Welcome
John William Tuohy lives in Washington DC
The Tower of the Winds
The Tower of the Winds in Athens, in the Roman Agora, was one of the world’s first clock towers. It was built around 50 BC, and designed by the Macedonian astronomer Andronicus of Cyrrhus.
An enormous water clock was housed inside, fed every 24hrs by a stream running down from the Acropolis. As the water level rose, a float rose, powering a mechanism that showed the progress of the sun across the sky.
The lines of sundials can still be seen on the walls, as another way of telling the time (so long as the sun was shining). A bronze figure of Triton was placed on top as a weather-vane.
I adore word origins
extenuate
1 : to lessen or to try to lessen the seriousness or extent of by making partial excuses : mitigate
2 : to lessen the strength or effect of
Extenuate was borrowed into English in the late Middle Ages from Latin extenuatus, the past participle of the verb extenuare, which was itself formed by combining ex- and the verb tenuare, meaning "to make thin." In addition to the surviving senses, extenuate once meant "to make light of" and "to make thin or emaciated"; although those senses are now obsolete, the connection to tenuare can be traced somewhat more clearly through them.
Play write opportunities
Greetings NYCPlaywrights
*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
Sunday January 21, 2018
2PM
BROKEN BRANCHES - A PLAY IN THREE PIECES
by Donna Stearns
Last year on January 21st, the historic Women's Marches took place. To celebrate this one-year anniversary mark on January 21st, plays written by women all over the world will be produced, promoted, and honored. "Broken Branches" is an autobiographical drama of the playwright's own adoption. The story follows a young adult woman who asks how she came to be adopted. In this memory play where the truths are shocking, she comes to understand how wonderful it is when family makes the choice to love a child they bring into their home. Full-length play with music written by Donna Kendall Stearns. Produced by Moonbeam.net Productions. Free and open to the public. Due to sensitive material, this play may not be appropriate for children under 12 years old.
https://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2018/01/21/broken-branches-play-three-pieces
*** CLASSES AT PRIMARY STAGES ***
COMEDY WRITING FOR THE STAGE with KATE MOIRA RYAN (Writer (with Judy Gold), The Judy Show at DR2 Theatre) at at Primary Stages ESPA: A solid grasp of the mechanics of comedy writing for the stage is a powerful tool in the hand of any playwright. While comedy is a main element of a farce or a satire, it is just as essential to delicately lace comic elements into the most serious drama. In this class, you will study the specialized rules of comedy, and complete writing assignments to develop your comedic work over ten weeks.
Payment plans available. http://primarystages.org/espa/writing/comedy-writing-for-the-stage
*** PLAYWRIGHTS OPPORTUNITIES ***
Aberrant Theatre is currently seeking short, horror themed plays to be produced as part of our upcoming Ghost Light Anthology.
Working from an anthology model akin to Creepshow or Tales from the Crypt, Aberrant Theatre will be presenting an evening of short, scary plays as part of what we hope will become an annual event.
***
This year, Strange Sun Theater will select two plays as part of its Greenhouse Project, and we are proud to announce that each of the two playwrights will receive a $500 award, and be a part of our ‘ON BOOK’ series, which explores and develops the plays through a rehearsal process culminating in a public staged reading of the plays in New York City.*
***
Punk Monkey Productions is now accepting one-act plays for their seventh season of PL.A.Y Noir. Submissions should ideally range from between 10 to 20 and are required to fall in the genre of Film Noir and tradition of the vintage crime novels of the 30s and 40s by Chandler, Hammett, and Cain (think private detectives, femme fatales, unscrupulous villains, etc.).
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at http://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** WOMEN’S MARCH ***
Last year NYCPlaywrights presented the WOMEN IN THE AGE OF TRUMP project. You can see all posts on the NYCPlaywrights blog about the project here:
https://nycp.blogspot.com/search?q=women+in+the+age+of+trump&max-results=20&by-date=true
***
The Women’s Voices Theater Festival, in partnership with the National New Play Network (NNPN) and the New Play Exchange (NPX), has announced the creation of International Women’s Voices Day. It will be on Jan. 21, 2018, which marks the one-year anniversary of the 2017 Women’s March. As part of that day, the organizations encourage theatres around the world to host free readings of unproduced plays by women.
