Welcome
John William Tuohy lives in Washington DC
*** 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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