Plays

 *** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***

Missouri Baptist University Theatre's Musical Theatre Showcase
Featuring Missouri Baptist University Theatre's Musical Theatre Bachelor of Fine Arts majors, this showcase features music from beloved productions as well as some new and original work from New York composers, including an opener by Alyssa Payne.

Monday, May 12 · 2 - 3:30pm EDT

The Theater Center
210 West 50th Street New York, NY 10019

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/missouri-baptist-university-theatres-musical-theatre-showcase-tickets-1325235959429?aff=ebdssbdestsearch


*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

All playwrights, regardless of military affiliation, are invited to enter Salem State University’s 10-Minute Playwriting Contest. However, preference will be given to those with a direct military connection. This includes active-duty military, reservists, National Guard, Veterans, and direct family of any of these.

The theme of the play should directly touch on military service and/or how military service affects a community. The contest and festival look to recognize and celebrate those that have served and currently serve. We are looking to bring together a variety of voices exploring both the challenges and the victories and positive influences that Veterans have on our community.

***

Vidalia Winter Yield seeks 10-minute plays
We're accepting submissions for our Winter Yield collection of 10-minute plays to be produced in January 2026. The setting for this show is the airport. It can be at the gate, ticket counter, baggage claim, etc… as long as it’s in the airport (not on an airplane).

***

The inaugural Green Mountain New Play Festival is now accepting submissions for its summer 2025 festival, taking place August 8-10, 2025 as part of the brand-new Green Mountain Shakespeare Festival, a division of Plainfield Little Theatre at The CreativeCampus@Goddard in Vermont.

This exciting new venture is dedicated to fostering bold, original voices in contemporary playwriting. Selected playwrights will receive a staged reading with professional directors and actors.

*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***


*** THEATER & EMPATHY ***

My favorite of Mr. Kushner’s characters is the woman who delivers the monologue that is the entire first act of “Homebody/Kabul,” his 2001 drama about Afghanistan. She is identified only as the Homebody, and her section of the play, delivered from a chair “in a pleasant room in her home in London,” is nothing more nor less than a sustained act of empathy, as she tries to envision what it must be like to live in Afghanistan, and how that country came to be as it is. Her point of view is both questioning and affirmative, enriched by a passionate longing to understand an exotic worldview.

That monologue mirrors Mr. Kushner’s own, deeply emotional curiosity about lives beyond his own. I won’t say he is a nonjudgmental writer. He has as strong and righteous a sense of morality as any contemporary dramatist I can think of. But he works hard at trying to enter the minds (and mind-sets) of alien sensibilities. This is integral to his talent as a playwright, and I assume it is a large part of what was being honored by CUNY (specifically, by John Jay College). As far as I can see or read, nothing he has said or done publicly is a violation or contradiction of that spirit that is the basis of his talent.

More...
https://archive.nytimes.com/artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/05/theater-talkback-the-honorable-tony-kushner/

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Can attending live theatre improve empathy by immersing audience members in the stories of others? We tested this question across three field studies (n = 1622), including a pre-registered replication. We randomly assigned audience members to complete surveys either before or after seeing plays, and measured the effects of the plays on empathy, attitudes, and pro-social behavior. After, as compared to before, seeing the plays, people reported greater empathy for groups depicted in the shows, held opinions that were more consistent with socio-political issues highlighted in the shows, and donated more money to charities related to the shows. Seeing theatre also led participants to donate more to charities unrelated to the shows, suggesting that theatre's effects on pro-sociality generalize to different contexts. Altogether, these findings suggest that theatre is more than mere entertainment; it can lead to tangible increases in empathy and pro-social behavior.

More...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002210312100038X

***

Podcast: Mark Phelan on The Role of Theatre in Invoking Radical Empathy

In this episode of Talking about Methods, Professor Linda Mulcahy talks to Dr Mark Phelan (Queen's University Belfast) about the role of theatre in invoking radical empathy. He explains how playwrights and practitioners are effectively dealing with the legacies of political violence and traumatic history and demonstrates their importance for public memory.
For more information on this episode, please visit frontiers.csls.ox.ac.uk.

https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/talking-about-methods-3983408/episodes/mark-phelan-on-the-role-of-the-212408153

***

Race and the Classics: An Argument for Empathy

In Pearl Cleage’s Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous (2019), the character Anna creates a radical solo show in which she performs August Wilson’s monologues in the nude. Her sister comments, “You stopped doing Naked Wilson because you didn’t want to live in your rage and then you made your reputation doing Lady Macbeth, Medea, Clytemnestra, Hedda Gabbler. Those are some very angry women.” Anna replies, “That’s different. It’s not my personal rage, so it comes from a different place altogether” (Cleage 13). The gap between lived and imagined experience—a crucial distance—allows Anna, a Black woman in the United States, to access and convey “rage” in her staging of ancient Greek and late nineteenth-century Norwegian characters without causing continual distress to herself.