The event will be held in conjunction with the Women’s Voices Theater Festival (Jan. 15-Feb. 15, 2018), where theatres around Washington, D.C. will produce new plays by women.
“NNPN is thrilled to partner with the Women’s Voice Theater Festival to create this worldwide celebration of new works by women,” said Nan Barnett, the executive director of NNPN, in a statement. “And now, with NPX, any theatre, anywhere, can find an unproduced play by a woman writer that’s perfect for their programming and mission and share it with their audiences.”
https://www.americantheatre.org/2017/10/17/international-womens-voices-day-to-be-held-on-jan-21-2018/
***
The Humana Festival of New American Plays has announced the world-premiere works selected for inclusion in its 42nd year of original programming, which will take place February 28–April 8, 2018, at the Actors Theatre of Louisville.
Five of this year’s plays are written by women, including God Said This by Leah Nanako Winkler; Marginal Loss by Deborah Stein; Do You Feel Anger? by Mara Nelson-Greenberg; You Across from Me by Jaclyn Backhaus, Dipika Guha, Brian Otaño, and Jason Gray Plate; and we, the invisibles by Susan Soon He Stanton. Also in the lineup: Evocation to Visible Appearance by Mark Schultz.
http://www.playbill.com/article/women-playwrights-lead-2018-humana-festival-world-premieres
***
International Centre for Women Playwrights
ICWP began in 1988 in Buffalo, New York, with the mission of supporting and promoting women playwrights around the world and bringing attention to their works. Recently we have published books of scripts and given recognition awards to theatres operating gender equity in the annual season.
http://www.womenplaywrights.org
***
20% Theatre Company Chicago is dedicated to strengthening the presence and raising public awareness of women artists in theatre. It is estimated that only 20% of theatre professionals are women. By building a community of theatre professionals and fostering emerging female artists through workshops and new plays, we provide opportunities for women directors, producers, designers, and playwrights. 20% Theatre Company Chicago strives to increase the number of women in theatre.
https://www.twentypercentchicago.com/our-history
***
Feminist play ‘Vinegar Tom,’ Feb. 2 to 11, adds voice to ‘Year of the Woman’
Called “a play about witches, with no witches in it” by playwright Caryl Churchill, “Vinegar Tom” follows the lives of seven characters, four of whom will be executed, in 17th century England.
Northwestern University’s Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts presents “Vinegar Tom” from Feb. 2 to 11 in the Josephine Louis Theater, 20 Arts Circle Drive, Evanston.
Written in 1976 by the famously feminist Churchill, the play uses a witch hunt to reveal how nonconformist women who fail to fit into the narrowly defined social categories of the patriarchy were frequently labelled witches.
https://news.northwestern.edu/index.php/stories/2018/january/power-and-oppression-of-women-explored-in-wirtz-centers-first-production-of-2018/
***
The Kilroys are a gang of playwrights and producers in LA who are done talking about gender parity and are taking action. We mobilize others in our field and leverage our own power to support one another.
https://thekilroys.org/about/
***
Now in its fifth year, our BECHDEL FEST features an all female-identifying cast performing eight new short plays passing the now-famous Bechdel-Wallace Test. Created by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, “the Test” asks whether a work of entertainment features at least two women in conversation about something other than a man. Bechdel Fest: Identity Crisis follows an array of diverse and powerful women wrestling with the questions that define them and fighting for the world to see them as they are. Join us for the fifth iteration of our favorite feminist festival!
The festival ran September 10th – 13th, 2017 at The Den Theater.
http://www.brokennosetheatre.com/bechdel-fest-5/
***
A story of a fictional 16th-century female painter. Greek warriors laying siege to the walls of Troy. A couple engaged in an eerily morbid sexual transaction. Families torn apart by France’s colonial rule over Vietnam.
