Welcome
John William Tuohy lives in Washington DC
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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*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
South Street Players (southstreetplayers.org) is seeking original, short (10
mins preferred, 15 mins maximum) plays for its 13th Annual Tri-State Theatre
Festival.
The festival, which receives more than 300 scripts annually, is committed to
presenting the finest and most unique original, short plays written by local
playwrights from New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. The event also serves
as an artistic fundraiser, with all proceeds going to SSP to help maintain its
commitment to producing high-quality, extremely engaging theatrical experiences
for our audiences.
***
Go Try Play Write - the prompt for the month of July 2023 is:
A poetic meeting prompt. A ten page maximum "meet cute" between two
people, but written in some form of poetic verse. This would be like the first
meeting between Juliet and Romeo. Free verse, iambic pentameter, haikus,
dactylic hexameter, in rhymed couplets, in alliteration, etc. Even rap! Pick a
form, state what it is in the title, and make it work for the scene. We know
you can do it!
***
L’Esprit Literary Review publishes work written in the fearless, risk-adept,
and revolutionary spirit of High Modernism. We accept short fiction, creative
non-fiction, novel extracts, drama, literary criticism, book reviews, artwork,
and photography. General submissions are currently open.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site
at https://www.nycplaywrights.org
***
*** 19TH CENTURY MELODRAMA ***
The word "melodrama" derives from "melody [in] drama" (like
opera); melodrama at its finest aspires to have the tone and the repetitive
waves of building emotion of an opera or a symphony. In melodrama, the plot is
sensationalized and emotional and the dialogue is bombastic and sentimental.
Characters tend to be thinly sketched, flat Stock Characters (the hero or
heroine might face problems from a "homewrecking temptress" or an
aristocratic villain). Melodramas are often accomplished by dramatic, emotional
music.
It's usually associated with everyone acting like a Large Ham, but it's
actually about specific emphasis on any dramatic situation. This is done by
amping up the perceived scale and emotional response on everything. Basically,
every little hurdle becomes a mountain, every setback a tragedy of Greek
proportions, and the official couple will be Star-Crossed Lovers over the
tiniest things, usually thanks to outside interference and Poor Communication
Kills. The difference between melodrama and drama is that the latter aims for
realism; the conflict(s) are based on more logical and reasonable events and
usually tend to have more calmer moods.
Note that this isn't the same as stage actors speaking loudly and making broad
movements. That's just a necessity of stage acting. This is when the actors
portray the characters (or the characters are written as) being akin to
teenagers with a very small, Soap Opera scale world. Every success, kiss, and
snub will carry the sting of a legendary story. Essentially, what to us would
be a pinprick gains the pathos of a rending wound.
More...
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Melodrama
***
The Dog of Montargis
I entered Pixérécourt’s play with the help of three sources: Alexander Lacey’s
Pixerécourt and the French Romantic Drama (Toronto: The University of Toronto
Press, 1928), Louis James’s “Taking Melodrama Seriously: Theatre, and
Nineteenth-Century Studies” (History Workshop no. 3 (Spring 1977): 151-158),
and Marvin Carlson’s “The Golden Age of the Boulevard” (The Drama Review: TDR
vol. 18 no. 1, Popular Entertainments (March 1974): 25-33). The Dog of
Montargis seems to epitomize the genre with its transparent struggle between
Aubri (the hero) and Macaire (the villain), its depiction of virtuous love in the
amorous coupling of the mute Florio and the young Lucille, and its crew of type
characters such as Blaise (the niais who provides local color) and, of course,
Dragon, Aubri’s faithful canine friend without whom Macaire would surely get
away with his vile deeds.
With that ensemble, the play may appear completely ridiculous for students. But
wait! Before we pass judgment, we should watch the trailer for Stephen
Spielberg’s War Horse (http://www.youtube.com/v/B7lf9HgFAwQ) and ponder how
precisely melodrama has infused popular culture with its simple yet effective
depiction of an ordered world in which everyone can tell right from wrong and
good from evil.