We propose that this gap requires further exploration, especially when classic texts are reenvisioned through the casting of actors whose lived experiences of race differ from those of the characters they play. Centering on the corporeal and identarian distance between racialized (and ethnicized) adaptations of classics, we contend that these spaces between the lived (the actor), the performed (the character), and the witnessing (the theatregoer) exist as zones of potential empathetic connection. These connections are multidirectional and, as suggested in Cleage’s play, can be restorative.

Telling Our Stories

In 1996, August Wilson famously stood before the attendees at the Theatre Communications Group annual convening and critiqued the professional theatre community—notably major regional and Broadway theatres—for failing to stage stories by Black artists about Black life. He confronted a system in which nonwhite actors of color were restricted mostly to roles not originally envisioned for them:

To mount an all-black production of a Death of a Salesman or any other play conceived for white actors as an investigation of the human condition through the specifics of white culture is to deny us our own humanity, our own history, and the need to make our own investigations from the cultural ground on which we stand as black Americans. It is an assault on our presence, and our difficult but honorable history in America; and it is an insult to our intelligence, our playwrights, and our many and varied contributions to the society and the world at large. (“Ground”)

More...
https://www.jhuptheatre.org/theatre-topics/online-content/issue/volume-34-issue-2-july-2024/race-and-classics-argument-empathy

***

The first time I cried at the theatre, I was eleven. It was a local production of West Side Story, and after being altogether unimpressed by the film, I wasn’t expecting much. Yet, when I could clearly see the tears on Maria’s face as she held Tony’s lifeless body, even from my cushioned seat, I was right there with her. I had never been in love. I had never lost someone I loved. I was not a Puerto Rican immigrant from the 1950s. I was sure the actress didn’t necessarily share the same history as well, but there she was embodying that pain. There I was, feeling my heart wrench with everyone else’s in the room, audience and performer alike, and understanding a mix of emotions I had never encountered. It was education. It was connection. It was power.

Years, and hundreds of plays later, I found myself studying at length the science behind the importance of performance. Why is the experience so significant? I approached this question from both a cognitive scientific and an artistic perspective. As a result, my work consisted of theoretical and applied research, beginning with the creation of a 2016 documentary theatre production entitled The Stories We Are. The show was devised at Hampshire College by seven ensemble members who were asked to explore personal storytelling through a variety of performance mediums.

More...
https://howlround.com/plays-thing-0

***

An article in Medical Science Monitor suggests that empathy can be neurologically explained through two modes of processing: social mirroring and perspective-taking.

Social mirroring suggests that when we observe someone experiencing an emotion, our autonomic and somatic responses activate our own neural network connected to that emotion. Through this mirror neuron system (MNS), we can share an emotional state with someone by witnessing their experience in that state.

Perspective-taking involves a level of understanding that first requires us to distinguish ourselves from others. In doing this, we begin to understand someone else's unique desires, intentions and beliefs. Prefrontal areas of the brain responsible for mentalizing then activate, allowing us to develop a cognitive inference of someone else's mental state (also known as having a theory of mind).

Jenny Toutant, chief of engagement and education officer at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, says the live nature of theater is part of its power — a part that can facilitate these reactions.

"There's a dynamic and an ephemeral experience that is happening between the performers on stage and the audience members," Toutant says. "The way you breathe effects how somebody watching you breathes. There's some way that you're really connecting with people on a human level."

Lear says other artistic theatrical elements can heighten emotions evoked during the experience, unlike recorded mediums such as written text or film.

"When you are in a theater, you're feeling the vibrations of the music in your body; you are close to the actors; you are hearing them," Lear says. "That kind of embodied approach helps make it more of an emotional experience, as opposed to just an intellectual experience.”

More...
https://www.discovermagazine.com/mind/research-links-increased-empathy-with-live-theater-experience

***

Actors develop a heightened affinity for empathy compared to the average person. Our craft revolves around the profound understanding and portraying of human emotions and experiences. Research from Boston College has shown that individuals receiving acting training exhibit "significant gains in empathy scores," suggesting that acting is a potent conduit for enhancing empathy.

