Greetings NYCPlaywrights
*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
A Sunday Afternoon with Broadway Performers Javier Ignacio and Josh Walker
Join us for an unforgettable afternoon of music and storytelling with Broadway’s Javier Ignacio and Josh Walker. Ignacio, renowned for his roles as "Harry Houdini" and "Dog Boy" in the 2014 revival of Krieger and Russell’s Side Show, also appeared in the 2021 Tony award-winning Broadway revival of Sondheim’s Company, starring Patti LuPone. He will be joined by the acclaimed Josh Walker on piano.
Walker, known for his performances in Side Show and nearly two decades with the legendary Radio City Rockettes, will serve as the music director for this special event.
This family-friendly show will feature beloved musical theatre standards, jazz classics, exciting new compositions, and laugh-out-loud stories from the heart of New York City
— brought to life as only Javier and Josh can!
Sunday, March 9 · 2:30 - 4pm EDT
Central Library
8911 Merrick Blvd. Jamaica, NY 11432
Register for up to 3 free tickets
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/a-sunday-afternoon-with-broadway-performers-javier-ignacio-and-josh-walker-tickets-1226781108319?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
Onstage/Offstage is opening our call for submissions of 10-minute plays to produce and air on its podcast, now in its 13th year. This year's theme is “Diversity/Equity/Inclusion.” We seek plays that center on the characters' struggle rather than the topic itself. Please make sure your submissions are character-centered. Also please read and follow these guidelines, especially submission acceptance dates, if you wish your play to be considered.
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The Jim Henson Foundation awards grants each year for the creation of innovative new works of contemporary puppet theater. Our definition of a puppet is an object that is given the appearance of life through direct or indirect manipulation by the human hand. The Foundation’s Board of Directors judges applications based on the excellence of the puppetry including puppet design, manipulation and theatrical execution.
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RubySky Productions is looking for plays of 10 minutes or fewer, for their next audio production. Us Rubys are keen to inspire the next generation of playwrights, so please share to any family or friends. Any subject and genre, just keep to under 10 minutes please and ideally suitable for audio. Open to anyone worldwide under 18, no other restrictions.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK ***
He said he co-wrote the movie as a critique of most of the press rolling over ahead of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Clooney called out President George W. Bush for the misbegotten war, and he was called a traitor for being against it.
“It was a pretty tough time,” he recalled.
The movie, he said, was really about: “We need the press” because “government unchecked is a problem.”
Now, with President Trump throwing Washington into a tumult, Clooney said, we are living through a time when “You take a narrative, you make it up, don’t worry about facts, don’t worry about repercussions.” He said the play “feels more like it’s about truth, not just the press. Facts matter.”
Certainly, there are unavoidable echoes of McCarthy’s Washington in Trump’s Washington, a place rife with “alternative facts,” as Kellyanne Conway called them, as well as conspiracy theories, reckless attacks and punitive measures. The White House, for example, wants government employees to snitch on colleagues who are promoting diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Associated Press journalists were barred from covering some White House events because the news outlet refused to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
“No rules count anymore,” Clooney said. “It’s like letting an infant walk across the 405 freeway in the middle of the afternoon.”
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/20/theater/george-clooney-broadway-good-night-good-luck.html
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A work of historical drama, Good Night, and Good Luck centers on a clash between famed journalist Edward R. Murrow and infamous U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, of anti-communist HUAC fame. The title comes from Murrow's broadcast sign-off. Clooney starred on screen as Murrow's co-producer, Fred W. Friendly, and as previously announced will lead the stage version as Edward R. Murrow, the role played by David Strathairn on screen. Clooney also directed the original film. Clooney and Grant Heslov have penned the stage adaptation from their 2005 screenplay, and David Cromer will direct.
Clooney revealed his supporting company in front of the Winter Garden February 6. Among those newly announced to be joining him are Ilana Glazer (Broad City) as Shirley Wershba, Clark Gregg (Agents of Shield) as Don Hollenbeck, Mac Brandt as Colonel Anderson, Will Dagger as Don Hewitt, Christopher Denham as John Aaron, Glenn Fleshler as Fred Friendly, Paul Gross as William F. Paley, Georgia Heers as Ella, Carter Hudson as Joe Wershba, Fran Kranz as Palmer Williams, Jennifer Morris as Millie Green, Michael Nathanson as Eddie Scott, Andrew Polk as Charlie Mack, and Aaron Roman Weiner as Don Surine.
More...
https://playbill.com/article/ilana-glazer-clark-gregg-more-join-george-clooney-in-good-night-and-good-luck-on-broadway
***
George Clooney interview on Fresh Air, 2005
Actor, producer, writer, director George Clooney directed and co-wrote the new film Good Night, and Good Luck, about the showdown between legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow and Sen. Joseph McCarthy that took place in 1954. Clooney also has a role in the film, portraying Murrow's producer Fred Friendly. The film is receiving much critical acclaim.
The film Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, about game-show host Chuck Barris, marked Clooney's directorial debut. His acting and producing credits include Ocean's Eleven and Ocean's Twelve; The Jacket; Full Frontal; and Welcome to Collinwood.
