#Dramatists Guild End of Play

[devonellington]

Tues. May 2, 2023: WGA Strike

Tuesday, May 2, 2023 Waxing Moon Mercury and Pluto Retrograde Rainy and chilly The WGA Strike began as of 12:01 this morning. I blocked 47 anti-WGA trolls on Twitter. Before 8 AM. Those who called themselves “writers” are on a list, so I know never to read or purchase anything they do. A lot of those posting anti-WGA material know nothing about how the industry works and thinks all writers…

[tenaciouspostfun]

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This 2024 Fall Season on Broadway maybe as exciting as the Spring 2024! Probably the most anticipated actor to come to Broadway is the recent Oscar winner, Robert Downey Jr in "McNeil" at Lincoln Center starting September 5th at The Vivian Beaumont Theatre. The acoustics in this theater should show off the acting chops of Downey, who is a behemoth of a fill actor.

One of my favorite plays returns to Broadway; "Our Town", a play I saw at Town Hall back in the 80's. "Sunset Boulevard", another great show that I last saw in Los Angeles with Glenn Close will be returning to "The White Way". The Bard's "Romeo and Juliet" too will return this fall season. It will be interesting to see how it will be directed. Another great show of the same genre, "Othello" will run in the Spring of 2025 starring Denzel Washington.

Another hugh Hollywood actor will be making his debut on Broadway; George Clooney in "Good Night, and Good Luck" will have its run this fall. "Maybe Happy Ending" will play at the Belasco in mid September. This show could be a sleeper of the Fall season.

As an early treat, three shows are coming this summer. The first has started early previews already: "Breaking The Story" at the Keiser Theatre. A very successful, albeit, short run at City Center "Once Upon A Mattress" will play at the Hudson Theatre at the end of July. "Oh Mary" after a run off Broadway will begin at the Lyceum Theatre June 26th. A fourth show which I didn't include because it opens previews August 29th at the Booth and is technically a kickoff weekend for some limited theater, is "The Roommate" with the great Patty LuPone; it also includes Mia Farrow as well.

"Yellow Face" is also a show coming in September, followed by a slew of shows in October: "Wonderful World", a story about the life of Louis Armstrong, the greatest Trumpet player ever. A musical I just saw at The Morristown Performing Arts Center "The Pirates of Penzance" makes its overdue return to Broadway. This Tony winner cleaned up at the Tony's back in 1982 when it last played. "Tammy Faye" will also begin in October at the newly renovated Palace Theatre.

From the movie, "Death Becomes Her" at the Lunt Fontaine Theatre has had some early buzz in the theater community. In November "Eureka Day" is showing some promise as well. This show will play at the Friedman Theatre. "Swept Away" has not announced an opening date yet and I have not seen a theater for it. This show is being highly talked about as well as highly anticipated. A show I find interesting is "Left On Tenth". I am hoping it is similar to say "Between Riverside and Crazy" Either way, the title is intriguing to say the least.

Being treated to so many great shows this season has spoiled the theater lover for sure. The lineup for this fall looks like it may do the same. Tony judges this season do not have an enviable position. So many great shows, so few awards to be given out. With a plethora of talent, both old and new, we look forward to the new shows slated for this fall season on Broadway, as well as a few off Broadway.

Robert Downey Jr, Lincoln Center, "Pirates of Penzance, Linda Ronstadt, Tony Awards, Oscars, Hollywood, Broadway, George Clooney, J LO, Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet", Patty LuPone, Mia Farrow, "Our Town", Town Hall, New York City, #Broadway Bob #No Bull With Raging Robert, www.broadwayworld.com, Booth Theatre, Nimbus Magazine, Dramatists Guild.

Words: 604

[lenbryant]

Sondheim (from 2021) LONG POST

Cherished Words From Theater’s Encourager-in-Chief

He wrote great shows, but Stephen Sondheim was also a mentor, a teacher and an audience regular. And, oh, the thrill of getting one of his typewritten notes.

In the fictionalized movie version of his life, Jonathan Larson ignores the ringing phone and lets the answering machine pick up. Crouched on the bare wooden floor of his shabby apartment in 1990 New York City, he listens as Stephen Sondheim leaves a message — instant balm to his battered artist’s soul.

“Jon? Steve Sondheim here,” the voice says in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s biomusical “Tick, Tick … Boom!,” and it really is Sondheim’s voice we hear, offering a bit of badly needed praise for the prodigiously talented, profoundly discouraged Larson.

Sondheim scripted that voice mail for the film himself, and goodness knows he’d had decades of practice, offering just the right words to buoy the spirits of Larson and countless other young artists. When Sondheim died on Nov. 26 at 91, the American stage lost not only a composer and lyricist nonpareil but also its longtime encourager-in-chief.

The story of his own early tutelage under Oscar Hammerstein II has been told and retold, but much less known — at least outside professional theater — is the rigorous dedication with which Sondheim passed that tradition on.

Miranda, who first met Sondheim at 17 and began corresponding with him in earnest while writing “Hamilton,” said he was initially afraid of intruding on Sondheim’s time.

“It took me a while to realize he was serious when he said, ‘Reach out if you ever want to talk about anything,’” Miranda said.

The letters Sondheim wrote over the decades were so numerous that they might seem cheap currency if they weren’t so powerfully affecting to the recipients. Imagine the hand of God reaching toward Adam in Michelangelo’s fresco and you have some idea of the vital charge they could carry.

After Sondheim died, Twitter was flooded with images of them. Notes to students and professionals and fans, they were thoughtful and specific, full of gratitude and good wishes, each on letterhead, each with the elegant, sloping signature that’s familiar now from the Stephen Sondheim Theater marquee.

“He was always concerned about the future of the art form, and he wanted it to survive,” said the director Lonny Price, who played one of the leads in the original Broadway production of Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along.” More than three decades later, he directed the documentary “Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened,” about the making of that show, a notorious flop.

But it was as a Sondheim-obsessed 14-year-old in 1973 that he struck up a decades-long correspondence with his hero, and discovered that Sondheim was kind enough to take him seriously.

‘You make me want to write more’

Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld of Fiasco Theater got a cherished letter from Sondheim in 2013, after he saw their company’s production of “Into the Woods.” Declaring it “inventive and exhilarating,” he ended with a breathtaking line: “You make me want to write more.”

“It was the most important thing that’s ever happened in our professional lives,” Steinfeld said, calling it “unspeakably meaningful” to learn “that the cycle of inspiration might have actually flowed in the other direction.”

SONDHEIM CULTIVATED the field by founding the Young Playwrights Festival, where the theater and television writer Zakiyyah Alexander recalls him having “a proud dad vibe” about her and the other teenage winners. Elsewhere he championed emerging composer-lyricists like Larson and Miranda and Dave Malloy. For years, he was the president of the Dramatists Guild Council.

Revered as the closest thing we had to a theatrical deity, Sondheim didn’t retreat to reign alone on some Olympus. He ambled down from the mountaintop fully aware of the power and responsibility that came with his position. 

And so it was immensely moving, but utterly unsurprising, that he spent his last day of theatergoing, two days before he died, taking in a pair of form-bending documentary plays that were struggling at the Broadway box office and about to close: a matinee of “Is This a Room” and an evening performance of “Dana H.,” both at the Lyceum Theater.

He had told a New York Times journalist his plan, and after he died, Michael Paulson reported what he had said in anticipation: “I can smell both of those and how much I’m going to love them.”

To Emily Davis, the star of “Is This a Room,” the fact of Sondheim having been there — which she said she learned about only when she read it in the newspaper — felt like “the biggest and most grand actual welcome to Broadway that there could have been.”

And when she noticed, the day after his death, an unusually large number of audience members doing doubleheaders — spending their Saturday catching both plays — it seemed to her like people paying tribute to him by doing as he had done.

Children will listen. He got that right.

‘Forgive me’

The composer Jeanine Tesori, who spent many hours alongside Sondheim as the supervising vocal producer on the new “West Side Story” movie, got her first letter from him in the 1980s, when she was just out of college. To her retrospective mortification, she had mailed him some music she’d written.

“That’s what we all did,” she said. “We just cold sent him our stuff because we didn’t know not to do that: send a cassette, and then you would just sort of wait and hope.”

He wrote back, gently, apologizing that he had been unable to listen to her tape — and somehow even that felt like a kind of validation, because he had noticed she was there.

“The beautiful thing was, it didn’t go into the ether,” she said. “He could have easily ignored it. But what he did was acknowledge that he had gotten it, and he returned it. I’ll never forget those words, typewritten: ‘Forgive me.’”

TO A LEGION OF FANS Sondheim was and is the be-all and end-all. But his own horizons as a theatergoer were significantly broader than that. In an art form that is so much about being present for the unrepeatable moment, he not only showed up, but he also often did so to experience work that was offbeat and obscure, challenging conventions just as his own work did.

When the Chicago-based experimental shadow-puppetry troupe Manual Cinema brought “Ada/Ava” to New York in 2015, Sondheim headed downtown to see what they were up to — “the ultimate pinch-me moment,” said Ben Kauffman, one of the company’s composers.