All of the above came to the Paris stage this month courtesy of women. In a perfect world, that fact would be unremarkable, but don’t be fooled by the claims of Catherine Deneuve and others, who argued recently in the newspaper Le Monde that the #MeToo movement was starting to infringe on artistic freedom: France is a long way from gender equality, and the output of its theater sector remains deeply skewed toward stories written and staged by men.
None of the country’s five national theaters is run by a woman; last season, the proportion of female playwrights and directors they presented ranged from 11 percent to 32 percent. The situation is slowly improving in France’s network of 38 National or Regional Dramatic Centers, which make up the next tier of publicly funded theater institutions, but 71 percent remain led by men.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/theater/women-french-theater.html
***
The second Women’s Voices Theater Festival begins its two-month ripple of 24 new plays across Washington stages this month, and what has happened in terms of equality since the 2015 festival is . . . not much. And outside in the larger culture, there’s a #MeToo riot going on.
The festival is one of the great good deeds in the American theater right now, a full city push to get past the usual lip service of readings and panels. The idea is basic: Let’s actually produce new works by women! The imbalance remains appalling: In the reputedly progressive hothouse of U.S. theater, female writers get less than a quarter of the new productions — a mere 22 percent, according the slap-in-the-face three-year Dramatists Guild-Lilly Awards survey released in 2015.
So for at least two months, Washington will put its money where it ought to be fully half the time. And that gesture of solidarity puts the District ahead of most of the country.
Yet Washington itself still lags, even among the major companies that generated the festival. The latest local demographic survey by D.C. playwrights and Woolly Mammoth Theatre staffers Gwydion Suilebhan and Olivia Haller finds scripts by women getting only 32 percent of the pie last season, a slow climb from the lowly 21 percent five years ago. And while Washington’s non-Equity theaters boast 50-50 gender parity in its directing ranks this season, Equity theaters still give two-thirds of the gigs to men.
In New York, Broadway’s 32-show season of 20 plays and 12 musicals includes only five projects by women, with six women directors.
“You’ve got to have the opportunities to work,” says writer Theresa Rebeck (of off-Broadway’s recent glass-ceiling comedy “What We’re Up Against” and NBC’s “Smash”), who is directing her updated version of the Restoration comedy “The Way of the World” at the Folger Theatre. “Or your work just doesn’t get any better.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater_dance/second-womens-voices-theater-festival-arrives-in-metoo/2018/01/04/bfadec08-e66e-11e7-833f-155031558ff4_story.html?tid=a_mcntx&utm_term=.46bdf7dd21c3
***
The Jan. 7 Arts & Style article “In her own words ” cited the woefully poor progress professional theaters are making toward parity for women playwrights. Of plays produced professionally, only 22 percent nationally are by women. Professional theaters in the District enjoy bragging rights for a higher percentage (32 percent) of women playwrights produced. Kudos to D.C. theaters for that distinction. There is, however, an even better story to share regarding a nearby professional theater that has achieved parity for women playwrights: the Contemporary American Theater Festival in Shepherdstown, W.Va. CATF, in its 27 seasons, has produced 121 new plays. Of those, 60 were written by women, and 55 were directed by women. Each summer, Equity actors arrive in this historic town — just about 100 minutes by car from Washington and Baltimore — to produce daring and diverse stories, so many of which happen to be written by women.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/one-theater-thats-achieving-parity-for-female-playwrights/2018/01/19/1ce819aa-faf8-11e7-9b5d-bbf0da31214d_story.html?utm_term=.3f2e931dd3c1
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“Promise Yourself
To be so strong that nothing
can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness, and prosperity
to every person you meet.
To make all your friends feel
that there is something in them
To look at the sunny side of everything
and make your optimism come true.
To think only the best, to work only for the best,
and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others
as you are about your own.