Great actors possess a unique ability to astutely observe the world around them and emotionally relate to the experiences of others very quickly. This deep emotional connection enables us to immerse ourselves in unique characters and bring authenticity to their performances. Through awareness and emotional alchemy, actors are able to perceive and express empathy in a way that is both nuanced and powerful, often setting us apart from the “average person” in their capacity to understand and convey the complexities of human emotions and relationships.

More...
https://howlround.com/evolving-our-world-through-power-actors-empathy

Decimate

 

Decimate can mean both “to destroy a large number of (plants, animals, people, etc.)” or “to severely damage or destroy a large part of (something).”

 In ancient Rome it had a very singular meaning: “to select by lot and kill every tenth man of a military unit.” However, many words in English descended from Latin have changed and/or expanded their meanings in their travels. For example, we no longer think of sinister as meaning “on the left side,” and delicious can describe things both tasty and delightful. Was the “to kill every tenth man” meaning the original use of decimate in English? Yes, but not by much. It took only a few decades for decimate to acquire its broader, familiar meaning of “to severely damage or destroy,” which has been employed steadily since the 17th century.

sleuth

 

  When Middle English speakers first borrowed sleuth from the Old Norse word slōth, the term referred to the track of an animal or person. In Scotland, sleuth hund referred to a kind of bloodhound used to hunt game or track down fugitives from justice. In 19th-century U.S. English, sleuthhound, soon shortened to sleuth, began to be used for a detective. From there, sleuth slipped into verb use to apply to what a sleuth does.

Norman Rockwell

 

Good words to have

 

Archetype’s origins are in two Greek words: the verb archein, meaning “to begin,” and the noun typos, meaning “type.”

 

Uniquity: From French unique, from Latin unus (one).

*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

 

Don McCann Playwriting Contest 2025
The Oswego Players were established in 1938 as a non-profit community theater organization dedicated to live theater productions and theater education for Oswego area residents. Consistent with those goals, a playwriting contest was established to promote the creation of original, one-act plays by contemporary authors.
The contest is FREE and open to any playwright who is 18 years or older and resides (or attends college) in the state of New York.

***

Sesame Workshop Writers’ Room fellowship 2025
Fresh new writing talent that reflects our vast audience. Emerging storytellers who are selected to join the Writers’ Room will receive hands-on writing experience guided by Sesame Street veterans and other media industry leaders. Each participant will develop and write a pilot script for their own original kids’ program. Past fellows have gone on to develop their own original content with Sesame Workshop, as well as write for Sesame Street and various programs at Nickelodeon, Disney, DreamWorks, and more! 

***

Page 73 Development Programs 2026
Applications for the 2026 programs are now open. Applicants for both programs:
1. The applicant must be a US resident at the time of participation;
2. The applicant must have completed at least 2 full-length plays or at least 3 one-act plays;
3. The applicant must have made a commitment to playwriting as a professional goal;
4. The applicant must have never received a production in New York City that is fully contracted with Actors Equity Association and ran for at least four weeks or twenty-one performances;

*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***


*** GREEK CHORUS ***

In Ancient Greek Theatre, there is an interesting similarity among the plays written during that time: there is always a chorus included. Nowadays most people would associate a chorus with musicals, but playwrights like Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles included a chorus in their regular plays. The chorus consisted of a group of 12 to 50 players who spoke or sang their lines in unison, wore masks, and functioned as one actor rather than a large group of many performers.

The purpose of the Greek chorus was to provide background and summary information to the audience to help them understand what was going on in the performance. They commented on themes, expressed what the main characters couldn’t say (like secrets, thoughts, and fears) and provided other characters with information and insights.

More...
https://www.theatrefolk.com/blog/exploring-greek-chorus

***

Inherit the Wind is a fictitious account of the actual Scopes “monkey” trial of 1925, in which a high school teacher was criminally prosecuted in Tennessee for teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution. It made its Broadway debut in 1955 to both critical acclaim and box office success. Originally written as an indictment of the attack upon intellectual freedom that had occurred during the McCarthy era, this play’s theme of science versus creationism resonates to this day.

Most of the drama takes place in the courtroom, and credible casting of the two lawyers, who were giants of their time, is a daunting task for a small amateur company. Prosecutor Matthew Harrison Brady (Allen Siverson) is loosely based upon three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, a great orator and statesman. And Henry Drummond (James Pearson) is the legendary criminal defense attorney and ACLU member Clarence Darrow. Remarkably, producer Beth Dewey and director K. DaVette See were able to find a couple of actors perfectly suited for their respective parts.