More...
http://www.theater-historiography.org/2012/03/16/blog4_melodrama-part-2/
***
Suffering, Spectacle, Spells: ‘Harry Potter’ as Vintage Melodrama
The authors of the latest installment have set the Time-Turner back to the 19th
century.
When novelist J.K. Rowling, playwright Jack Thorne, and director John Tiffany
announced that they were collaborating on a Harry Potter sequel stage play, the
idea seemed charmingly old-fashioned. To have a bestselling author decide that
the adventures of her beloved hero Harry should be continued as a play, not as
a book or film, felt like a throwback to an era when theatre was at the center
of pop culture. As it turns out, the resulting play, Harry Potter and the
Cursed Child—currently selling out on London’s West End, and being mulled for a
Broadway transfer, but most available to fans in book form, as a
playscript—feels like a throwback in other ways too. In essence, it is a
19th-century melodrama for the 21st century.
More...
https://www.americantheatre.org/2016/09/20/suffering-spectacle-spells-harry-potter-as-vintage-melodrama/
***
“Melodramatic is a derogatory term these days because it’s come to us as a
synonym for bad acting,” says Frace, an assistant professor at the school. “But
that’s a misunderstanding that I think has come via bad imitation of an
external form without really knowing where it came from.”
Where it came from is France, and its glory days were in the 19th century. The
Two Orphans was written in 1874 by Frenchmen Adolphe d’Ennery and Eugene
Cormon. Like all melodramas, it features fairly straightforward good and evil
characters, with the good characters repeatedly getting into dangerous
situations from which they must rescue themselves or be rescued.
“Melodrama exists to lead the characters to emotional crises, one after
another, just so we can bring the actor downstage into the spotlight for their
shining moment where they reveal who they are and what they’ve suffered,” Frace
says.
Quite the anathema today, when the most admired actors disappear into their
characters and achieve success through understatement. But 19th century France
was a different kind of time and place. The spectators for melodramas were poor
people who came to the theater to see the actors. And having come, they wanted
to see those actors emote. As Frace puts it:
More...
https://www.washington.edu/news/2009/04/23/enter-the-world-of-melodrama-as-it-was-really-done-in-school-of-dramas-the-two-orphans/
***
Hippodrama, horse drama, or equestrian drama is a genre of theatrical show
blending circus horsemanship display with popular melodrama theatre. Kimberly
Poppiti defines it as, "plays written or performed to include a live horse
or horses enacting significant action or characters as a necessary part of the
plot." Arthur Saxon defines the form similarly, as “[...] literally a play
in which trained horses are considered as actors, with business, often leading
actions, of their own to perform.” Evolving from earlier equestrian circus,
pioneered by equestrians including, most famously, Philip Astley in the 1760s,
it relied on drama plays written specifically for the genre; trained horses
were considered actors along with humans and were even awarded leading roles.
Anthony Hippisley-Coxe described hippodrama as "a bastard entertainment
born of a misalliance between the circus and the theatre ... that actually
inhibited the development of the circus".
More...
https://www.horsepropertiesinternational.com/hippodrama
***
The characters in melodrama are all based off of strong stereotypes. The
typical scenario in melodrama was as follows: The hero is love with the
heroine, and the other way around. The villain, with his sidekick clown, plans
to have the heroine for himself via nefarious means (kidnapping, blackmail,
etc). The heroine does not love the villain back, and wants to be free of him.
The wise and elderly person comes in, and tells the hero where the villain has
taken his true love away, and the hero then sets off in attempt to save the
heroine. When the rescue is complete, the hero and heroine live happily ever
after. Stereotypical “stock” characters remained the same throughout the plot,
never developing.
The Hero: male, brave, moral, handsome, reliable (status = middle class +)
The hero is a brave character, who has the potential to do anything. He is the
character who will typically save the heroine from her misery via the hands of
the villain. The hero will fight the villain in order to get his true love back
into his heart.