To forget the mistakes of the past
and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times
and give every living creature you meet a smile.
To give so much time to the improvement of yourself
that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear,
and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.
To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world,
not in loud words but great deeds.
To live in faith that the whole world is on your side
so long as you are true to the best that is in you.”
Why there is no stress in writing
I work as a writer.
I care about what I do.
I would do it for free if I had too because it is my passion.
My work is stress-free because it is my passion.
Working hard for a thing we don't care about is stress.
Save a foster child
Is there one reason, even a bad reason, that this is not the national guideline for all foster care in the USA?
New Hampshire Senate committee hears testimony for Foster Care Child Bill of Rights
STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Eighteen AN ACT establishing a foster parent bill of rights. Be it Enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court convened: 1 New Subdivision; Foster Parent Bill of Rights. Amend RSA 170-E by inserting after section 50 the following new subdivision: Foster Parent Bill of Rights 170-E:51 Foster Parent Bill of Rights. The department of health and human services shall ensure that each foster parent in this state shall be granted the following rights:
I. The right to advocate for a foster child in his or her care and to be treated with dignity, respect, and consideration as a primary provider of foster care and as a valued member of the child welfare team, including:
(a) Uniform treatment throughout the state by the department, ensuring the exercise of the rights granted to foster parents, including the right not to be discriminated against on the basis of religion, race, color, creed, sex, national origin, age, marital status, or physical handicap.
(b) Freedom from coercion, discrimination, and reprisal for voicing concerns about a child in the foster parent's care.
(c) A commitment that the department shall not discharge, threaten, or otherwise discriminate or retaliate against a foster parent for any appropriate inquiry regarding the decisions or practices of the department.
II. The right to accept or refuse placement of a child and to request, upon reasonable notice to the department, the removal of a child from the foster parent's home. This includes the right to be considered first for placement of a child previously placed in the foster parent's home, and the right to be considered first as the permanent placement if relative placement is not an option.
III. The right to personal safety and the protection of personally identifiable information. This includes the right to be consulted prior to the release of the foster parent's address or phone number to the child's birth parents; the right to be informed prior to the release of such information to the birth parent; and the right to maintain the foster parent family's patterns, routine, values, and beliefs.
IV. The right to information about the role and responsibilities of foster parents, including:
(a) A formal foster parent agreement, concise written expectations, and feedback in relation to being a member of the child welfare team, including periodic and timely evaluations of the foster parent's performance.
(b) Information regarding how a foster parent may provide the court with written documentation pertinent to the child's well-being.
(c) Guidelines related to permanency planning and standards.
(d) An explanation of policies and procedures specific to a foster parent's rights in accordance with this subdivision.
V. The right to receive in a timely and consistent manner information related to a foster child's behavioral problems, health history, educational status, cultural and family background, and other issues relative to the child which are known to the department at the time the child is placed in foster care. When the department receives such information after placement, the department shall make that information available to the foster parent in a timely manner. The department also shall fully disclose any information regarding any past or pending delinquency petitions, criminal charges, and previous hospitalizations, whether due to mental or physical issues.
VI. The right to contact a representative of the department 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for the purpose of aiding the foster parent in caring for the child.
VII. The right to receive fair and equitable payments and other financial reimbursement for the care of a child in foster care.
VIII. The right to receive training and support to enhance a foster parent's skills in meeting the needs of a child in foster care, as well as the right to notice of changes in department policies, procedures, and related statutes in a timely manner.
IX. The right to information concerning scheduled meetings and appointments involving a foster child. This includes:
(a) Participation in a foster child's individual service planning meetings, foster care reviews, individual educational planning meetings, permanency planning, medical and dental appointments, and any other meeting related to the service planning decision making process.
(b) The right to provide information that will be considered in the same manner as information presented by any other team member for the case planning and decision-making process regarding the child, and the right to advocate for the same without intimidation, discrimination, or retaliation.
(c) The right to request a team meeting to address concerns specific to the child, including the right to participate in development of the child's permanency plan.
