Latin unus (one).

*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

 

Don McCann Playwriting Contest 2025
The Oswego Players were established in 1938 as a non-profit community theater organization dedicated to live theater productions and theater education for Oswego area residents. Consistent with those goals, a playwriting contest was established to promote the creation of original, one-act plays by contemporary authors.
The contest is FREE and open to any playwright who is 18 years or older and resides (or attends college) in the state of New York.

***

Sesame Workshop Writers’ Room fellowship 2025
Fresh new writing talent that reflects our vast audience. Emerging storytellers who are selected to join the Writers’ Room will receive hands-on writing experience guided by Sesame Street veterans and other media industry leaders. Each participant will develop and write a pilot script for their own original kids’ program. Past fellows have gone on to develop their own original content with Sesame Workshop, as well as write for Sesame Street and various programs at Nickelodeon, Disney, DreamWorks, and more! 

***

Page 73 Development Programs 2026
Applications for the 2026 programs are now open. Applicants for both programs:
1. The applicant must be a US resident at the time of participation;
2. The applicant must have completed at least 2 full-length plays or at least 3 one-act plays;
3. The applicant must have made a commitment to playwriting as a professional goal;
4. The applicant must have never received a production in New York City that is fully contracted with Actors Equity Association and ran for at least four weeks or twenty-one performances;

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


*** GREEK CHORUS ***

In Ancient Greek Theatre, there is an interesting similarity among the plays written during that time: there is always a chorus included. Nowadays most people would associate a chorus with musicals, but playwrights like Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles included a chorus in their regular plays. The chorus consisted of a group of 12 to 50 players who spoke or sang their lines in unison, wore masks, and functioned as one actor rather than a large group of many performers.

The purpose of the Greek chorus was to provide background and summary information to the audience to help them understand what was going on in the performance. They commented on themes, expressed what the main characters couldn’t say (like secrets, thoughts, and fears) and provided other characters with information and insights.

More...
https://www.theatrefolk.com/blog/exploring-greek-chorus

***

Inherit the Wind is a fictitious account of the actual Scopes “monkey” trial of 1925, in which a high school teacher was criminally prosecuted in Tennessee for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution. It made its Broadway debut in 1955 to both critical acclaim and box office success. Originally written as an indictment of the attack upon intellectual freedom that had occurred during the McCarthy era, this play’s theme of science versus creationism resonates to this day.

Most of the drama takes place in the courtroom, and credible casting of the two lawyers, who were giants of their time, is a daunting task for a small amateur company. Prosecutor Matthew Harrison Brady (Allen Siverson) is loosely based upon three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, a great orator and statesman. And Henry Drummond (James Pearson) is the legendary criminal defense attorney and ACLU member Clarence Darrow. Remarkably, producer Beth Dewey and director K. DaVette See were able to find a couple of actors perfectly suited for their respective parts.

Siverson, to his credit, refuses to undermine his devout character by falling pray to glib caricature. Instead, he brings a gravitas and dignity to a role that even the playwrights unfairly lampoon on occasion. Pearson, as the agnostic litigator, displays an unerring confidence, keen wit and intelligence, along with an eloquent speaking voice, which are essential to his rather convincing portrayal. And their scenes together are often quite riveting. Bravo!

The set is a utilitarian, albeit somewhat awkward, design by Rob See, featuring a pair of canopies – supporting a large banner of “READ YOUR BIBLE” – located upstage that serves as an entrance to a traditional courtroom setting placed downstage. The spectators (who are often quite vocal) sit on chairs positioned in the area normally reserved for the orchestra pit.

Doug Doughty plays E.K. Hornbeck (aka H.L. Menckin), the cynical, acerbic critic and journalist who covers the case for the Baltimore Herald. His condescending, colorful commentary on the Christian fundamentalism of Brady and the rural townsfolk is reminiscent of a Greek chorus and decidedly biased in favor of Bertram Cates, the beleaguered educator (the fine Robert Hamilton). Doughty somehow captures just the right tone of wry humor and derision without ever becoming off-putting.