When Mindy Kaling and Brenda Withers performed their loopy Matt Damon-Ben Affleck sendup “Matt & Ben” at P.S. 122 in 2003, Sondheim went backstage afterward to celebrate its unknown, 20-something playwright-stars.

Kaling tweeted last weekend that she’d told him she hoped someday to star in one of his shows; Withers, by phone, recalled his grace in focusing the encounter on them, not him.

“He made the effort to stay and talk to us and see our eyes get wide and let us ask him a couple questions,” she said. “He wasn’t there because his publicist told him to be there, and to be nice. He was there because he wanted to be.”

But Sondheim, far too famous simply to blend into an audience, was cautious about making such appearances. Jason Eagan, the artistic director of the artist incubator Ars Nova, said that Sondheim went to shows there but never to openings, because he didn’t want to be a distraction on someone else’s big night.

And while there was nowhere for him to hide when he first saw the immersive “Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812” at Ars Nova’s tiny space in Hell’s Kitchen, when he went to see it on Broadway, he sat in the mezzanine to be as inconspicuous as possible.

However much that theatergoing nourished him, as it nourishes all of us when the work is good, it was also frequently an obligation, and he fulfilled it diligently. Tesori remembers him showing up at City Center just after his close friend, the author and composer Mary Rodgers, died in 2014.

He had promised that he would listen to some young artists perform his music, so he did — “even though he was heartbroken,” Tesori said. He asked her to give him the performers’ addresses, “because he wanted to write to all of them, to encourage them.”

‘Why I wanted to write for the theater’

The playwright Lynn Nottage, now a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, was returning to the theater after a seven-year absence when Sondheim wrote to her out of the blue in 2004, praising her new play “Intimate Apparel” and telling her: “It reminded me of why I wanted to write for the theater in the first place.”

“I entered back into New York theater sort of tiptoeing and frightened and not sure whether there was a space for me,” Nottage said. “And so when I received this letter from one of the giants, it just was the kind of affirmation that I needed in the moment. What it said to me more than anything is that I belong in this community.”

From then on, at all of her plays, she said, “at some point I’d look out in the audience, and there he would be.”

SONDHEIM’S LETTERS generally weren’t long, but it’s the little things, right? Except that the little things combine to eat up who knows how many hours of a life. And even when a genius lives to 91, it’s easy to lament — as Miranda recently did, in an interview in The New Yorker — the works that went uncreated because of finite energies expended elsewhere.

Over the phone a few days after Sondheim’s death, though, Miranda said he didn’t truly feel that way.

“Obviously it’s to theater’s enormous benefit that he took that time, and I think it fed him to encourage others,” he said. “He succeeded on both fronts because he left a legacy of immortal works that we’ll be doing forever — I mean, just look at this season alone — and he also left behind a generation of artists who got encouragement from him, and support.”

It was part of Sondheim’s gift to understand not only the encompassing job description of great artist but also his singular effect on his colleagues — how even a few words of appreciation, or moments of attention, could prove enduring sustenance over the long slog of a career in an often pitiless field.

It was unglamorous work, and Sondheim did it exquisitely.

No single theater artist right now is as revered as he was. No one else can yet step into those shoes. We nonetheless could, artists and audience members alike, seek to borrow from his example — by being adventurous, by being generous, by showing up.

That would be one way to honor the giant.

A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 5, 2021, Section AR, Page 7 of the New York edition with the headline: Cherished Words From the ‘Encourager in Chief’. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

[writemarcus]

Black LGBTQ+ playwrights and musical-theater artists you need to know

These artists are producing amazing, timely work.

By Marcus Scott Posted: Friday July 24 2020, 4:56pm

Marcus Scott is a New York City–based playwright, musical writer, opera librettist and journalist. He has contributed to Elle, Essence, Out, American Theatre, Uptown, Trace, Madame Noire and Playbill, among other publications. Follow Marcus: Instagram, Twitter

We’re in the chrysalis of a new age of theatrical storytelling, and Black queer voices have been at the center of this transformation. Stepping out of the margins of society to push against the status quo, Black LGBTQ+ artists  have been actively engaged in fighting anti-blackness, racial disparities, disenfranchisement, homophobia and transphobia.

The success of Jeremy O. Harris’s Slave Play, Donja R. Love’s one in two and Jordan E. Cooper’s Ain’t No Mo’—not to mention Michael R. Jackson’s tour de force, the Pulitzer Prize–winning metamusical A Strange Loop—made that phenomenon especially visible last season. But these artists are far from alone. Because the intersection of queerness and Blackness is complex—with various gender expressions, sexual identifiers and communities taking shape in different spaces—Black LGBTQ+ artists are anything but a monolith. George C. Wolfe, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Robert O’Hara, Harrison David Rivers, Staceyann Chin, Colman Domingo, Tracey Scott Wilson, Tanya Barfield, Marcus Gardley and Daniel Alexander Jones are just some of the many Black queer writers who have already made marks.

With New York stages dark for the foreseeable future, we can’t know when we will be able to see live works by these artists again. It is likely, however, that they will continue to play major roles in the direction American theater will take in the post-quarantine era—along with many creators who are still flying mostly under the radar. Here are just a few of the Black queer artists you may not have encountered yet: vital new voices that are speaking to the Zeitgeist and turning up the volume.

Christina Anderson A protégé of Paula Vogel’s, Christina Anderson has presented work at the Public Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, Penumbra Theatre Company, Playwrights Horizons and other theaters around the U.S. and Canada. She has degrees from the Yale School of Drama and Brown University, and  is a resident playwright at New Dramatists and Epic Theatre Ensemble; she has received the inaugural Harper Lee Award for Playwriting and three Susan Smith Blackburn Prize nominations, among other honors. Works include: How To Catch Creation (2019), Blacktop Sky (2013), Inked Baby (2009) Follow Christina: Website

Aziza Barnes Award-winning poet Aziza Barnes moved into playwriting with one of the great sex comedies of the 2010s: BLKS, which premiered at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 2017 before it played at MCC Theatre in 2019 (where it earned a Lucille Lortel Award nomination). The NYU grad’s play about three twentysomethings probed the challenges and choices of Millennials with pathos and zest that hasn’t been seen since Kenneth Lonergan’s Gen X love/hate letter This Is Our Youth. Barnes is the author of the full-length collection of poems the blind pig and i be but i ain’t, which won a Pamet River Prize. Works include: BLKS (2017) Follow Aziza: Twitter

Troy Anthony Burton Fusing a mélange of quiet storm ‘90s-era Babyface R&B, ‘60s-style funk-soul and urban contemporary gospel, composer Troy Anthony has had a meteoric rise in musical theater in the past three years, receiving commissions and residencies from the Shed, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, Atlantic Theater Company and the Civilians. When Anthony is not crafting ditties of his own, he is an active performer who has participated in the Public Theater’s Public Works and Shakespeare In the Park. Works include: The River Is Me (2017), The Dark Girl Chronicles (in progress) Follow Troy: Instagram

Timothy DuWhite Addressing controversial issues such as HIV, state-sanctioned violence and structural anti-blackness, poet and performance artist Timothy DuWhite unnerves audiences with a hip-hop driven gonzo style. DuWhite’s raison d’être is to shock and enrage, and his provocative Neptune was, along with Donja R. Love’s one in two, one of the first plays by an openly black queer writer to address HIV openly and frankly.  He has worked with the United Nations/UNICEF, the Apollo Theater, Dixon Place and La MaMa. Works include: Neptune (2018) Follow Timothy: Instagram

Jirèh Breon Holder Raised in Memphis and educated at Morehouse College, Jirèh Breon Holder solidified his voice at the Yale School of Drama under the direction of Sarah Ruhl. He has received the Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award and the Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, among other honors. His play Too Heavy for Your Pocket premiered at Roundabout Underground and has since been produced in cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, Des Moines and Houston; his next play, ...What The End Will Be, is slated to debut at the Roundabout Theatre Company. Works include: Too Heavy for Your Pocket (2017), What The End Will Be (2020) Follow Jirèh: Twitter

C.A. Johnson Born in Louisiana, rising star C.A. Johnson writes with a southern hospitality and homespun charm that washes over audiences like a breath of fresh air. Making a debut at MCC Theater with her coming of age romcom All the Natalie Portmans, she drew praise for empathic take on a black queer teenage womanchild with Hollywood dreams. A core writer at the Playwrights Center, she has had fellowships with the Dramatists Guild Fellow, Page 73, the Lark and the Sundance Theatre Lab. Works include: All the Natalie Portmans (2020) Follow C.A.: Twitter

Johnny G. Lloyd A New York-based playwright and producer, Johnny G. Lloyd has seen his work produced and developed at the Tank, 59E59, the Corkscrew Festival, the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival and more. A member of the 2019-2020 Liberation Theatre Company’s Writing Residency, this Columbia University graduate is also a producing director of InVersion Theatre. Works include: The Problem With Magic, Is (2020), Or, An Astronaut Play (2019), Patience (2018) Follow Johnny: Instagram

