#oregon playwright

[shakespearenews]

Rauch had been told that the three pinnacles of theatre as a popular art in the Western world were Greek tragedy, English Renaissance drama, and American musicals. As a senior, he founded his own theatre company, and mapped out a mashup of “Medea,” “Macbeth,” and “Cinderella”—one exemplar of each style—so that they could be performed simultaneously. It was a way of seeing what they had in common, and how theatre could return to its populist roots.

---

After that production was over, Rauch, Carey and their friends, calling themselves the Cornerstone Theater Company, drove to North Dakota, where they recruited locals to put on “Hamlet” in an old vaudeville theatre. At one point, Carey took over pouring drinks in a bar so that the owners could perform. The locals they recruited worried that Shakespeare’s language was too arcane, so the company modernized it, converting “arrant knave” to “downright prick,” for instance. (They ultimately changed that one: “downright prick,” they were told, was something “smart-ass college kids” would say. A rancher suggested “horse’s rear,” and that went into the script instead.)

---

Rauch stayed in L.A. for fifteen years. He left in 2007 to become the artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, one of the country’s oldest and largest repertory-theatre companies, in Ashland, a small town just north of the California border. Rauch promised to expand its repertoire to include non-Western classics and to diversify both the company and the staff. He also announced a project called American Revolutions: The United States History Cycle—thirty-seven new plays to be written by a diverse group of playwrights and loosely modelled on the scope of Shakespeare’s collected works. Within a decade, actors of color made up around seventy per cent of the company, and they were putting on adaptations of Indian, Chinese, and Latin American classics alongside their Shakespeare productions. Meanwhile, American Revolutions, overseen by Alison Carey, achieved wide renown.

[suetravelblog]

The Thin Place - Oregon Contemporary Theatre

[mcytplaywritingfest]

MCYT Playwriting Fest Pinch Hits!

Hello hello, everyone! While the MCYT Playfest continues, we've had a few Playwrights with finished pieces but no artists. We are looking for some awesome Pinch Hitter artists to take up their work! Previous art forms used for the fest have included digital art, typographic playbill design, playlists, set models, and costume design--the sky is the limit! We have one Life Series play and one Hermitcraft play that need Pinch Hit artists. This Pinch Hit art will be due on December 16th, 2024. Details below!

PH1:

Fandom: 3rd Life | Life Series Length: 86 Pages Relationships: Grian & Pearl & Jimmy & BigB & Martyn Characters: Major: Grian, Pearl, Jimmy, BigB, Martyn; Minor: Scar, Ren, Tango, Etho, BDubs Content Warnings: Kidnapping, Snakes, Death and murder mention (all treated unseriously) When a toppled lamp burns their barn down, Grian, Jimmy, Pearl, Martyn and BigB must set off down the Trail to Oregon!© to find a better life. Along the way, they must deal with all the dangers of the open road, such as sleeping in a wagon with four other people, starvation, Red Kings looking to build a Red Army, and omniscient gods who are aware they're all in a play. Will they reach the land of opportunity in time, or succumb to the hand of the narrative?! Based off Starkid’s A Trail to Orgeon; a satiric, comedic, parodic, and metaphysic play about existentialism, the Buddhist concept of True Self, and... fanfiction?

PH2 CLAIMED!]:

Fandom: Hermitcraft Length: 10+ Pages Relationships: GoodTimesWithScar & Cubfan135 Characters: GoodTimesWithScar, Cubfan135, The Vex Content Warnings: N/A over the hermit wall: Following the basic plot of the first episode of Over The Garden Wall, with Scar as Greg and Cub as Wirt, two best friends who find themselves in the midst of a dark and spooky wood haunted by an interesting cast of characters on the night of Halloween. On their way they meet a woodsman, False, who warns of a gaggle of mysterious spirits (the Vex), and the Vex themselves, who try their best to get Scar and Cub to stay in the woods forever. You may message this blog to claim one of these Pinch Hits, or ask a mod through our discord; either way, please be sure to join the server so your work can be showcased!

[thepierheadjump]

Joan of Arc Couldn't Ride a Horse

My father is Catholic, my mother agnostic, and within me these two magnets war like poles casting off gravity in their urge to repel each other. As a child I became religious at my father's observance, on a whim, that because of my middle name, Joan of Arc is my patron saint. I was stunned. I came from a coastal Oregon town where we rode bikes around, chewed gum if we could get it; built forts on the beach or in the woods. Sainthood, patron saints, Catholicism, the cathedrals of France—all a new, albeit arcane magic. Tell me, as a lost and homesick 11-year old, that a radical woman on horseback is coming to lead me.