The hero will enter onto the stage with grand and confident steps. With the
first hand leading the way, the other hand will rest on his hip, and the hero
will walk in a circle till he reaches his desired position. From there, he will
create the teapot stance, by having his hands in the same place, although with
first hand ending in a higher position, exclaiming his role as hero. His voice
is booming with courage and his head is typically raised up, assuming his
status.
More...
https://sites.google.com/marsden-hs.nsw.edu.au/melodrama/stock-characters
***
At the turn of the 18th century, audience were ready to go over the top, and
get some really, really dramatic theater in their lives. Like, a dog dueling a
man type of dramatic. In London, only two theaters were licensed, but
entertainment entrepreneurs figured out that musical entertainments weren't
subject to the same restrictions. So, incidental music was invented, and the
melodrama was born. And then switched with another infant. And later tied to
train tracks, but rescued at the last minute. And so forth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxzz31ww4M4&list=PL8dPuuaLjXtONXALkeh5uisZqrAcPKCee&index=29
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*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
The Henley Rose Playwright Competition for Women was founded by Yellow Rose Productions, with permission of Beth Henley, to encourage and recognize the new works of female playwrights. The Henley Rose Playwright Competition for Women aims to give voice to the stories of this generation and to bring into the spotlight important works that have been crafted.
***
Livonia Community Theatre is requesting submissions of short plays (approx. 5-20 minutes) for our winter production, LITTLE LOVE STORIES. We are looking for tales of love in all its shapes and forms, whether romantic, platonic, fulfilled or unrequited, and any color of the LGBTQIA+ rainbow.
***
Remy Bumppo seeks translations of foreign-language plays and/or new versions of existing plays, fictions, histories, memoirs, or other source materials. We encourage writers who believe a text needs a fresh voice or particular cultural, political, or social points of view in order to deliver a story to a modern audience.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
13th Annual National Jewish Playwriting Contest
We are currently seeking unproduced full-length (65+ minutes) plays and musicals that focus on aspects of 21st Century Jewish identity, culture, and ideas, and the complex and intersectional nature of contemporary Jewish life.
***
Women's Playwrights Circle open to women-identified playwrights
Preference will be given to women playwrights who are in PA, NY, NJ, CT, and DE. To be explicit, BIPOC, trans, cis and gender fluid women and those who identify on the spectrum of woman are welcome and encouraged to apply.
The first 100 applications will be considered for a spot in this year's Circle. Out of those who apply, 8-10 playwrights will be chosen to participate. Participation consists of attending up to 36 mandatory weekly (mostly) meetings (over the course of the year) to share pages, receive feedback and to develop their work. The summer session will focus on readings of full-lengths that may/may not be open to the public, depending on the determination of the playwright and the program's director.
***
The EVOLUTION FESTIVAL will present four original works of theater, dance, music, and interdisciplinary performance by NYC-based artists from September 4 to October 1, 2023, at The Center at West Park in New York City.
We are seeking existing works in progress that are ready to share with audiences but have not yet had a world premiere. Works should be evening-length: at least 45 minutes and not more than two hours.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
Fresh
Words-An International Literary Magazine is open for submissions for its
Special One Minute Comic Plays Anthology titled 'LAAFTRRRRR'
1. The play should be a 1 minute comic play/monologue.
2. We shall not accept works promoting or glorifying- violence, sexual abuse,
racism , hatred or any political ideology.
***
Masque & Spectacle open for submissions for 10-minute plays
While traditional plays are welcome, we are particularly interested in
innovative and/or interdisciplinary texts that break new ground, either in
relation to their subject matter, or in how the text itself is
performed/written/represented on stage.
Playwrights may submit one previously unpublished 10-minute play for
consideration. The script should be accompanied by a cover letter, which
includes your name, address, phone number, and email address. Proper
playwriting format should be used. If you are uncertain about this format,
several examples can be found online.
***
Clamour Theatre Company is accepting applications starting 6/19/2023 for Clay & Water 2024, our Sixth Annual Playwrights' Retreat and New Play Reading Series.
Five playwrights will be selected to participate from March 16 - March 22, 2024.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***