Patricia Ione Lloyd In her luminous 2018 breakthrough Eve’s Song at the Public Theater, Patricia Ione Lloyd offered a meditation on the violence against black women in America that is often overlooked onstage. With a style saturated in both humor and melancholy and a poetic lyricism that evokes Ntozake Shange’s, the former Tow Playwright in Residence has earned fellowships at New Georges, the Dramatist Guild, Playwrights Realm, New York Theater Workshop and Sundance. Works include: Eve’s Song (2018) Follow Patricia: Instagram

Maia Matsushita The half-Black, half-Japanese educator and playwright Maia Matsushita has sounded a silent alarm in downtown theater with an array of slow-burn, naturalistic coming-of-age dramas. She was a member of The Fire This Time’s 2017-18 New Works Lab and part of its inaugural Writers Group, and her work has been seen at Classical Theatre of Harlem’s Playwright Playground and the National Black Theatre’s Keeping Soul Alive Reading Series. Works include: House of Sticks (2019), White Mountains (2018) Follow Maia: Instagram

Daaimah Mubashshir When Daaimah Mubashshir’s kitchen-sink dramedy Room Enough (For Us All) debuted at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre in 2019, the prolific writer began a dialogue around the contemporary African-American Muslim experience and black queer expression that made her a significant storyteller to watch. She is a core writer at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis as well as a member of Soho Rep’s Writer/Director Lab, Clubbed Thumb’s Early Career Writers Group, and a MacDowell Colony Fellow. Her short-play collection The Immeasurable Want of Light was published in 2018. Works include: Room Enough (For Us All) (2019) Follow Daaimah: Twitter

Jonathan Norton Hailing from Dallas, Texas, Jonathan Norton is a delightfully zany playwright who subverts notions of post-blackness by underlining America’s obscure historical atrocities with bloody red slashes. The stories he tells carry a profound horror, often viewed through the eyes of black children and young adults. Norton’s work has been produced or developed by companies including the Actors Theatre of Louisville (at the 44th Humana Festival), PlayPenn and InterAct Theatre Company. He is the Playwright in Residence at Dallas Theater Center. Works include: Mississippi Goddamn (2015), My Tidy List of Terrors (2013), penny candy (2019) Follow Jonathan: Website

AriDy Nox Cooking up piping hot gumbos of speculative fiction, transhumanism and radical womanist expression, AriDy Nox is a rising star with a larger-than-life vision. The Spelman alum earned an MFA from NYU TIsch’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program and has been a staple of various theaters such as Town Stages. A member of the inaugural 2019 cohort of the Musical Theatre Factory Makers residency, they recently joined the Public Theater’s 2020-2022 Emerging Writers Group cohort. Works include: Metropolis (in progress), Project Tiresias (2018) Follow AriDy: Instagram

Akin Salawu Akin Salawu’s nonlinear, hyperkinetic work combines heart-pounding suspense chills with Tarantino-esque thrills while excavating Black trauma and Pan-African history in America. With over two decades of experience as a writer, director and editor, the prize-winning playwright is a two-time Tribeca All Access Winner and a member of both the Public Theater’s Emerging Writers Group and Ars Nova’s Uncharted Musical Theater residency. A graduate of Stanford, he is a founder of the Tank’s LIT Council, a theater development center for male-identifying persons of color. Works include: bless your filthy lil’ heart (2019), The Real Whisperer (2017), I Stand Corrected (2008) Follow Akin: Twitter

Sheldon Shaw A playwright, screenwriter and actor, Sheldon Shaw studied writing at the Labyrinth Theater Company and was part of Playwrights Intensive at the Kennedy Center. Shaw has since developed into a sort of renaissance man, operating as playwright, screenwriter and actor. His plays have been developed by Emerging Artist Theaters New Works Festival, Classical Theater of Harlem and the Rooted Theater Company. Shaw's Glen was the winner of the Black Screenplays Matter competition and a finalist in the New York Screenplay Contest. Works include: Jailbait (2018), Clair (2017), Baby Starbucks (2015) Follow Johnny: Twitter

Nia O. Witherspoon Multidisciplinary artist Nia Ostrow Witherspoon’s metaphysical explorations of black liberation and desire have made her an in-demand presence in theater circles. The recipient of multiple honors—include New York Theatre Workshop’s 2050 Fellowship, a Wurlitzer Foundation residency and the Lambda Literary’s Emerging Playwriting Fellowship—she is currently developing The Dark Girl Chronicles, a play cycle that, in her words, “explores the criminalization of black cis and trans women via African diaspora sacred stories.” Works include: The Dark Girl Chronicles (in progress) ​Follow Nia: Instagram

Brandon Webster A Brooklyn-based musical theatre writer and dramaturg, Brandon Webster has been a familiar figure in the NYC theater scene, both onstage and behind the scenes. With an aesthetic that fuses Afrofuturist and Afrosurrealist storytelling, with a focus on Black liberation past and present, the composer’s work fuses psychedelic soul flourishes with alt-R&B nuances to create a sonic smorgasbord of seething rage and remorse. He is an alumnus of the 2013 class of BMI Musical Theater Workshop and a 2017 MCC Theater Artistic Fellow. Works include: Metropolis (in progress), Headlines (2017), Boogie Nights (2015) Follow Brandon: Instagram

[michael-radi-the-glamorous-life]

Submit To Me!

All professions are riddled with systemic flaws that everyone knows about, and yet very little is done to fix them. For playwrights and musical theatre writers the systemic flaw that I hear complained about the most is the submissions process.

Now, these complaints are completely justified. The problem with the system is…well, there isn’t one.

In the professional theatre world - at least where play and musical submissions are concerned - it’s a total free-for-all. (and not the enjoyable kind, like a lovely game of Super Smash Bros. on the good ole Nintendo 64! …no? just me being a video game dinosaur? oh coo, cool…)

And like most problems, this one gets completely ignored and nothing is really done to change it. Well, I won’t say completely ignored. Writers talk about this all the time - how messy, inconsistent, biased, and often expensive the submission process can be (yes, many come with attached fees). But the people who have the power to do something about it (aka the Theaters and the theatrical community members who receive submissions) either don’t want to change the way they do things, don’t want to engage in the discussion, don’t have the time, or aren’t aware that there is a better way to go about all of this.

And there is a better way, isn’t there?

“Opportunity Is Not A Lengthy…whoa, but there are so many opportunities!”

For those of you who are not theatre writers and have never gone through the process, here’s a little peak into the world of submissions.

The first thing to note is what types of opportunities you can submit for. There’s:

Competitions - Prizes are usually monetary, but sometimes also come with readings, workshops, or (in rare cases) full productions. And the institutions may cover your travel to see the fruits of this, or they may not.

Festivals - Festivals range: geographically, in numbers of participants, in what is provided, in how many performances are allotted, in administrative and creative support from the organization, and in fees to participate. But what they all have in common is that, at the end of the day, you either need to have a producer raising the money for you or you will be producing this yourself. And they range from your local Fringe festival to Edinburgh to NYMF.

Residencies - Generally these are lovely retreat-style blocks of time set aside for a writer or writing team to go somewhere secluded and pretty, and to get a great deal of work done without the pressures and stressors of regular life. Often room and board is covered, though not always, and sometimes you are provided with access to rehearsal space, recording equipment, full living access, other artists, and/or a presentation gathering of some sort at the end of the stay.

Conferences - These include the “biggies” like NAMT and the O’Neill. Conferences are like a mixture between a residency and a festival - you reside in a place for the length of the conference and workshop your material, and at the end there is a large presentation. The larger conferences are highly sought after due to the fact that they attract producers and industry professionals looking for projects to take on.

Theaters and Theatre Companies - Although there is a sizable difference in the result of submitting to a large regional equity house versus your friend’s small theatre company that started last week, in both cases you are submitting to an entity that you hope will take on the burden of producing your material for you (in comparison with self-producing, as in a festival). These entities all have mission statements and many of them also have specific new works programming, and if your material fits what they are looking for then you can submit with the hope of getting programmed into a future season.

New Works Development Opportunities - Many of these are part of a Theater or Theatre Company’s set path to producing new material. The opportunities might be a reading, a workshop, a script analysis, a staged reading, etc., or there may be tiers of opportunities that you will be considered for. And if you are accepted, then the participants in these opportunities are then put in a pipeline of consideration for the one new works production slot for the following season. Though each theatre company treats their own programs quite differently, and these can vary greatly.

Awards - Much like competitions…well, really these are competitions. But like a theatre company, awarding entities come with mission statements that specify what kind of artists and what kind of works they are looking to award. And the awards are monetary and often quite large. For instance, the Kleban Award ($100,000) is specifically for musical theatre Librettists and Lyricists (two separate awards). Other times the work must fit within specific parameters, or the artists must be from a certain geographical area or ethnic background.

People - Producers or artists in whom you are interested. Generally, these submissions are more personal and have no parameters, and they only tend to be successful when you already have a connection to the person you’re contacting.

