NYCPlaywrights
Greetings NYCPlaywrights
*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
When the Light Goes Out: Spirits, Souls & Spooky Tales
October 30th at 6 PM
Dr. Ronald McNair Park, Washington Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11238
October 31st at 6 PM
Cuyler Gore Park, Fulton St &, Greene Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11238
How do we connect with those no longer with us? What lurks in the shadows? What scares us? These are the questions the ensemble explores in When the Light Goes Out--all while giving you a good Halloween scare. This show has a suggested rating of PG-13.
Celebrate legacy and a tradition of ghost stories in When the Light Goes Out: Spirits, Souls, and Spooky Tales, created by the Ensemble. Performances are October 29th-31st at South Oxford Park, Ronald McNair Park, and Cuyler Gore Park (respectively). To reserve a free spot, visit https://tinyurl.com/lightgoesout.
Performances presented free of charge. To RSVP, visit https://tinyurl.com/lightgoesout
*** PRIMARY STAGES ESPA ***
NOW ENROLLING: FAST FIRST DRAFT at Primary Stages ESPA!
Start a First Draft and finish it FAST! Take FAST FIRST DRAFT with LIA ROMEO (4-time Kilroys List Writer) online through Primary Stages ESPA. Propelled forward by page-generating exercises and unencumbered by extensive critique, you will start to develop a new play—either a one-act or a full-length—and have another project ready for continued writing and future development. Class begins November 15 and run Mondays from 6:30 – 9:30 PM ET. Flexible, artist-friendly payment plans available.
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
Neukom Institute for Computational Science at Dartmouth College
The arts are among the areas that computational sciences has transformed, not only through its impact on modes of production of artwork, but also as a formative influence on its themes and motivations, notably in the fields of speculative fiction as well as the dramatic arts. To that end, the Neukom Institute is proud to announce this prize for creative work in the arts.
Full-length plays and other full length works for theater addressing the question “What does it mean to be a human in a computerized world?”
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The SETC/Stage Rights Ready to Publish Award is a program dedicated to developing, publishing, and licensing new works. The winning play and playwright will be announced in January. The author of the winning piece must attend the following SETC Annual Convention where a panel reading of the play will be held.
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Rockford New Words 2022 is seeking new 10 minute works to be chosen and presented in a staged performance Feb 4th & 5th, 2021. Writers can choose to perform their own works (Live or on Zoom), or have them presented by professional performers. Writers each receive $200.
THEME: WORDS ON WOMAN
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** GHOST LIGHT ***
The superstitious have many justifications for the ghost light in relation to the supernatural. A popular theatrical superstition holds that every theatre has a ghost. Some theatres have traditions to appease ghosts that reach far back into their history. The Palace Theatre, London keeps two seats in their balcony permanently bolted open to provide seating for the theatre ghosts. The ghosts of the theatre are not necessarily malevolent spirits; it is considered good luck for a production if the famous Man in Grey makes an appearance during rehearsal at the Drury Lane theatre.
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Broadway’s New Amsterdam Theatre, thronged with more than 1,700 people nightly to see the hit musical Aladdin, is home to one of the theatre world’s most active ghosts. And it’s been a busy couple of years for her, according to Dana Amendola, vice president of operations for Disney Theatrical Group.
Olive Thomas, a onetime Ziegfeld Follies chorus girl who has been haunting the 42nd Street playhouse since she committed suicide in 1920, is by far the most active ghost on Broadway. She manifests so frequently that Amendola has placed photographs of her at every entrance to the theatre so workers can greet her when they arrive for work each day (which is believed to keep her mischief to a minimum). Most are visible only to Disney employees, who have a ritual of blowing a kiss or touching the picture frame as they enter and leave. But audiences who enter through the main entrance on 42nd Street can see one, too; Olive Thomas is the last photo on the right side as you enter.
But her spirit made a recent appearance, too.
Amendola said a group of Disney staffers were sitting in an office discussing the Oscar-winning film The Artist, set in the silent film era. They were wondering how many Follies girls became film stars, and they mentioned that Olive Thomas was one, but somebody said the REAL star of the silent era was Mary Pickford (Olive’s sister-in-law). “Now, maybe Olive got a little upset about that because when someone said, ‘I wonder what Olive Thomas would think of The Artist,’ a stack of 13 or 14 DVDs on the table next to them flew into the air and crashed across the room. They all sat in stunned silence. That stack had been there for a long time, and there was no obvious way they could have fallen, let alone flew across the room. They didn’t fall straight down as CDs would have done; they went flying about three feet across the room and hit a wall. This was witnessed by several people. They didn’t even make the connection to Olive right away. But when they told me about it, I did.”