Siverson, to his credit, refuses to undermine his devout character by falling pray to glib caricature. Instead, he brings a gravitas and dignity to a role that even the playwrights unfairly lampoon on occasion. Pearson, as the agnostic litigator, displays an unerring confidence, keen wit and intelligence, along with an eloquent speaking voice, which are essential to his rather convincing portrayal. And their scenes together are often quite riveting. Bravo!

The set is a utilitarian, albeit somewhat awkward, design by Rob See, featuring a pair of canopies – supporting a large banner of “READ YOUR BIBLE” – located upstage that serves as an entrance to a traditional courtroom setting placed downstage. The spectators (who are often quite vocal) sit on chairs positioned in the area normally reserved for the orchestra pit.

Doug Doughty plays E.K. Hornbeck (aka H.L. Menckin), the cynical, acerbic critic and journalist who covers the case for the Baltimore Herald. His condescending, colorful commentary on the Christian fundamentalism of Brady and the rural townsfolk is reminiscent of a Greek chorus and decidedly biased in favor of Bertram Cates, the beleaguered educator (the fine Robert Hamilton). Doughty somehow captures just the right tone of wry humor and derision without ever becoming off-putting.

More...
https://www.starkinsider.com/2011/08/theatre-review-inherit-the-wind-evolution-and-creationism-meet-in-the-courtroom.html

***

“Our Town” was first performed to great acclaim in 1938. Wilder specified that the play should be performed without sets or props, which was most unusual at that time. Community Players is staying true to that, said Weiss, with just a few risers upstage and nothing more. “I think it echoes the platforms of a Greek chorus," she said.

“What inspired Thornton Wilder to write the play was a time in his 20s and he was in Rome to study archeology. He was in some ruins, and he looked through the ruins and he saw a chimney.”

“He realized these people lived and died, they worked, they provided for their families, smoke went up their chimney. And at the same time, he was hearing all the traffic in Rome. I think that element of life from long, long ago ‘til now was something that really struck him.”

More...
https://www.wglt.org/show/wglts-sound-ideas/2020-01-03/datebook-our-town-finds-the-epic-in-the-ordinary

***

Also living on Skid Row -- and acting as the Greek chorus for "Little Shop" -- are Chiffon (Brittany Tavernaro), Crystal (Anna Joie) and Ronnette (APT newcomer Binta Francis).

"'Little Shop of Horrors' has held a special place in my heart since I was a child," says Francis, who appeared on the AOP stage as Esmerelda in "Hunchback of Notre Dame." "It is the first movie musical I ever watched with my family. My siblings and I still bond over it to this day. It's always been a dream of mine to be an urchin!"

"'Little Shop' is much like 'Fiddler On the Roof' or 'The Music Man' in that it seems to be a rite of passage for every actor," says Joie, most recently on the APT stage in "Almost, Maine." "Most other actors I know have done it at some point, and I thought maybe it was my turn. Now I see why -- it's such a fun show!

Crystal, she says, "is fiercely loyal, fiery, and doesn't shy away from tough love or abrasiveness. You'll see me in her protectiveness toward Audrey and her push for Seymour to be more sure of himself. Those track really well with how I relate to the people I care most about!

More...
https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2023/feb/05/apts-little-shop-of-horrors-has-singers-dancers/

***

How I Learned to Drive has several major, hard-hitting scenes (all of which reprise moments from Lolita), and Parker handles each one with aplomb: shyness during a kitty porn photoshoot, drunken anxiety at a fancy dinner, stern rejection in a hotel room, and most evocatively, an unforgettable look of extreme pain as she silently remembers the first time Uncle Peck groped her as he taught her to drive at age 11. Vogel has Li’l Bit act out the scene, but has another, much younger actress (Alyssa May Gold) stand to the side of the stage and speak the lines. Eschewing the literal, Li’l Bit remembers, watching the moment over again in her head, confused and horrified, disassociating her body from her mind in order to just survive.

Morse as Peck gives a similarly spot-on performance, finding the perfect balance between his creepiness and the alluring kindness of the character, who frequently comes across as caring and respectful, not forceful (despite the fact that he is at all times silently grooming and coercing). Johanna Day acts as part of the Greek chorus, but most memorably plays Li’l Bit’s mother and Aunt Mary (Uncle Peck’s wife), and delivers several haunting monologues with a delicate touch.