Cold Submissions - There are thousands and thousands of theatrical entities out there, and sometimes they have no submission policies whatsoever. Maybe that means they don’t take submissions, or maybe it just means they have no official policy for them. Cold submitting an inquiry rarely works out unless you have a connection to someone at the theatre, in which case it’s probably better to submit to the person than the entity. Well, that’s my opinion at least!

And that is just the spread of what exists out there that you could possibly submit to. Whoa. Right?

And let us keep in mind that this is you - the writer - submitting to these places. Unless you are lucky and/or rich enough to have a secretary that does this for you, then you are the person looking through all of these opportunities, checking websites, researching people and theaters, making lists of deadlines, writing up all of the submission materials and statements and cover letters, and sending the emails or filling out the online forms. That’s a lot of time and work.

But never fear! There are websites dedicated to helping writers find submission opportunities and that give the deadlines so you can plan on when and how to submit!

Now, granted, some of these websites are really looking to make money off of you and this information (paying for subscriptions and whatnot). And some are far more comprehensive than others. But the Dramatists Guild Submissions Calendar and Play Submission Helper are probably the most comprehensive of the sites for American submissions, and both are quite helpful.

“I’ll take…one with everything - but hold the synopsis!”

So what exactly do the writers submit? What are the limitations or parameters?

Well, if you thought they types of submission opportunities were varied, then just you wait (Henry Higgins)!

The first thing I will point out is that many of these submissions to the more prominent institutions and producing entities are agent submission only. Theatrical writing agents are not nearly as plentiful as acting agents, which really limits the groups that are able to submit to these places. Which is of course the point. Sometimes there will be a way to submit an inquiry if you don’t have representation, but more often than not you are simply out of luck. Rough times. (“No Submission Without Represen-tition…!”???)

Another limitation that might exist is needing the accompaniment of a professional recommendation letter to your submission - preferably from a recognized theatrical institution. There can be even more restrictions than this, but they aren’t as common as the agent restriction.

But if there is a submission policy that is open to the general theatrical writing public, then there are myriad types of materials that might be requested of you. This list below will include a mix of information that might be asked of both playwrights and musical theatre writers:

Log Line - A one-sentence description of the show and its themes. Not quite a tag line or hook, and also not quite a synopsis. These are pretty rare outside of in-person pitches.

Short Synopsis - These are almost always restricted to a certain word count. For instance, The King’s Legacy has different short synopsis versions in: 100 words, 150 words, 250 words, and 500 words. Writers must do their best to summarize the plot, main characters, and themes of their shows within these word counts.

Treatment/1-Page Synopsis - A little more lenient than the short synopsis - though strict on the page limitation - these synopses are the opportunity for the writer to give a full blow-by-blow of the entire plot for their show. Now is the time to say exactly what happens, when, and how. No worries about mystery or spoilers here - they want to know the ending.

10-Page Dialogue Sample - A small sampling of the feel of the show. Generally best to start at the beginning if you can, but if that doesn’t show off the piece at its best, then it can be acceptable to choose ten pages from elsewhere in the script.

20-Page Dialogue Sample - These should definitely start at the beginning. If you aren’t showing off your best work in the first twenty pages, it might be time to give the top of the show another pass.

Lyrics with Descriptions - For musical submissions these are fairly common. Choose [2/3/4/6/8/12] songs from your show (yes, I’ve had all of those restrictions at some point) to send. They want the full lyric to the song, but with a detailed description of the characters, plot placement, and other context.

Music Demos - Again, the number of these may vary. Most submissions are very forgiving on the quality of the recording as long as the music isn’t garbled and the lyrics are understandable. Occasionally you are allowed to send demos for the entire show!

Links to Media - Many online forms will include a box to add links to other media, though this generally means Videos if you have them. Youtube links, or a link to a Video page or a playlist, are great items to have!

Production History - Exactly like it sounds. It’s a list of where and when the show has been produced. If it has not yet been produced, or has only had a couple full productions, then provide a list of where it has been developed, in what manner, and when.

Other Relevant Materials - This is the space to add in any of the other materials that this submission did not specifically ask for. Or this is a great place to include a link to your website if you have one (and you should!).

Artist Bio or Resume - It’s always one or the other, not both. Why? I am unsure. But have these handy always!

Artistic Statement - Now we come to the parts that take the most time per submission. Artistic Statements are basically personal essays that speak to who you are as an artist, what your goals are, and why you do what you do. They must also be catered toward the place you are submitting to, particularly if they have a mission statement readily available.

Letter of Intent - Similar to an Artistic Statement, but these are usually laid out for you with specific questions to answer in the body of the letter. (ie. Tell us about…? Why our theatre? What do you hope to accomplish with this opportunity? etc.) It’s part Cover Letter, part Artistic Statement.

Cover Letter - Or Letter of Inquiry. These are used to introduce yourself, speak about how you found the opportunity and why you are interested, and to introduce the piece you are submitting. Generally, less than one page is desirable for these letters. And sometimes this is just the email that precedes all of the asked-for submission materials.

Full Script (and Score) - You lucky duck! They’re going to read your show! Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen nearly as often as we all would like.

Blind Materials - Sometimes theaters ask for any of the above-mentioned materials without the writer’s name, for a more fair and unbiased judging of submissions. There aren’t a ton of opportunities that ask for this, but it’s good to have blind copies available just in case.

Dizzy yet?

These materials can be (and are!) asked for in any combination without even a semblance of consistency between the submission processes. And because every submission opportunity is different, it takes a great deal of time to write up every submission that you send out. Not to mention that you want to have done your research and personalized the submission as much as possible.

*Tip: Keep track of your submissions in a document! Write down what you sent, to whom, and on what date. It’s great to be able to reference back!!

Can We Consolidate?

As you see, this is a mess of a system. So the question becomes: can we consolidate all of this information?

Well, there is an entity out there who is trying to do just that! They are called The New Play Exchange. Their mission is essentially to be the hub where writers go to upload their pieces and all attached materials, where submission opportunities go to post and search out what they are looking for, and where producers and directors can go to search out scripts of a certain criteria so they can read what they are interested in. It’s a fantastic idea, but it’s definitely still in its youth and will need more time to make a greater impact.

I don’t know what any other answers may be, but if there was a standard submission packet that everyone took for every opportunity, it would make the theatrical world far more productive. Writers wouldn’t have to spend so much of their writing time doing specific and varied submissions, and institutions would know exactly what they are going to receive from writers (whether or not they care to look at all of it). All I know is, there must be a better way.

I could say oodles more about submitting to opportunities, but I think I’ll leave it here for now. Honestly, I have two submission opportunities in my inbox right now and, well, that means I’ve got some deadlines to hit!

Until next time, folks!

[pwunion]

Sean Abley

SEAN ABLEY is a screenwriter, journalist, dramaturg, novelist, and award-winning playwright.

He has over thirty plays published by Playscripts, Brooklyn Publishers, Heuer Publishing, Next Stage Press, Stage Partners, Plays to Order, and Eldridge Plays and Musicals with titles like End of the World (With Prom to Follow), The Adventures of Rose Red (Snow White's Less-Famous Sister), Horror High: The Musical and Two-Faced: A Tragedy…Sort Of. His plays have been developed and performed at the Kennedy Center, Antaeus Theater Company, Goodman Theatre, Celebration Theatre, Write/Act Repertory, Factory Theater, Merry-Go-Round Youth Theatre, SkyPilot Theatre Company, Virginia City Players, and academically at the Playwrights Lab at Hollins University and California State University-Stanislaus. His plays for young audiences have been performed in over 300 professional and educational productions in the U.S.A., Canada, Australia, Mexico, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Argentina, Belgium, Singapore, and United Arab Emirates. Most recently his play Unabridged was an official selection of the LaBute New Play Festival 2018 at St. Louis Actors’ Studio. His play Popcorn Girl was the 2nd place winner of the National Partners of the American Theatre Award as part of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival 2017, and his play Absence Makes the Heart... was a national finalist for the John Cauble Short Play Award at KCACTF the same year. His short play Zombie? was a regional finalist for the Gary Garrison National Ten-Minute Play Award as part of KCACTF 2018. Before moving to Los Angeles, he was the co-founder and co-Artistic Director of Chicago’s prolific Factory Theater in 1992 (still going strong as of this writing), where his plays Bitches, Attack of the Killer B’s, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians: The Musical and Nuclear Family all enjoyed long runs. His recent Los Angeles theatrical endeavors include the world premieres of Dr. Frankincense and the Christmas Monster (Write/Act Repertory), L.A. Tool & Die: Live! (Celebration Theatre), Larva! (SkyPilot Theatre Company), the L.A. premieres of Bitches! (Magnum Players), Attack of the Killer B’s (Factory Theater West, Backstage West Garland Award winner-Best Adaptation), and Absence Makes the Heart… (SkyPilot Theatre Company.) His television writing includes multiple episodes of So Weird (Disney Channel), Sabrina, the Animated Series (Disney/UPN), Digimon and Mega Babies (both Fox Family), as well as several pilots including Bench Pressly, The World's Strongest Private Dick with Ahmet Zappa. His produced screenplays include the B-movies Socket, Rope Burn, Witchcraft 15: Blood Rose, Witchcraft 16: Hollywood Coven and Camp Blood 8: Bride of Blood. He currently serves as the TV Writing instructor at the Orange County School of the Arts in Santa Ana, CA. Sean has an MFA in Playwriting from The Playwrights Lab at Hollins University, and is a member of the Playwrights’ Union, Antaeus Theater Company’s Playwrights Lab, the Writers Guild of America, and the Dramatists Guild.