More...
https://www.starkinsider.com/2011/08/theatre-review-inherit-the-wind-evolution-and-creationism-meet-in-the-courtroom.html

***

“Our Town” was first performed to great acclaim in 1938. Wilder specified that the play should be performed without sets or props, which was most unusual at that time. Community Players is staying true to that, said Weiss, with just a few risers upstage and nothing more. “I think it echoes the platforms of a Greek chorus," she said.

“What inspired Thornton Wilder to write the play was a time in his 20s and he was in Rome to study archeology. He was in some ruins, and he looked through the ruins and he saw a chimney.”

“He realized these people lived and died, they worked, they provided for their families, smoke went up their chimney. And at the same time, he was hearing all the traffic in Rome. I think that element of life from long, long ago ‘til now was something that really struck him.”

More...
https://www.wglt.org/show/wglts-sound-ideas/2020-01-03/datebook-our-town-finds-the-epic-in-the-ordinary

***

Also living on Skid Row -- and acting as the Greek chorus for "Little Shop" -- are Chiffon (Brittany Tavernaro), Crystal (Anna Joie) and Ronnette (APT newcomer Binta Francis).

"'Little Shop of Horrors' has held a special place in my heart since I was a child," says Francis, who appeared on the AOP stage as Esmerelda in "Hunchback of Notre Dame." "It is the first movie musical I ever watched with my family. My siblings and I still bond over it to this day. It's always been a dream of mine to be an urchin!"

"'Little Shop' is much like 'Fiddler On the Roof' or 'The Music Man' in that it seems to be a rite of passage for every actor," says Joie, most recently on the APT stage in "Almost, Maine." "Most other actors I know have done it at some point, and I thought maybe it was my turn. Now I see why -- it's such a fun show!

Crystal, she says, "is fiercely loyal, fiery, and doesn't shy away from tough love or abrasiveness. You'll see me in her protectiveness toward Audrey and her push for Seymour to be more sure of himself. Those track really well with how I relate to the people I care most about!

More...
https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2023/feb/05/apts-little-shop-of-horrors-has-singers-dancers/

***

How I Learned to Drive has several major, hard-hitting scenes (all of which reprise moments from Lolita), and Parker handles each one with aplomb: shyness during a kitty porn photoshoot, drunken anxiety at a fancy dinner, stern rejection in a hotel room, and most evocatively, an unforgettable look of extreme pain as she silently remembers the first time Uncle Peck groped her as he taught her to drive at age 11. Vogel has Li’l Bit act out the scene, but has another, much younger actress (Alyssa May Gold) stand to the side of the stage and speak the lines. Eschewing the literal, Li’l Bit remembers, watching the moment over again in her head, confused and horrified, disassociating her body from her mind in order to just survive.

Morse as Peck gives a similarly spot-on performance, finding the perfect balance between his creepiness and the alluring kindness of the character, who frequently comes across as caring and respectful, not forceful (despite the fact that he is at all times silently grooming and coercing). Johanna Day acts as part of the Greek chorus, but most memorably plays Li’l Bit’s mother and Aunt Mary (Uncle Peck’s wife), and delivers several haunting monologues with a delicate touch.

More...
https://didtheylikeit.com/shows/how-i-learned-to-drive-2/how-i-learned-to-drive-is-a-nuanced-exploration-of-memory/

A juggernaut

 

A juggernaut is something (such as a force, campaign, or movement) that is extremely large and powerful and cannot be stopped.

In the early 14th century, Franciscan missionary Friar Odoric brought to Europe the story of an enormous carriage that carried an image of the Hindu god Vishnu (whose title was Jagannāth, literally, "lord of the world") through the streets of India in religious processions. Odoric reported that some worshippers deliberately allowed themselves to be crushed beneath the vehicle's wheels as a sacrifice to Vishnu.

That story was likely an exaggeration or misinterpretation of actual events, but it spread throughout Europe. The tale caught the imagination of English listeners, and they began using juggernaut to refer to any massive vehicle (such as a steam locomotive) and to any other enormous entity with powerful crushing capabilities.

While the word is still used sometimes in British English to refer to a very large, heavy truck (also called a "juggernaut lorry"), juggernaut is more commonly used figuratively for a relentless force, entity, campaign, or movement, as in "a political/economic/cultural juggernaut."