More...
https://didtheylikeit.com/shows/how-i-learned-to-drive-2/how-i-learned-to-drive-is-a-nuanced-exploration-of-memory/

A juggernaut

 

A juggernaut is something (such as a force, campaign, or movement) that is extremely large and powerful and cannot be stopped.

In the early 14th century, Franciscan missionary Friar Odoric brought to Europe the story of an enormous carriage that carried an image of the Hindu god Vishnu (whose title was Jagannāth, literally, "lord of the world") through the streets of India in religious processions. Odoric reported that some worshippers deliberately allowed themselves to be crushed beneath the vehicle's wheels as a sacrifice to Vishnu.

That story was likely an exaggeration or misinterpretation of actual events, but it spread throughout Europe. The tale caught the imagination of English listeners, and they began using juggernaut to refer to any massive vehicle (such as a steam locomotive) and to any other enormous entity with powerful crushing capabilities.

While the word is still used sometimes in British English to refer to a very large, heavy truck (also called a "juggernaut lorry"), juggernaut is more commonly used figuratively for a relentless force, entity, campaign, or movement, as in "a political/economic/cultural juggernaut."

*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

 

Third Annual Fern Street Play Festival
Known locally as the church on Fern Street, The Universalist Church of West Hartford, Connecticut has a history of using theatre to build connections across our own progressive congregation and the local community. We continue to widen the circle of this tradition by inviting voices from far and wide to be part of our third annual play festival. Our mission is to uplift and examine the human condition through theatre. To that end, we invite playwrights to submit short plays, new or old, published or unpublished, to our no-fee juried play festival.

This year, selected plays will receive a $100 honorarium. One grand prize will be awarded in the amount of $250.

***

Thrown Stone Theatre Company invites playwrights to submit short plays for the inaugural CT Short Play Fest, hosted in conjunction with the SoNo Arts Festival on Saturday, August 2, 2025.
The CT Short Play Fest gives playwrights the opportunity to see their work performed and adjudicated before a live audience at the SoNo Arts Festival. In its inaugural year, the Fest will feature five plays in the afternoon session focused on teen and young adult playwrights, the winner of which will advance to the evening session to compete against five additional selections.

***

321 Plays for Trans Futures is an 11-hour long performance art show centering work & artists within the gender expansive community. You do not need to identify as trans/gnc/nonbinary in order to submit, but we will prioritize work centering trans+ experience for this piece.

We are seeking writers, artists, and musicians to submit work responding to the following prompts: Birthplaces, Homes, Memorials, Creation for Survival, & Futures. These prompts are the themes of each ~2-hour long movement within the show. We are specifically seeking work that can be performed in 2-5 minutes, but are also open to longer and non-temporal works. These prompts are meant to serve as an inspiration-- if your work lives outside the scope of these themes, please submit it anyways.

*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***


*** SELECTED IRISH PLAYS ***

Recent London revivals of THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD have tended to treat it as a dark rural tragedy. Refreshingly, John Crowley's new production, which includes a band of itinerant musicians, emphasises its roots in folk-comedy. But, although this is a perfectly creditable revival, it never achieves the right ecstatic quality.

Synge's play is part of the problem. In 1907 it caused riots at the Abbey theatre, not least because it shows how Christy Mahon achieves the status of a sex-symbol when it is assumed he has killed his father. And there is still fun to be had from Synge's comic invention and attack on the Irish propensity for myth-making: as the publican's daughter, Pegeen Mike, finally tells Christy, "There's a great gap between a gallows story and a dirty deed." But, even in its own day, Synge's play was outshone by Shaw's John Bull's Other Island, which offers a far more subversive satire on Irish role-playing. Synge's ideas have also been absorbed, and pushed to wilder extremes, by Martin McDonagh: The Lieutenant of Inishmore, especially, still angers many Irish people for its suggestion that sentimentality goes hand in hand with violence.

More...
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2011/sep/28/playboy-of-the-western-world-review

***

An unremarkable, middle-aged man addresses the audience from a farmhouse kitchen nestling in a grassy glade: "When I cast my mind back to the summer of 1936 …" His tone suggests that what follows will be buffed-up memory, evoking an endless summer, full of blackberries and nostalgia. Wrong.