[royatlyfree1923]

THE ADDING MACHINE

March 19, 1923

The Adding Machine is a tragedy in seven scenes by Elmer L. Rice, produced by Theatre Guild at the Garrick Theatre. Scenic and costume design by Lee Simonson. Incidental music by Deems Taylor. It ran there until April 21, when it transferred to (somewhat ironically) the Comedy Theatre where it closed on May 19 for a total of 72 performances. 

Synopsis ~  Mr. Zero is an accountant at a large, faceless company. After twenty-five years at his job, he discovers that he will be replaced by an adding machine. In anger and pain, he snaps and kills his boss. Mr. Zero is then tried for murder, found guilty, and hanged, only to wake up in a heaven-like setting known as the Elysian Fields. Mr. Zero then begins to operate an adding machine until the boss of the Elysian Fields tells Zero that he is a waste of space and his soul is going to be sent back to Earth to be reused. The play ends with Zero following a very attractive girl named Hope offstage. 

The play was revived off Broadway in 1956 starring Sam Jaffe.

It was adapted into an award-winning musical titled Adding Machine in 2008.  

The play has become a common offering at university and regional theatres. 

The play was adapted for British television in 1948 and again in 1956. 

It was filmed in 1969 starring Milo O’Shea and Phyllis Diller. 

AUTHOR

Elmer L. Rice (1892-1967) wrote The Adding Machine in 17 days. He was born Elmer Reizenstein in New York City and went to college to become a lawyer. In 1929 he play Street Scene earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Rice was one of the more politically outspoken dramatists of his time. His first Broadway production was On Trial in 1914 and his last was Cue for Passion in 1958.

"Elmer Rice's 1923 expressionist satire seems abrasively modern in its attack on the dehumanizing effect of industrial capitalism.” - The Guardian

CAST

Edward G. Robinson (1893-1973) as Shrdlu. Robinson was born in Romania as Emanuel Goldenberg. He appeared in 40 Broadway plays and more than 100 films during a 50-year career. He is best remembered for his tough-guy roles as gangsters in several films. He was nominated for a Tony Award in 1956 and posthumously given an honorary Oscar in 1973. 

VENUE

Garrick Theatre (67 West 35th Street; 910 seats) opened in 1890 as Harrigan’s Theatre, built by Edward Harrigan (of Harrigan & Hart), who managed it until 1895, when Richard Mansfield took over, renaming it the Garrick. The Shuberts bought it in 1916 and leased it to Otto Kahn, who named it Theatre du Vieux Columbier (for an avant-garde French company). Later, he gave it to the Theatre Guild. The Shuberts resumed management in 1925. After three years of burlesque, it was razed in 1932.

There is also a Garrick Theatre located near Charing Cross in London. It opened in 1889 and is still in operation today. Both venues were named after actor David Garrick. 

The play transferred to the Comedy Theatre where it closed after 72 performances. 

ALSO THAT NIGHT...

The Love Set a three-act comedy by Thomas Louden opened at the Punch and Judy Theatre and ran for 8 performances. 

[wordscount]

End of Play.®  is an annual initiative, created by the Dramatists Guild, to incentivize the completion of new plays, scores, or songs over the period of one month.

Each year, writers set goals for themselves at the beginning of End of Play.® month and share their weekly progress with the community. Goals may include writing a new full-length play/musical, two one-act plays/musicals, or completing a second draft of any of the above. Ultimately, the aim of End of Play.®  is to get writers to the finish line with inspirational prompts, motivational events, and the support of their End of Play.® community.

It's almost time for this fun annual event! Free to sign up, it's a great way to meet other writers in your community and give you some accountability to finish your projects!

It also pairs well with the April Camp NaNoWriMo event!

[i-remember-there-was-mist]

There’s a phrase that I just love that I was reminded of yesterday.  The phrase is, “The harder I work, the luckier I become.”  People ask me all the time about what the keys to success are--is it really all luck? Is it being born incredibly skilled?  Is it money?  Is it connections?  Is it pure stubbornness and perseverance?  The reality is, of course, that it’s a combination of many things, and success can come in so many different packages.  But luck is something we discuss so often in theatre, because there is a lot of it involved in our industry!  

I want to use something that just happened to me as an example.  I went into this audition that I felt went really, really well.  The next day, I went to an AEA local chapter meeting and met a lot of AEA members whom I’d never spoken to in person.  Later that day, I went to an audition, and the woman I auditioned for the day prior happened to be there auditioning!  And she happened to be talking to a woman I’d met at the AEA meeting, and we got introduced!  Turns out she’s a huge playwright here in town, and we got to talking and ended up making all these plans for meeting up and working with the dramatist’s guild and for future shows and gigs...  What a crazy happenstance, right?  I happened to go to that initial audition, happened to have a great audition, happened to go to an AEA meeting the next day and meet a woman who introduced me to the playwright who happened to be at the same audition as me at the same time...  That is luck!  

But it’s also not.  It took me going out to audition initially, even though I had a crazy week and didn’t think I’d have time.  It took me reaching out to the casting directors to get a slot because the slots were all full.  It took me getting up early and trekking downtown to go to an AEA meeting to network.  It too me booking another audition the next day, one that I didn’t think I was the right fit for but wanted to give it a shot.  It took me putting myself out there to network, when I really don’t like being pushy about networking. 

A lot of the hard work that we do won’t end up with wonderful coincidences and twists of fate like this, but it’s vital that we are constantly putting ourselves out there and taking opportunities and meeting people and doing the work so that luck can come.  Luck doesn’t come to your door and offer you a gig.  Luck doesn’t introduce you to people who can further your career.  Sometimes luck plays a role, but you have to do the work to make it happen.  

So when you get discouraged about others getting “lucky” and booking a gig you wish you had gotten, or getting into a program you wish you could attend, step back and try to look at your own work.  The luck will come to you too in its own time if you’re willing to do the work.

[fkathedjf]

2018 REVIEW

WORK

THE BOOK OF MOMRON - Eugene O’Neill Theatre

BROADWAY SESSIONS: BLACK HISTORY MONTH - Laurie Beechman Theatre

FRANCOIS & THE REBELS - Joe's Pub at The Public

THE DIRTY 30 TOUR - 54 Below

THE ULTIMATE DRAG PAGEANT - The West End

LGBTEA - The Green Room 42

#NEWSLAVES - Beehive Dramaturgy

KEIHL’S - Skylight Modern

HOLIDAY CONCERT - City Center Circle Brunch

#NEWSLAVES - The Playwrights Realm

CONCERTS

POSTMODERN JUKEBOX - Troy Savings Bank Music Hall

KIMBRA - Brooklyn Steel

KELELA - Irvin Plaza

KYLIE MINOGUE - Good Morning America

JESSIE WARE - Brooklyn Steel

LISA FISCHER - Blue Note

SUPERFRUIT - Bowery Ballroom

BRITTON & THE STING - 38 Parlor

JOJO - Bowery Ballroom

MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO - Murmrr Theatre

JANET JACKSON - Saratoga Performing Arts Center

SHOSHANA BEAN - Apollo Theater

KIMBRA - Murmrr Theatre

SHOWS

WAITRESS - Brooks Atkinson Theatre (2x)

SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS: THE MUSICAL  - Palace Theatre

SWEENEY TODD - Barrow Street Theatre

HELLO, DOLLY! - Shubert Theatre

CHILDREN OF A LESSER GOD - Studio 54 Theatre

IMAGINE SISYPHUS HAPPY - Pace University

HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD - Lyric Theatre

JENIFER LEWIS - Triad Theatre

THE BAND’S VISIT - Ethel Barrymore Theatre

THE GENTLEMAN CALLER - Cherry Lane Theatre

BROADWAY BARES - Hammerstein Ballroom

ANGELS IN AMERICA - Neil Simon Theatre

THREE TALL WOMEN - Golden Theatre

THIS AIN’T NO DISCO - Atlantic Theater Company

THE HOUSE THAT WILL NOT STAND - New York Theatre Workshop

HEAD OVER HEELS - Hudson Theatre

CAROUSEL - Imperial Theatre

ONCE ON THIS ISLAND - Circle In the Square Theatre

MEAN GIRLS - August Wilson Theater

LESLIE KRITZER: BURN IT TO THE GROUND - Joe's Pub at The Public

BERNHARDT/HAMLET- American Airlines Theatre

SMOKEY JOE’S CAFE - Stage 42

THE PROM - Longacre Theater

GOOD GRIEF - Vineyard Theatre

CHICKEN AND BISCUITS - The Directors Company

PARTY WORTH CRASHING - Connelly Theatre

BERNIE AND MICKEY’S TRIP TO THE MOON - 59E59 Theaters

SLAVE PLAY - New York Theatre Workshop

MOVIES

LADY BIRD

A FANTASTIC WOMAN

BLACK PANTHER

LOVE, SIMON

ISLE OF DOGS

WHITNEY

A STAR IS BORN

WIDOWS

THE FAVOURITE

EVENTS

BIANCA DEL RIO PRIDE & TOP QUEENS OF SEASON 10 - Town Hall

ResisDANCE - Club Car at The McKittrick Hotel

DRAMATISTS GUILD FOUNDATION FELLOWS PRESENTATION - Playwrights Horizons

A DRAG QUEEN CHRISTMAS: THE NAUGHTY TOUR - Town Hall

BOOKS

ON BEING NICE by The School of Life

DESIRE by Haruki Murakami

FAILING UP: HOW TO TAKE RISKS, AIM HIGHER, AND NEVER STOP LEARNING by Leslie Odom Jr.