Amendola said ushers and overnight security people report feeling a touch on the back, like someone sneaking up on them and playing a practical joke. But when they turn around, no one is there.
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7 Times Someone Said ‘Macbeth’ And Things Went Wrong
One of the most well-known myths for thespians involves uttering the name “Macbeth” inside the theatre. If you are currently in a production, sitting in a theatre and for some reason reading this article out loud, please relocate.
As the legend goes, when this name is spoken inside a theatre, it can curse the production. Lights can fall, people can literally break their legs and the whole of a production may become a disaster within minutes. Once spoken, a curse reversal needs to occur, or things may just keep going terribly wrong.
We know what some of you may be thinking: This is just a silly superstition. But just before you utter this in a theatre to prove us wrong, see if these seven stories from our Theatre Nerds about how the Scottish play nearly ruined a production will change your mind:
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Rumored to house more than 100 ghosts, the Palace is surely the most renowned of Broadway’s haunted haunts. Among the many apparitions that regularly appear to theatre personnel include a female musician, clad in a white gown playing cello in the pit; a gloomy little girl who hides out in the balcony; a supposed former manager, dressed in a brown suit, who stalks the manager’s office; a young boy who rolls toy trucks in the hallway behind the mezzanine, and even the ghost of Judy Garland herself, known to appear at the rear of the orchestra pit, near a door built specifically for her to enter and exit from during her much-lauded Palace concerts. According to lore, faint melodies from a Steinway piano are also occasionally heard late at night.
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"Break a leg" is one piece of performer lingo that has leaked into the mainstream. Originally, it was used by actors and musicians to wish their colleagues good luck before going on stage. Today, even people outside the entertainment world know the meaning of the idiom, but few people probably know where it comes from.
The common story behind "break a leg" is that it began as a replacement for "good luck"—a phrase that's actually considered bad luck if spoken out loud in theater. The superstition is real, but it doesn't explain why actors started wishing each other bodily harm instead.
According to Grammarist, the saying in its modern form originated as an in-joke in theaters in the 1920s. This theory states that rookie performers waiting in the wings teased the well-seasoned pros by telling them to "break a leg," which would have allowed the understudies to take their place.
Another theory traces the idiom even further back in time. In Old English, breaking a leg could have described someone bending a leg, as in a curtsy or bow. Instead of jokingly wishing someone to get too injured to perform, this version of the phrase could have been a way to encourage actors to make it to the end of a successful show.
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This storied theater in New Zealand’s capital has a long history of presenting all sorts of culture, including operas, ballets, and movies. It also happens to be lousy with supernatural phenomena. A friendly ghost named Yuri, a Russian dancer who fell to his death onstage, has been responsible for strange electrical occurrences—and, supposedly, for twice saving the life of one of the St. James’s projectionists. Less benevolent is "The Wailing Woman," the spirit of a failed actress who has been known to weep in the dressing rooms and is blamed for unfortunate circumstances that have befallen other female performers at the theater.
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A woman lies on a tomb in a deathlike slumber, rose petals scattered all around. A balding, bearded man is attempting to remove the stopper of a poison bottle with his teeth. The tomb begins to wobble alarmingly. As the poison hits home, the man collapses on to the woman, then slides to the floor. She lets out a muffled yelp.
This is the death scene from Romeo and Juliet, but not – hopefully – as you’ve previously experienced it. The actors at this rehearsal are the specialist clown troupe Spymonkey, being directed by maverick theatre-maker Tim Crouch. The show, called The Complete Deaths, aims to re-enact every onstage fatality in the Shakespearean canon: stabbings, smotherings, poisonings, bear attack, being turned into baked goods, the lot. If this scene is any clue, it will be the funniest piece of Shakespearean theatre since Mel Gibson played the Dane, except that here the laughs are intentional.
The majority of this year’s Shakespeare celebrations have minimised the fact that, technically, we’re marking four centuries since the playwright shuffled off this mortal coil. But for Crouch and Toby Park, Spymonkey’s managing artistic director, death is very much the point. The concept of The Complete Deaths is straightforward and aptly Shakespearean: we watch what is in effect a play within a play, with Spymonkey’s four members performing loose versions of themselves.
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