There is indeed something burnished about Brian Friel's semi-autobiographical story (DANCING AT LUGHNASA) about the five unmarried Mundy sisters living in rural Donegal. But appearances are deceptive. These women are fighting to keep body and soul together, and the shadows are lengthening around them. Coming war and creeping industrialisation spell doom for Agnes (Gráinne Keenan) and her sister Rose's (Sarah Corbett) small glove-making business. The return of their missionary brother Jack (Christopher Saul), disgraced in Uganda pushes the family to the brink. His nephew Michael (Colm Gormley), now middle-aged, is not chronicling endless summer, but its brutal end.

More...
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/jun/04/dancing-at-lughnasa-review

***

A compelling Irish play called ECLIPSED brims over with darkness and light, rising from Ireland’s boggy soil like a wailing banshee.

In many ways, this West Coast premiere about young, unwed Catholic mothers banished to virtual slavery in Ireland’s former church-run laundries is a remarkable playwriting debut by painter and short-story writer Patricia Burke Brogan from Galway City.

The production is imaginatively directed by Sean Branney and co-stars seven fine ensemble players with rich (but not too rich) Irish accents. Opening last weekend, it also marks a challenging first play by the aptly titled Theatre Banshee at the Gene Bua Theatre in Burbank.

A banshee, according to a program note, is a magical creature, either a fairy maiden (represented by the five girls in the laundry basement) or a withered hag (notably Rebecca Wackler’s curdling Mother Superior, whose shrieking demand for “Blind obedience!” sails like an ice pick through your heart).

More...
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-04-21-va-57057-story.html

***

Oh, the horror and the glory of being 17. That’s the age of the title characters of Enda Walsh’s “Disco Pigs,” which opened in a harrowing, exhilarating revival on Tuesday night at the Irish Repertory Theater.

Anyone who remembers the agonies and ecstasies of late adolescence is sure to feel a shudder of recognition — part nostalgia, part revulsion — watching this propulsive Irish drama from the mid-1990s. Be warned: You may find yourself unsteady on your feet, with a vicious vicarious hangover, when its mayhem has come to an end.

That’s because this portrait of two best friends on the crumbling cusp of adulthood, directed by John Haidar, is driven by a concentrated fuel of adrenaline and hormones, mixed with lethal quantities of alcohol. That, and a word-drunk poetry that zigzags between extreme, giddy feelings of power and powerlessness.

Performed by Evanna Lynch and Colin Campbell — a cast of two with the teeming energy of an angry mob — “Disco Pigs” lasts only 75 minutes. But it seems to take place in a perversely kinetic eternity, a twilight time when life seems to be moving both way too fast and too slow.

More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/10/theater/disco-pigs-review-enda-walsh-irish-repertory.html

***

THE curtain is drawing down on ‘The Monto Cycle’, one of the most startling Irish theatre events of the past decade. Since 2010, in a series of exhilarating works of immersive theatre, Louise Lowe and Anu Productions have explored the social-history of ‘the Monto’, a once notorious sector of north inner-city Dublin.

The fourth and final play, Vardo, completes its run during the Dublin Theatre Festival this Sunday.

Where the previous three works — World’s End Lane, Laundry, and The Boys of Foley Street — had each centred on periods in the Monto’s past, Vardo depicts it as it is today. And what we learn is that the more things change, the more things stay the same.

A hundred years ago, as dramatised in World’s End Lane, the Monto was the site of one of the toughest red-light districts in Europe, until it was shut down in 1925 by Frank Duff and the Legion of Mary.

Today, a no less inhumane illicit sex trade is active in apartments in the area, this time via organised prostitution rings that hide behind the acceptable veneer of online agencies.

“Even in the two years that it took us to make Vardo, the rotation of the women in these places has changed very significantly,” says Lowe. “In 2012, they would be there for four days at a time. Now, they’re there for a rotation of 48 hours and then they’re gone.

More...
https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/arid-20290303.html

***

While watching “I ♥ Alice ♥ I” at the Irish Arts Center, my attention kept shifting between the disarmingly shy lesbian couple portrayed onstage and the man and woman sitting in front of me, almost as if they were part of the performance.

Not that they were cellphone abusers or seat shifters or talkers or the usual theater-etiquette violators. They were an attentive middle-aged couple, who nudged each other throughout the play, exchanging what I read as smiles of recognition at the characters’ foibles. When one of the women onstage gently reprimanded the other for her lax recycling habits, the woman in front gave her companion an affectionate tap on the cheek.