TINY BEAUTIFUL THINGS: ADVICE ON LOVE AND LIFE FROM DEAR SUGAR by Cheryl Strayed

SECRETS OF A LIFE ONSTAGE AND OFF by Ed Dixon

HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE by J.K. Rowling

LESS by Andrew Sean Greer

SHARP OBJECTS by Gillian Flynn

[outoftowninac]

MADE IN HOLLYWOOD

1930

Made in Hollywood is a two-act comedy by Donald Davis, produced and staged by Brock Pemberton and Antoinette Perry.  

Interestingly, before heading to the Jersey Shore, Made in Hollywood played briefly in Jackson Heights (possibly at Brandt’s) because that is where Brock Pemberton originally tried out his massive hit play, Strictly Dishonorable, and Pemberton was hoping to repeat his success as closely as possible.  

In fact, had it not been for Strictly Dishonorable, Made in Hollywood would never have gone from page to stage. Strictly opened Broadway’s newly-named Avon Theatre (formerly the Klaw) on September 18, 1929, one month before the stock market crashed and brought on the Great Depression. As it approached its 500th performance, Pemberton decided to move the hit play to London and was searching for its successor at the Avon. Hollywood was chosen as the heir.  Speaking of Hollywood (the town), Universal paid a record amount for the film rights to Hollywood, and released a film adaptation in 1931. A remake was made in 1951. But back to Hollywood...

Pemberton had every reason to invest in the creation of Made in Hollywood. Scenarist (aka playwright) Donald Davis had never written a Broadway play before, but was the son of Owen Davis, an American dramatist known for writing more than 200 plays and having most produced. In 1919, he became the first president of the Dramatists Guild. He received the 1923 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Icebound. 

Pemberton himself staged (aka directed) the play with his business partner, Antoinette Perry. Perry is who the Tony Awards were named after in 1948. In fact, at the first ceremony, it was Pemberton as presenter who nicknamed the award “the Tony” and the name stuck. Perry was no stranger to trying out in Atlantic City. She appeared there opposite David Warfield in The Music Master when she was only 16.

The cast also had some considerable street cred: Alan Brooks (12 Broadway shows), James B. Carson (14 Broadway shows), Margaret Lee (8 Broadway shows), James Spottswood (14 Broadway shows), and John Westley (28 Broadway shows).

The play had its official premiere (where press were invited) in December 1930 at Nixon’s Apollo Theatre on the Boardwalk, Atlantic City, New Jersey.  

As the title implies, the action of the play is set on a soundstage in Hollywood, California. 

The play’s post-AC trajectory is a bit muddled by time and record-keeping. The play was to next head to the Garrick Theatre in Philadelphia, although one newspaper report intimated that the show skipped Philly in favor of the Nixon in Pittsburgh, where pre-sales were better. In both locations, reviews were negative. Some critics compared the play to another Hollywood-themed comedy that famously tried out in Atlantic City, Once in a Lifetime.  It had played the same theatre just seven months earlier, in May 1930. 

“I don't believe that old Mr. Davis, young Mr. Davis or Mr. Pemberton will ever make a go of it with ‘Made in Hollywood’, which, to put it as mildly as possible, is a wild jamboree of confusion, noise, temperament, swear words, talk about virtue, lost motion and whatnot...” ~ Karl Krug

Pemberton decided to change the name of the play to perhaps change its fortunes, and, much to the dismay of Donald Davis, re-titled the play Gone Hollywood, although it continued to be performed under the old title in Pennsylvania. The move may have been simply for the sake of a press release. 

In Pittsburgh, three days into the new year, Pemberton decided it was the end of the road (literally) for Hollywood. It would never be Broadway-worthy in time to fill the Avon upon Strictly Dishonorable’s departure. In fact, as predicted by some, it would never be Broadway-worthy. 

There was talk that his next production might be High C, but Pemberton’s next Broadway outing  actually turned out to be Three Times The Hour by Valentine Davis, which played the Avon for only 23 performances, and not until August 1931. In the meantime, the Avon was occupied by the transfer of a play by another producer titled Midnight.  

Playwright Donald Davis didn’t stop with Hollywood’s failure. He teamed with his famous father for a stage adaptation of Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth. They were given screen credit when Hollywood made an Oscar-winning film of Good Earth in 1937, although they did not pen the screenplay. Father and son tackled another literary classic on Broadway in 1936, Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome. 

In 1931, Brock Pemberton’s greatest successes lie ahead of him. Among his other productions was Miss Lulu Bett, whose writer Zona Gale became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. Personal Appearance was a Broadway hit and was turned into the film Go West, Young Man. Months after his death in 1950, a Tony Award was given to him posthumously in recognition of his role as the founder and the original chairman of the Tony Awards.

Perhaps his most enduring success, however, was Harvey, Mary Chase's play about a man whose best friend is a large imaginary rabbit. It was later ‘Made in Hollywood’ into a hit film starring James Stewart. Pemberton got screen credit!  Finally, he had ‘gone Hollywood’! 

[devonellington]

Tues. April 4, 2023: Ups, Downs, and "Plot Bunnies" Re-Release

image courtesy of Connor Johnson via pixabay.com Tuesday, April 4, 2023 Waxing Moon Rainy and chilly Lots to catch up on, so curl up with a beverage and we’ll get to it. Friday morning was all about getting ready for the grant reception. I did a home test – I felt fine, but I wanted to be sure. All good. Made an executive decision to use a more forgiving shapewear, because the really good…

[tenaciouspostfun]



Nimbus Blog

WHAT'S HAPPENIN' NEW YORK

a look inside the great white way by Broadway Bob

All American Sex Addict/Woke AF

4/3/2024

0 Comments

 

​"All American Sex Addict/Woke AF" at The Sargent Theatre of Actors is unique play. The real positive about this play is the even level of actors in this show; no one stands above the other in any noticeable way. In many off off Broadway shows one or two actors are leaps and bounds above the rest of the cast, but not here:the blend and workmanship is pretty consistent throughout the 80 minutes due to nice direction by Phoebe Leonard- Dettmann. While the female actors put forth a better performance than the male actors, the plot of the story keeps the audience locked in and we never really see any weak links.

Reminiscent of the 80's, 90's and well into the 2000's, off off Broadway had many shows like this one... raw, edgy and in your face; after Covid, however, many of the off of went the way of climate change, political and LGBTQ. It left a vacuum of what was off off Broadway and what it should be. Oddly enough, "All American" focused on the woke but in a fun way, a comical way. It poked fun at the up tightness of the politically correct, it drove a spike in a way at the heart of the easily offended. We get a debate about whether there is a such thing as a sex addict. According to Jack (Peter Buck Dettmann) there is, he has written a screen play that says so. Unfortunately, the people involved in the story are offended by the many things that Jack has to say. Jack will defend his writing by stating that there is no one more woke than himself.

As Jack is a real character, he firmly believes what he is doing and who he is doing it too is correct and justifiable. His ex girlfriend, Ashley (Shelby Allison Brown) has had it with him, she feels that Jack has not captured her in the movie. Andie (Danielle Aziza) who is pragmatic and the voice of reason tries to reel in the movie with her thoughts and comments. More insults fly when Riley (Alex Mayer) enters the play. She too is insulted at her being portrayed in a negative light. In Matt Morillo's play, we get a smattering of the absurd, and what it is like to live today in America.

Under greens, blues and cool white lighting, Maile Binion keeps the lighting basic. As in the staging, the basic lighting is unassuming and yet effective. The costumes range from creative to erotic. Where the policewoman's uniform was a comical touch, Riley's costume near the end of the performance was oozing sexuality, her dance was the creative highlight of the show.

Even though the show about an hour in gets slow for about 5 minutes, it is a worthwhile show to see. It has a bohemian edge to it as well as comedy and the PC bantering has the audience taking sides. In this small theater the audience feels like part of the action which adds to the plays allure.

......................................................................................................................

Next up is The Sign of The Times at The New World Stages. Based on a tale set in the 1960's and amid social change it features songs from that era.

Songs like Downtown", Rescue Me", and "Give me some lovin are just a few in this anticipated show. Jukebox musicals are dependent on the staging, acting and the songs that are chosen. It always helps too when the lighting hits the mark and that the costumes are believable as well.