(d) The right to feedback in a courteous and respectful manner from any team member when a foster parent's opinion or recommendation differs from that of the department.
X. The right to information regarding collateral agency policies and procedures that relate to the role of the foster parents. The right to communicate with professionals who work with the foster child, including, but not limited to, therapists, physicians, and teachers who work directly with the child within the context of the team and receive written reports directly from said professionals.
XI. The right to communicate with the child's birth family, former or prospective foster parents of the child, and prospective and finalized adoptive parents of the child, with approval from the court and the department. This may include the right to:
(a) Receive any information concerning the number of times a foster child has been moved and the reasons why.
(b) Help plan visitation between the child and the child's siblings or biological family members.
(c) Maintain contact with the foster child after the child leaves the foster home, unless the child, a birth parent, or other foster or adoptive parent refuses such contact.
XII. The right to be given reasonable written notice of:
(a) Any change in a child's case plan, including a revised copy of the case plan in a timely manner.
(b) Any plan to remove a child from the foster home, including the reason for the change or termination in placement.
(c) Any motion, petition, or hearing, including a court order for removal involving the foster parent.
XIII. The right to reasonable notice from the department of all court proceedings, the right to attend such proceedings, and, at the discretion of the court, the right to be heard.
XIV. The right to submit written reports to the court to ensure that personal and accurate information concerning the child's behaviors and developmental needs are included in the court's findings.
XV. The right to report factual, objective information about a child's placement, medical and dental information, education, behaviors, special interests and activities, visitation including dates, observations of the child and any dates of contact with parents, professional contacts and recommendations of services a child may benefit from.
XVI. The right to hire an attorney to assist a foster parent in abuse and neglect, permanency, and termination cases; however a foster parent is not a party to a child's case and may participate in the legal proceeding only in the manner prescribed by the court. Permission for a foster parent to enter the court with legal counsel is at the discretion of the presiding judge.
XVII. The right to be promptly informed, in writing, of any complaint against a foster parent or any problem in the foster parent's home which adversely affects the person's license as a foster parent. This department shall provide guidance and support to facilitate resolution of the complaint or problem.
XVIII. The department and their contractors shall provide access to a fair and impartial grievance process to address licensure, case management decisions, and delivery of service issues. Foster parents shall have timely access to the child placement agency's appeals process and shall be free from acts of retaliation when exercising the right to appeal. 2 Effective Date. This act shall take effect 60 days after its passage
...so keep writing
“A river
cuts through rock, not because of its power, but because of its persistence.” -
Jim Watkins
THERE’S NO RETIREMENT FOR AN ARTIST,
THERE’S NO
RETIREMENT FOR AN ARTIST, IT’S YOUR WAY OF LIVING SO THERE’S NO END TO IT. -
Henry Moore
Here's a poem for yous
“TITANIC”
By
DAVID R. SLAVITT’S
Who does not love the Titanic?
If they sold passage tomorrow for that same crossing,
who would not buy?
To go down…We all go down, mostly
alone. But with crowds of people, friends, servants,
well fed, with music, with lights!Ah!
And the world, shocked, mourns, as it ought to do
and almost never does. There will be the books and movies
to remind our grandchildren who we were
and how we died, and give them a good cry.
Not so bad, after all. The cold
water is anesthetic and very quick.
The cries on all sides must be a comfort.
We all go: only a few, first class.
The Stolen Child
I’ve read this poem for decades.
Notice how you could take the first sentence of three first stanza’s (of which the first words all begin with a calming W sound and establish place) and blend them in, easily, to fit into the last paragraph.
The W sound is replayed again at the end of each stanza (To the waters and the wild, With a faery, hand in hand) but not in a soothing sense, rather as words to excite the child about a wonderful place.
WHERE dips the rocky highland
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
Where the wandering water gushes
The Stolen Child
By Yeats
WHERE dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we've hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.
Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest.
For he comes, the human child,
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than he can understand.
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