In the context of this unassuming but captivatingly intimate pseudodocumentary, that silent affirmation seemed a testament to the universality of the playwright and director Amy Conroy’s relationship observations.

More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/theater/reviews/i-alice-i-by-amy-conroy-at-irish-arts-center.html

***

I recently squeezed into a performance of the fresh and brilliant Boyfriends by Ultan Pringle and Lemon Soap Productions at Project Arts Centre. The piece had received Project Award funding from the Arts Council. Despite this, Ultan was having to live with his father while he worked on the play, and told me that he "still couldn’t make ends meet if my Dad didn’t shout me a four pack of beans in Lidl each week". These are the sacrifices playwrights make to get their work seen. Boyfriends was the kind of piece that transports you entirely for 90 minutes, and gives a window into, and understanding of, a generation other than your own. I sat post show, on one hand excited, and on the other, kind of panicked, because that show could very well be a creative cul-de-sac for Ultan. Where does talent like that go in Ireland? Where is it nurtured, housed, grown, celebrated?

More...
https://www.rte.ie/culture/2024/0802/1463190-where-are-all-the-new-irish-plays/

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Curfew

 When curfew was first used in the 14th century, it referred to the sounding of a bell at evening to alert people that they should cover their hearth fires for the night—a necessary warning, as many European houses in the Middle Ages were close enough to each other that fires could spread easily from one to the next. The word came to English from Anglo-French, in which the signal was called coverfeu, a compound of covrir, meaning “to cover,” and feu, “fire.” Even when hearth fires were no longer regulated, many towns had other rules that called for ringing an evening bell, including one that required people to be off the streets by a given time, a development that granted curfew permission to go out and about with a broader meaning.

Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life. -Giorgos Seferis, writer, diplomat, Nobel laureate (1900-1971)

*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

 

The Garfield Center for the Arts (Chestertown Maryland) is embarking on the exciting annual adventure in theatre known as “Short Attention Span Theatre”. For those not in the know, that’s our annual 10-minute play festival. Performance dates are July 11-13, July 18-20 and July 25-27. We are seeking scripts for 10-minute plays.

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English-language theatre in Seoul, South Korea
We’re looking for scripts for the upcoming 2025 Ten-Minute Play Festival. Submissions will open March 1st, 2025. From the first to the fifteenth (Beware the Ides of March!!), playwrights can submit up to three scripts for free.

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Imagine Performing Arts is located in Connersville, Indiana. You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram or at our website. Scripts should fit into the theme of “Hope and Happiness” and should be no more than 15 minutes in length.


*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***



*** BIG WIGS ***

Hedwig and the Angry Inch
This multicolored quick-change wig is put on with magnets, not bobby pins. Mr. Potter said he was inspired by the locks of 1980s video divas Tina Turner, Terri Nunn (of Berlin) and Dale Bozzio (of Missing Persons).

A Raisin in the Sun
A tight curly look for a 1950s character who chooses to cut her hair off before it was widely popular for black women to have Afros.

Macbeth
Worn by a witch, the piece was sculpted out of a platinum blond wig with a dark-ash root. Catherine Zuber made the crown of thorns.

More...
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/theater/big-wigs-of-broadway-interactive.html

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Anthony Ramos Once Ruined A 'Hamilton' Performance With A Bad Wig

For one performance, he was snacking on Goldfish crackers backstage and had to come back out for his tragic death scene; Lin-Manuel Miranda told him later that “he could barely focus on the song” because all he could see was the bits of cracker in Anthony’s teeth. It wasn’t the only time he tripped up his co-stars; when he got the part in She’s Gotta Have It, he had to cut his hair, but Hamilton was still running. So the producers cut down one of his co-star Renee Elise Goldsberry’s wigs for him to wear, and “it was not a vibe,” he says. When he came out wearing it the first time, the cast laughed so hard that they couldn’t get through two of the numbers. “I feel bad for everyone who came to the show that night,” he laughs. Listen to the episode for more about Anthony’s career, his charity work, what the pandemic has taught him, and much more on Let’s Be Real.