We had settled in France, and I was learning French. I knew authoritatively that she was really Jeanne d'Arc, although all I had to go on was an (ironically British) 1971 Ladybird book written by Lawrence du Garde Peach, an English actor and radio playwright who was in military intelligence during World War I. This child's book gently whitewashed the massive overlay of bubonic plague, the Hundred Years' War; virginity exams; threats of rape; the hardness of life in the 15th century.

By the time we found our way to the Rouen marketplace where she was burned I did not care if she was schizophrenic, mad, or called by God to drive the English armies out of France—I believed in her wholly, the way only a teenaged girl can believe in another teenaged girl who has been tied to a stake and burned.

Since that point my long struggle has been away from religion, letting go of the fervent superstitions of faith, to my mother's flip side, viewing religion as weak-minded, for the masses. I wanted to believe that I was smart and scientific. Then, as the slow tragedy of life drove me past that, out of a greater necessity, I began to find the similar persuasions in the way of the Tao, and in the massive, gorgeous visions of Black Elk, and in the perfunctory spiritual power of the AA 12-Steps.

Then, in a story I'm working on, one character turned to another and said: 'You know, Joan of Arc couldn't ride a horse.'

Offended, this sent me down into the research warrens, where I soon ran into the French historian Régine Pernoud and her book Jeanne d'Arc, and also five hours of the double film Jeanne La Pucelle (1994.) Pernoud cemented the deal by confessing that she had always avoided Jeanne for her mythy, overblown teenaged religious saga. However, one day she made that fatal karmic mistake of opening just the right book to just the right page, and the girl's clear treble voice rose from those documents like a mystic voice in a churchyard.

Caught up in a similar manner I found myself writing The Prisoner of the Chateau-Forte du Louvre.

The upshot of all this was that yes, of course Jehanne of Domrémy could ride a horse. Horses were such an integral part of her image that one of her chargers was put to death when she was killed. She had grown up riding her father's plough horses, and ultimately she could handle a galloping Percheron while wearing full armor, carrying a standard, and exhorting an army to follow her—to use an Anglo-French word amalgamated over La Manche—into the affray.

___________________

[jimhair]

Great art transforms It transforms the artist and the audience Darcelle XV and Walter Cole @darcellexvshowplace Portland, January 2020 🇺🇦💔🌎💔🌏💔🌍💔🇺🇦 #valentinesday #documentary #performance #artist #legend #author #playwright #actor #costume #designer #cabaret #owner #headliner #portrait #photography #hasselblad #camera #120 @kodak @kodakprofessional #ektar100 #film #photography #filmisnotdead #istillshootfilm #filmisalive #fromwhereistand #pdx #portland #nw #northwest #leftcoast #oregon 20011404 Ektar 1973 Hasselblad c/m 120mm Makro-Planar 200112 HP5 1973 Hasselblad c/m 120mm Makro-Planar Photographs © by Jim Hair 2020 https://www.instagram.com/p/CqMfeKBLsOL/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[ear-worthy]

Fall Season of Play On Shakespeare Podcast LIVE: Et tu, Brute?

It's disappointing that most people intersect with famed English playwright William Shakespeare in high school English and then only reference The Bard when playing pub trivia.

Play On Shakespeare, the not-for-profit organization dedicated to exploring the world of Shakespeare in performance through translation and adaptation, has been working diligently to change that perspective.

Building upon Play On Shakespeare’s mission to enhance the understanding of Shakespeare’s plays in performance, Play On Podcasts bring timeless tales directly to modern audiences. The series – presented by Next Chapter Podcasts in partnership with Play On Shakespeare – has released Macbeth, Pericles, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Coriolanus amongst various other titles over the last few years.

Play On Podcasts recently won two Signal Awards – for Best Original Music/Score (Gold) and for Best Scripted Fiction (Silver). Play On Podcasts also recently won at The Ambies – for Best Original Score and Music Supervision [Lindsay Jones for Othello].

This fall, Play On Podcasts releases Julius Caesar in a modern verse translation by Shishir Kurup. Episode 1 will drop on October 14.

Listen here.

For those who enjoy live performances, Play On Shakespeare has announced its Fall 2024 Season.

Fall 2024 Season:

Coriolanus Presented by Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Portland Center Stage Produced in association with upstart crow collective and Play On Shakespeare Now through October 13 Translation: Sean San José Adaption and Direction: Rosa Joshi Location: Thomas Theatre [Ashland, OR]

When civil unrest wracks Rome as the famine-ravaged underclass battle the ruling elite, a war hero steps into the spotlight to serve his nation—only to turn on it and seek its overthrow. Shakespeare’s rarely produced tragedy comes to visceral life in a powerful, movement-focused production featuring a cast of female and non-binary actors.