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Author

ROBERT M. MASSIMI

is a resident drama critic for Metropolitan Magazine and other sources.  He has produced a dozen plays on Broadway, has worked as a film editor, and is also a member of the Dramatists Guild.  He is the acting director of  the SWM-NY division.

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[newyorktheater]

Lin-Manuel Miranda and Leslie Odom Jr in Tick,Tick…Boom in 2014

Miranda in Mary Poppins Returns

A scene from the original

Daveed Diggs, Okieriete Onaodowan, Anthony Ramos, and Lin-Manuel Miranda

Lin-Manuel Miranda is making his film directorial debut in a movie version of “Tick,Tick…Boom!” an early, semi-autobiographical musical by “Rent” composer Jonathan Larsen about a struggling musical theater writer. Miranda performed in a production of the show at City Center’s Encores! in 2014 (pictured above with his Hamilton co-star Leslie Odom, Jr.). But that’s not the only film news involving Miranda. We already know about his starring role in “Mary Poppins Returns,” which will be in movie theaters in December, and the plans to turn his musical “In The Heights” into a film, aiming for completion in 2020. Now there is a report in  the Wall Street Journal,that “Hamilton” may also be coming to the local cineplex.  ‘Hollywood studios are currently bidding for the big-screen rights to Lin-Manuel Mirandas hit musical..  But in an unusual twist, the “Hamilton” movie won’t be a filmed adaptation. Instead, it is a recording of the show made in 2016 with its original cast, including Mr. Miranda in the lead role.” Bidding could go as high as $50 million, which seems reasonable considering that the show reportedly has grossed nearly $400 million in New York alone since opening in 2015.   Meanwhile, the composer, director and actor prepares to take “Hamilton” to Puerto Rico, as he explains in this interview on the Today Show. https://youtu.be/zHv4G1xw3As Below more news about filmed theater, involving Bruce Springsteen and Jennifer Hudson, among others, as well news as about staged theater — the latest theater awards, the closing of an Andrew Lloyd Webber show, the new seasons at Lincoln Center, The Flea, The Bushwick Starr, a “critic’s corner” that features some (more) sad news and some controversy; and an unusual break for the over-40 theatergoer.

The Week in New York Theater Reviews

Stephen Payne, Josh Charles, Armie Hammer, and Paul Schneider in Straight White Men

Straight White Men “Straight White Men,” a thought-provoking play by Young Jean Lee with a terrifically entertaining cast of Broadway newcomers including Armie Hammer, Josh Charles and Paul Schneider as rowdy brothers, might to some theatergoers seem designed initially to mislead, and ultimately to befuddle. By its title alone, one could assume – incorrectly – that the play will be an acid satire. This impression is fortified by an unusual prologue….What follows, though, is more or less the same play that I saw at the Public Theater in 2014, a sympathetic and straightforward look at a family of four adult men, gathered together to celebrate Christmas. Each has adjusted to the world, and their privileged place in it, in different ways.

Jelani Remy, Shavey Brown, John Edwards, Dwayne Cooper, and Max Sangerman.

Smokey Joe’s Cafe Near the beginning of “Smokey Joe’s Cafe: The Songs of Leiber and Stoller,” the new Off-Broadway revival of the long-running Broadway musical revue, performer Jelani Remy does a double back flip while singing the Elvis hit, “Jailhouse Rock.” It is the most memorable example in the show of what we can call The Bergasse Workout, which I’m naming after the production’s inventive and obviously demanding director/choreographer Joshua Bergasse…Five men and four women deliver 40 musical numbers in 90 minutes – no time for idle chat…or any dialogue whatsoever.

Josh Lamon as Prince and Lesli Magherita as Princess

Emojiland “Emojiland,” an entry in the 2018 New York Musical Festival, is set inside a smart phone, with the resident emojis facing a “textistential” crisis —  the phone is due for a software update. That’s in the first act. In the second act, they face a virus. A dozen talented performers, including Broadway stalwarts Lesli Margherita and Josh Lamon portray Smiley Face 😀 and Angry Face😠 and Worried Face 😟 and Weary Face 😩 and a whole raft of icons I’ve never used before, nor knew they existed — 📻🙄💂‍♂️💀ℹ🤓😎👷‍♀️🤴👸👮‍♀️🤰🏽😘, including 💩 pile of poo. The result is a hilarious entertainment, mostly — though one is greatly tempted to call it two-dimensional. If Sand Were Stone Billie has Alzheimer’s. “If Sand Were Stone,” an entry at the 2018 New York Musical Festival, presents Billie’s deterioration over a span of two years, and its effect on her husband Marvin and daughter Margaux. The title of the musical comes from a quote by Jorge Luis Borges, reprinted in the program: “Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand. But we must build as if the sand were stone.” I can’t recommend this musical. There’s too much that doesn’t work…Yet it’s hard to dismiss Fire in Dreamland

The Week in Awards

New York Innovative Theater Awards 2018 nominations for the best Off-Off Broadway Third Annual Samuel French Awards: The Secret Garden  (writing team Lucy Simon & Marsha Norman), Award for Sustained Excellence in American Theatre Doug Wright, Award for Impact & Activism in the Theatre Community for his work as president of the Dramatists Guild Antoinette Nwandu, the Next Step Award, support for a playwright, composer or lyricist working toward the next level of their career.

The Week in New York Theater News

School of Rock will end on Broadway on January 20, 2019, having played 1,307 regular performances, just over three years.

Bruce Springsteen reminiscing at the Tony Awards about his hometown while accompanying himself on the piano, before singing “My Hometown.”

Springsteen On Broadway will be shown on Netflix Dec 15, which is also the final night of its 236-show Broadway run at the Walter Kerr. CATS is being made into a film. Jennifer Hudson, Taylor Swift, James Corden, and Ian McKellen will star. Lisa Brescia, six-time Broadway vet (Elphaba in Wicked, Donna in Mamma Mia) takes over from Rachel Bay Jones as Heidi Hansen in Dear Evan Hansen starting August 7   Here’s a twist. During previews, Gettin The Band Back Together will offer 40 tickets per performance for $40 each for people 40 years of age and older. “because we know 40-year-olds have responsibilities and bad backs that may prohibit them from sleeping on sidewalks.” Use code BT40440. The musical opens on August 13th.

New Seasons Off and Off-Off Broadway

At Lincoln Center: 1. A new play by Tom Stoppard “The Hard Problem,” about a young psychology student facing difficult questions. eg. Is altruism possible without self-interest? Directed by Jack O’Brian. Opens Nov 19 2. “Plot Points in Our Sexual Development” a contemporary queer love story Oct 6-Nov 18. Written by Miranda Rose Hall, direccted by Margot Bordelon

The new Flea theater

2018-2019 Season @TheFleaTheater on the theme of “Color Brave”

Scraps, about a police shooting, Aug 15-Sept 24 Emma & Max, about city’s well-off and worn-down, Oct 1-28 Hype Man, Nov 10 – Dec 1 Also, plays by @KristianaSpeaks & #ThomasBradshaw https://t.co/GG5qpg56uV pic.twitter.com/NKdmxRz23V — New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) July 18, 2018

The Bushwick Starr’s Tenth Anniversary Season Ugly by Raja Feather Kelly Sept 5-8 The Things That Were There by David Greenspan  Oct 10-Nov 4 The Infinite Love Party by Diana Oh January 11 – February 2 Suicide Forest by Kristine Haruna Lee February 27 – March 16, 2019 The 9th Annual Big Green Theater Festival April 26 – 28, 2019 CABIN by Sean Donovan May 22- June 8 Details

Critics Corner

1. Another Theater Critic – and Newspaper — Erased

Well, 17.5 years later, the Daily News and I have parted ways. It was a great ride that included 12 seasons of reviewing Broadway and off; writing 100s features, news stories and more. Head high, heart heavy, eyes forward! Any leads – I’m up!

— Joe Dziemianowicz (@TheJoeDShow) July 23, 2018

Joe is one of many at the Daily News who’ve been laid off. The Daily News will cut half of its newsroom staff…The paper was sold to @tronc Inc. last year for $1, with the owner of @ChicagoTribune assuming liabilities and debt.

A year before @tronc laid off half its staff at @NYDailyNews, it paid $15 million to its chairman, Michael Ferro, resigning just ahead of sexual harassment allegations against him.@AlbertBurneko asks angrily: Shouldn’t something like this be illegal?https://t.co/uAEku791li

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) July 24, 2018

2.

Theater criticism must be supported, says @thestage editor @smithalistair, for these six reasons: pic.twitter.com/6fRPFNHQ4n

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) July 22, 2018

3. Fat Shaming Review? In Laura Collins-Hughes’ review of Smokey Joe Café: “Ms. Umphress, by the way, is bigger than the other women onstage, and the costume designer, Alejo Vietti, doesn’t seem to have known how to work with that, dressing her in an unnecessarily unflattering way.” https://

A thought. @collinshughes @nytimes @hellerNYT #bodypositivity pic.twitter.com/JGbDzboo05

— Alysha Umphress (@Cristalzheat) July 23, 2018

It is in no way shameful to be big, let alone bigger than the other women onstage. My remark about the costuming reflects on the designer. This is not the first time I’ve noticed a designer seemingly at a loss about how to dress a larger woman well.