Clooney also starred in the Coen brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou? He became a household face and name with his role on NBC's ER. Clooney is also the nephew of the late singer Rosemary Clooney.
https://www.npr.org/2005/12/27/4963561/george-clooney-the-journey-to-good-night
***
Good Night, and Good Luck was criticised by some on its release for making Murrow into too simplistic a hero. While most historical films simplify things, this one doesn’t completely sanctify its protagonist. After Murrow debates with McCarthy, his boss Bill Paley (Frank Langella) accuses him of not correcting the senator on one point of fact: that the lawyer and State Department official Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury, not treason. Paley suggests Murrow didn’t want to be seen defending a known communist. Joseph McCarthy – who effectively plays himself in the film, appearing in documentary footage – emerges as a straightforward villain, but he made that bed for himself and most historians have let him lie in it.
“We don’t make the news,” says Paley. “We report the news.” As Murrow is drawn into a war with McCarthy, the station frets about its revenue. Good Night, and Good Luck does a fantastically clever job of intercutting real footage of McCarthy and other figures into its drama, mostly to serious effect – though there is a moment of levity when Murrow must interview Liberace. “Have you given much thought to getting married and eventually settling down?” Murrow asks the exceptionally camp but closeted performer. “I want to some day find a perfect mate,” the real Liberace replies in the documentary footage. “In fact I was reading about lovely young Princess Margaret, and she’s looking for her dream man too, and I hope she finds him some day.” Not even subtle. Remarkably, in 1959, Liberace won a lawsuit against the Daily Mirror after it implied he was what was then called a “homosexualist”.
More...
https://archive.ph/OL2DX
***
(The New Yorker, 1953)
To the top men of the Columbia Broadcasting System, it is a matter of concern that their news broadcaster Edward R. Murrow, whose baritone voice over the C.B.S. radio and austere presence on C.B.S.-TV have made him both a semi-public figure and a valued private property, has appeared, over the years, to be less attracted to eminence than to trouble. To be sure, Murrow, a lean, dark, handsome, and deceptively easy-mannered man of forty-five, who bears his own eminence without visible effort, is on cordial-to-intimate terms with most of the important people in the United States and Great Britain and gives no evidence of being indifferent to their esteem.
But it has been noticed that his satisfaction in his work as an informer of public opinion increases with his proximity to gunfire, to some real or fancied calamity, or to the brink of complete physical exhaustion. During the Second World War, his habit of excusing himself from his post in London to go off on bombing missions brought frequent ineffectual protests from William S. Paley, chairman of the board of the Columbia Broadcasting System and the only man there who has ever tried to boss Murrow; declining to be bossed, Murrow made a couple of dozen combat flights, of which Paley said later, “They didn’t do us much good from my point of view, but there was no way to make him stop, short of firing him.”
Since that war, Murrow has had fewer opportunities to expose himself to hostile marksmen. He did manage to get in two trips to Korea while the shooting was going on there, but for the most part he has had to content himself with the pursuit of floods, droughts, and tornadoes and with such personal discomforts as going too long without sleep and flying too much in airplanes, the first of which causes him to sweat profusely and the second to have trouble with his ears.
More...
https://archive.ph/OHgmQ#selection-797.0-797.1847
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George Clooney likes the story of a television figure who uses his celebrity to make a positive impact on American culture. It isn’t hard to see why. Son of the longtime news anchor Nick Clooney, the former ER heartthrob grew up believing in the power of TV to make a difference. Now, at age 44, he has directed his second big-screen work on the subject.
Where Clooney’s underrated Confessions of a Dangerous Mind picked the febrile brain of The Gong Show host Chuck Barris, his new Good Night, and Good Luck salutes TV-news pioneer Edward R. Murrow, whose on-air battles with Red-baiting Senator Joseph McCarthy helped make the country safe for free speech—at least temporarily. (Also see a review of The Edward R. Murrow Collection.) Albeit set in the ’50s, Good Night is hardly yesterday’s news: The movie completed production not long before the New York Times broke the story that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting had hired a researcher to investigate the “political leanings” (read: liberal bias) of commentators such as PBS’s own Bill Moyers.
More...
https://archive.ph/HrD50
***
Journalists, including some at CBS News, are expressing alarm at reports that CBS parent company Paramount Global is trying to settle a legally dubious lawsuit lodged by President Donald Trump last fall.
Trump sued CBS after an October “60 Minutes” interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris – Trump’s opponent in the presidential campaign – included an edit that Trump said was unfairly favorable to Harris. Despite legal experts’ widespread assertion that CBS’ editorial judgment was protected by the First Amendment, The New York Times Thursday night reported that a settlement was in the works.
That sparked outage in CBS’ newsroom.
“Trump’s lawsuit was a joke, but if we settle, we become the laughingstock,” a CBS correspondent said on condition of anonymity.
CBS in October called the suit meritless and said at the time “we will vigorously defend against it.” A Paramount spokesperson on Friday declined to comment. A lawyer for Trump, Edward Paltzik, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but he told The Times that “real accountability for CBS and Paramount will ensure that the president is compensated for the harm done to him.”
The Times noted that “a settlement would be an extraordinary concession by a major U.S. media company to a sitting president, especially in a case in which there is no evidence that the network got facts wrong or damaged the plaintiff’s reputation.”
More...
https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/31/media/cbs-trump-settlement-60-minutes/index.html
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