More information here.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Great Lakes Theater in partnership with Idaho Shakespeare Festival October 4 - 27 Translation: Jeff Whitty Direction: Sara Bruner Location: Great Lakes Theater - Hanna Theatre, Playhouse Square [Cleveland, OH]

An exhilarating night of midsummer madness, this magical comedy brims with mistaken identity, mismatched lovers, and mischief-making fairies. This modern verse translation of Shakespeare’s comic masterpiece ensnares two pairs of lovers and a rustic troupe of would-be actors in a forest full of comedic adventure. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a joyful celebration of love lost, transformed, and restored that casts a powerfully pleasing spell.

More information here.

The Winter’s Tale Presented by 1623 Theatre Company December 6 - January 11 Translation: Tracy Young Adaptation and Direction: Ben Spiller Location: Attenborough Arts Centre (throughout December) [Leicester, UK] Location: Derby Theatre Studio (throughout January) [Derby, UK]

It’s the toughest winter ever in Sicilia Court, a rundown council estate still waiting to be leveled up. High costs and low wages mean cold homes, hungry stomachs, and desperate minds. It’s impossible for anyone to hold their nerve here. When the king of the estate accuses his wife of cheating, he shames her in public and threatens anyone who dares to challenge him. As jealousy and rage spiral out of control, unthinkable cruelty takes over the estate and everything falls apart. Is there any hope that the truth will out, and will the community ever recover? The Winter's Tale is co-created by a team of Deaf, disabled, LGBTQ+, global majority, neurodivergent, and working-class theater-makers.

More information here.

ACMRS Press [Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies] has released all of Play On Shakespeare’s translations in print (39 titles).

Play On Shakespeare’s DEMOS project is available on YouTube. The DEMOS project is a series of vibrant, short films that demonstrate side-by-side performances of Shakespeare’s original text and the modern translations, featuring extraordinarily talented actors with a wealth of experience performing Shakespeare.

MORE ON PLAY ON SHAKESPEARE:

Play On Shakespeare is a non-profit company promoting and creating contemporary modern translations of Shakespeare’s plays. Play On Shakespeare partners with artists and organizations across the globe to deliver and advocate for these translations through theatrical productions, podcasts, and publications. For more information, visit playonshakespeare.org. Play On Shakespeare is made possible through the generous support of the Hitz Foundation.

The Hitz Foundation has projects in science, the arts, and the environment worldwide. In addition to Play On Shakespeare and Play On Podcasts, the foundation funds Global Digital Heritage, which captures state-of-the-art 3D models of museum collections and heritage sites and shares them with the world at no cost.

Before I go, here's some Shakespeare knowledge you can use to impress your friends. "According to a report by Priceonomics, A Midsummer Night's Dream gets the most professional performances nowadays. The website Shakespearances documented nearly every professional Shakespeare production worldwide, and A Midsummer Night's Dream accounted for more than 7% of all Shakespeare performances. (Together, Parts 1 and 2 of Henry VI were the least performed."

[lboogie1906]

Anthony Dwain Lee (July 17, 1961 – October 28, 2000) was an actor and playwright. He began his career in the 1980s appearing in numerous stage productions and guest roles on television and in films.

While attending a Halloween party in October 2000, he was fatally shot by a Los Angeles Police Department officer. His death, and the circumstances surrounding it, garnered significant national and international media attention.

He was born in Redding, California, and grew up in a middle-class family in Sacramento where he attended Valley High School.

He began acting at the age of 20 in a community acting class that performed productions at retirement and assisted living homes. His first professional productions were at The Sacramento Theater Company. In 1986, he traveled to Ashland, Oregon, and auditioned at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, a nationally and internationally known Regional Equity theater. He was cast the following season at OSF with a ten-month contract. He starred in Master Harold and the Boys, playing Willie, and had a lead role in Carson McCullers’ play. He met his future wife, Serena Scholl, an actress, at OSF. They moved to Sacramento and then to Seattle. The move was precipitated by Lee being cast by Tim Bond in, The Colored Museum, at The Empty Space Theater.

He continued working in stage productions at the Seattle Repertory Theatre. He appeared in The Cider House Rules as Mr. Rose, as Sweet Back in Spunk, and in a role in A Raisin in the Sun. He acted in The Kentucky Cycle at the Intiman Theatre and appeared in productions of The Colored Museum, Uncle Vanya, The Meeting as Malcolm X, and as the lead character in Othello. He won the 1995 LAWeekly award for “Best Actor” in “Buffalo Soldier” at Theatre/Theater in Hollywood.