More...
https://www.iheart.com/content/2020-11-12-anthony-ramos-once-ruined-a-hamilton-performance-with-a-bad-wig/

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Wigs are probably as old as drama itself: there are few disguises more transformative. In his book The Wig, Luigi Amara observes how often Shakespeare uses them as “a symbol of vanity” – though Elizabethan boy actors would have convincingly wigged up to play female roles. There’s a continuity in wig-making: Simon Sladen, senior curator of theatre and performance at the V&A, notes that synthetics and sculptural foam have extended the repertoire, but many skills remain constant. Theatrical wigs take quite a bruising, and the hair may be reused, which helps explain why the V&A collection holds few early wigs – the oldest come from Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in the early 20th century. Even so, key artefacts indicate their role in nailing character. When Vivien Leigh played Blanche DuBois in the film of A Streetcar Named Desire in 1951, “the wig fundamentally made her appear less glamorous,” Sladen says. Leading theatrical wig-maker Stanley Hall created “impoverished, rather thin hair … to point out her highly nervous, worn-out character”.

More...
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/nov/09/great-wig-theatre-miraculous-creators-yeti-like

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What does a head of hair — also known as the hair and wig supervisor — do?
Mary Kay Yezerski: The hair supervisor is in charge of making sure the hair in the show (wigs and personal hair) follow the design of the show. I am in charge of a room of four people with the help of my assistant, Ryan McWilliams — my right-hand man. Together we oversee how everything looks. We also run “tracks” during the show. Most supervisors in other departments [like costumes] do not [perform a backstage track during] the show. Running a “track” means you do very specific tasks during very specific parts of the show, and you do it almost exactly the same every single time. If someone else runs your track for you, they are expected to also do the exact same things you do.

More...
https://www.broadwaynews.com/little-known-theater-jobs-hair-and-wig-supervisor/

***

“You can imagine the difference between working on this show and working on the Ring Cycle,” Tom Watson said as he stood in a tiny wig room backstage at the Brooks Atkinson Theater and showed some of the metalhead wigs he had designed for the hair-band musical “Rock of Ages.” They did seem a far cry from the tresses that would adorn a Siegfried or a Brünnhilde.

Whether it’s high art or arena rock, though, Mr. Watson is equally at home. He has designed hair and wigs for more than 30 Broadway productions — a half dozen this season alone — and at the same time runs the busy wig department at the Metropolitan Opera. His role on a show is to work with the costume designer, director and other members of the creative team to put together an overall look.

With the schedule he keeps, Mr. Watson certainly cannot weave each wig himself. (They are made from human hair, by the way.) So he delegates.

“I still love to sit down and, if I’m not in a rush, I enjoy the actual tying of the knots,” he said. But with some 60 productions per year, between the theater and the Met, there’s little time. He has a staff of wigmakers at the Met and uses a separate staff at a studio to work on other shows.

More...
https://archive.ph/3bCaD

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How important can a wig be to a theater production and an actor’s performance? What better way to answer that question then with a section from the recent book, The Ascent of Angels in America: The World Only Spins Forward by Isaac Butler and Dan Kois.

Why? Well, there is this passage that begins on p. 187. Marcia Gay Harden speaks of the importance and psychology of wearing a particular wig for her performance as Harper Pitt in the 1993 production of Angels in America: Millennium Approaches in New York City.

“I perceived Harper’s innocence and her Mormon-ness through her hair. So I had a wig, a beautiful red wig that made me feel like her.”

The section goes on with Harden and director George C. Wolfe sparring and growing heated over Harden’s desire to use the wig. Wolfe thought it unnecessary. I will leave with you this as one of Harden’s quotes: “I want my FUCKING WIG!”

More...
https://dctheaterarts.org/2018/05/02/in-the-moment-interview-with-shakespeare-theatre-company-wig-master-dori-beau-seigneur/

***

Everyone knows that great wig work is important to the artistic process of creating theatre.  But few know just how much work and skill go into producing the incredible design and execution of a wig.  Paul Huntley, one of the most esteemed wig designers (and a past Tony Honoree), shares his career journey and spotlights the creative, economic, and technical processes of working in the hair and wig department.  We enter his world through the Broadway production of A Bronx Tale, showcasing the interaction between designers and talent, resulting in one important goal – to complete the illustration of a character on stage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XsOMG6q860

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WEND

 

wend    verb | WEND   What It Means   Wend is a literary word that means “to move slowly from one place to another usually by a winding or indirect course”; wending is traveling or proceeding on one’s way in such a manner.

Transpire comes from the Latin

 Transpire comes from the Latin verb spirare (“to breathe”), which also breathed life into perspire, aspire, and inspire, among other words. Wafting up into English in the late 16th century, transpire was originally used (as it still is) for the action of vapor passing out of the pores of a living membrane such as the skin. From this use followed the related senses of “to become known” and “to be revealed; to come to light” (think of information “leaking” or “slipping out”).