— Laura Collins-Hughes (@collinshughes) July 23, 2018

RIP Gary Beach, 70, nine-time Broadway veteran, a Tony winner for his role as flamboyant theater director Roger De Bris in The Producers

“This administration gains its power by fomenting a sense of hopelessness. We defy it with a spirit of celebration, of abundance, and of connection.” – theater director & educator @LPortes67 at opening of #LTCCarnaval18 (celebrating Latinx theater artists/@CafeOnda) at @DePaulU pic.twitter.com/QyIvW871mZ

— New York Theater (@NewYorkTheater) July 20, 2018

Lin-Manuel Miranda Goes Hollywood and to Puerto Rico. Hamilton Too? The Week in NY Theater Lin-Manuel Miranda is making his film directorial debut in a movie version of "Tick,Tick...Boom!" an early, semi-autobiographical musical by "Rent" composer Jonathan Larsen about a struggling musical theater writer.

[writemarcus]

2023 Blue Ink Award Winner Announced

by Blues | Feb 10, 2023 | Blue Ink Playwriting Award, News

Congratulations to Kristoffer Diaz, winner of the 2023 Blue Ink Award for Things With Friends.

As part of the award, Diaz receives a $2,500 cash prize, a staged reading at American Blues Theater, and the opportunity to further develop his script with our artists.

Kristoffer Diaz notes, “It’s truly an honor to receive this year’s Blue Ink Award. Wendy Whiteside and American Blues have been an important part of my career dating back to before I even really had a career to speak of. It’s fantastic to come full circle. Even though my life and work are based on the east coast these days, I’m proud to consider myself a Chicago playwright.”

“We are thrilled to announce Kristoffer Diaz as the 2023 Blue Ink Award winner,” notes Artistic Director Gwendolyn Whiteside. “Diaz’s voice resonates through every page. He has the ability to surprise through character descriptions and actions, word choice, punctuation, and reveals details only as needed.”

About Things With Friends

Manhattan. Burt and Adele are hosting a dinner party. Steak is on the stove. The George Washington Bridge has collapsed into the Hudson. Kristoffer Diaz has written a play about it. I’ve already said too much.

About Kristoffer Diaz

KRISTOFFER DIAZ is a playwright, librettist, screenwriter, and educator. His play The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama. Other full-length titles include Welcome to Arroyo’s, Reggie Hoops, Hercules, and The Unfortunates. His work has been produced, commissioned, and developed at The Public Theater, Dallas Theater Center, Geffen Playhouse, ACT, Center Theatre Group, The Goodman, Second Stage, Victory Gardens, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival, among many others. Awards include the Guggenheim, Jerome, Van Lier, NYFA, and Gail Merrifield Papp Fellowships; New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award; Lucille Lortel, Equity Jeff, and OBIE Awards; and the Future Aesthetics Artist Regrant, among others. As a screenwriter, Kristoffer has developed original television pilots for HBO and FX, written for the first season of Netflix’s GLOW, and adapted the musical Rent for FOX. Kristoffer teaches playwriting at New York University. He is an alumnus of New Dramatists and a member of its Board of Directors, and the current secretary of the Dramatists Guild Council.

Other 2023 Blue Ink winners

2023 Featured Finalists: Audrey Cefaly (Trouble), Victor Lesniewski (Cold Spring), Gloria Majule (Uhuru).

2023 Finalists: Amanda L. Andrei (Mama, I wish I were silver), Kimberly Dixon-Mays (When Given a Choice, Bleed), Emma Gibson (LUMIN), Keiko Green (Hells Canyon), Monet Hurst-Mendoza (Blind Crest), Deepak Kumar (House of India), Matthew Libby (Sisters), Tlaloc Rivas (DIVISIDERO), Nia Akilah Robinson (The Great Privation: How to flip ten cents into a dollar), Elaine Romero (Hoverland), Marcus Scott (There Goes The Neighborhood), SEVAN (You, The Fire, and Me), Liba Vaynberg (The Matriarchs), LaDarrion Williams (Bridging the Gap).

2023 Semi-Finalists: Jaisey Bates (Real Time remix), Cris Eli Blak (Brown Bodies on a Blue Earth), Brendan Bourque-Sheil and Madison Smith (Dogrose Patrol), Laura Maria Censabella (Beyond Words), Aaron Coleman (Tell Me I’m Gorgeous at the End of the World: The Last Gay Play), Nelson Diaz-Marcano (When the Earth Moves, We Dance), Ramón Esquivel (¡O Cascadia!), Gina Femia (lisa; a fantasia), Alyssa Haddad-Chin (Off-White; Or the Arab House Party Play), Darrel Alejandro Holnes (Franklin Ave), Jessica Kahkoska (In Her Bones), M.J. Kang (The Battle of Saratoga), Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj (stop killing black people), Zizi Majid (They Came In The Night), Eric Marlin (and come apart), Josie Nericcio (619 Hendricks), Peter Pasco (Yoli, Alfredo, y la vida), Jason Gray Platt (Homeowners), Audley Puglisi (The Misplaced Saints), Andre R. Hogan II (The Hot Wing Special), Iraisa Ann Reilly (Saturday Mourning Cartoons), Lia Romeo (Greek Tragedy), Phillip Christian Smith (Riverside Drive), Jonathan Spector (Best Available), Gina Stevensen (Breakfalls), Steven Strafford (The Model Congressman), Ellis Stump (Once on Rumspringa), Caridad Svich (Joan of the Dockyards), James Anthony Tyler (Into the Side of a Hill), Hope Villanueva (Brackish), Mary Weems (Crack the Door for Some Air), Deborah Yarchun (Great White).

About the Blue Ink Award for playwriting

The nationally-renowned Blue Ink Award was created in 2010 to support new work. Since inception, we’ve named 13 Award winners, 129 finalists, and 203 semi-finalists. Nearly $10,000 in cash and prizes will be distributed to playwrights in 2023.

Each year American Blues Theater accepts worldwide submissions of original, unpublished full-length plays. The winning play will be selected by Artistic Director Gwendolyn Whiteside and the theater’s Ensemble. The 2023 winning playwright receives a monetary prize of $2,500. Cash prizes are awarded to finalists and semi-finalists too.  All proceeds of the administrative fee are distributed for playwrights’ cash prizes.

Submissions for the 2024 Blue Ink Award open August 1, 2023. All submissions must be received by American Blues Theater by August 31, 2023 at 11:59pm. Playwrights may only submit one (1) manuscript each year for consideration.

[pwunion]

Jami Brandli

JAMI BRANDLI’s plays include Technicolor Life, S.O.E., M-Theory, ¡SOLDADERA!, Sisters Three, Through the Eye of a Needle, Medusa’s Song, O: A Rhapsody in Divorce, Visiting Hours, The Caregiver's Guide and BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) which was named in the 2014 Kilroys List. 

Her work has been produced/developed at New Dramatists, New York Theatre Workshop, Launch Pad, The Women’s Voices Theater Festival, Chalk REP, Great Plains Theatre Conference, The Lark, among other venues. As a 2019 Humanitas Prize PLAY LA, she wrote her play, Visiting Hours.

BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) nominated for Best Playwriting for an Original Play; Los Angeles Ovation Awards. 2019 Humanitas Prize PLAY LA playwright. Winner of John Gassner Memorial Playwriting Award, Holland New Voices Award, Ashland New Plays Festival and Aurora Theatre Company's GAP Prize. Finalist for the PEN Literary Award for Drama, Playwrights’ Center Core Writer Fellowship, Princess Grace Award, Bay Area Playwrights Festival and the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference; nominated for the Susan Smith Blackburn Award. Her short works are published with TCG, Dramatic Publishing Company, Applause Books, and Smith & Kraus.

Technicolor Life premiered as part of the 2015 Women’s Voices Theater Festival and received its Australian premiere in 2017. In 2018, BLISS (or Emily Post is Dead!) received a joint-world premiere with Moxie Theatre (San Diego) and Promethean Theatre (Chicago), ending with Moving Arts’ production at Atwater Village Theatre in Los Angeles (LA Times Critic’s Choice and Ovation Recommended). BLISS will receive it’s next production at Defunkt Theatre (Portland, OR) in early 2020. Through the Eye of a Needle (Stage Raw ‘TOP TEN’ Pick and Ovation Recommended) received its world premiere at The Road Theatre (Los Angeles), March-May 2018. Sisters Three received its world premiere with The Inkwell Theater (Los Angeles) in December through January 2019. She is currently a member of the 2020 Under Construction playwright cohort at The Road Theatre where she is working on her next play, The Caregiver’s Guide.

A proud member of The Playwrights Union and The Dramatist Guild, Jami teaches dramatic writing at Lesley University's low-residency MFA program. She is represented by Samara Harris at Michael Moore Agency and by MSW Media Management.

www.jamibrandli.com

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