His last onscreen appearance was on the Season 7 ER episode “Rescue Me” in which he portrayed a homeless man. The episode, which aired on November 23, 2000, is dedicated to him. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #blm

[meadowpond-tearoom]

Halloween🎃👻🕯️

...Though we don't celebrate Halloween (October 31st, the eve of the All Saints' Day), I decided to come up with a special post on it now. It's like I will start with a digital celebration here and maybe, we'll throw a pleasantly spooky, real Halloween party next year:)

...Have you seen this movie yet? It's fun and full of Halloween spirit. So I will watch it again:)

"Magic is really very simple, all you've got to do is want something and then let yourself have it." - Aggie Cromwell, "Halloweentown", 1998

...image is via allingforleavesandpumpkins

...image is from fallowingautumn-blog

"The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper." - Eden Phillpots, Victorian novelist, playwright, poet

...image is from virtuallyinsane-autumn.tumblr.com

...HALLOWEENish atmosphere in PAINTINGS

“There’s a little witch in all of us.” - Aunt Jet Owens, a minor character in "Practical magic"

I don’t know what this crazy picture is:)), but I do really like it!  This cool painting is by Philip Grözinger (German, b. 1972)

"Do you believe in destiny? That even the powers of time can be altered for a single purpose? That the luckiest man who walks on this earth is the one who finds ... true love?" - Dracula, 1992

Driftwood by Adam Oehlers …via  witchyteacups

"Just because I cannot see it, doesn't mean I can't believe it!" - Bram Stoker, "Dracula"

...a painting by Adam Burke @nightjarillustration, an artist based in Portland, Oregon.

“Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” - Stephen King

The Haunted Park by Richard Doyle (English, 1824–1883) .via oldpaintings

📚11 atmospheric books to read during Halloween (not my personal choice, just came across this list somewhere. so let's try it out together:)

The Haunting of Abney Heights: gothic mystery for Halloween by Cat Thomas

White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi

Dark stories and poems by Edgar Allen Poe

Drakula by Bram Stooker

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark by Alvin Schwartz

The Woman in Black and other Ghost stories by Susan Hill

Dark Matter by Michelle Paver

The House on Vesper Sands by Paraic O'Donnell

House of Shadows by Mair Unsworth

Blood Lite by Kevin J. Anderson

Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

📚...and these are chosen by me:) Havent' read any one of these books yet, but I was attracted by the covers. So now it's my Halloween reading wishlist:

"Villainy wears many masks, none so dangerous as the mask of virtue." - Ichabod Crane, a fictional character in "Sleepy hollow."

...The Ghosts Haunting the Woods by LorelaiArtsiePartsie

I usually prefer horror comedy films and animation to real horror movies. They should be scary yet not containing anything disgusting, and of course, there must be a happy ending...

...so, my Must Watch Halloween Movies List looks like this :)

The Little Vampire (anim.)

Monster House (anim.)

Beetlejuice (1988)

Ghostbusters starring Bill Murrey (1984)

The Haunted Mansion starring Eddie Murphy (2003)

Disney’s Halloweentown II: Kalabar’s Revenge (2001)

Young Frankenstein (1974)

Vampire in Brooklyn starring Eddie Murphy (1995)

A Haunted House (2013)

Hubie Halloween starring Adam Sandler (2020)

The Curse of Bridge Hollow (2022)

The School For Good And Evil (2022)

...and that's not all yet! How can I wrap up the post without sharing this energizing song from my favourite Gravity Falls series?! ;)

...not yet! Now, even more shivers down your spine!

Now, Happy, Spooky, Scary, Eerie Halloween! Have fun! 🎃👻🕯️

[lenbryant]

American Theater Is Imploding Before Our Eyes

July 19, 2023

(Long Post-Refrigerator Magnet)

By Isaac Butler

Mr. Butler is the author of “The Method: How the 20th Century Learned to Act.”

Sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter  Get expert analysis of the news and a guide to the big ideas shaping the world every weekday morning. 

The American theater is on the verge of collapse.

Here’s just a sampling of recent dire developments: The Public Theater announced this year that the Under the Radar festival, the most exciting of New York’s experimental performance incubators, would be postponed indefinitely and later announced it was laying off 19 percent of its staff. The Humana Festival of New American Plays, a vital launching pad for such great playwrights as Lynn Nottage and Will Eno over the past four decades, was canceled this year.

This season the Williamstown Theater Festival, one of our most important summer festivals, will consist of only one fully produced work, alongside an anemic offering of staged readings. The Signature Theater, whose resident playwrights have included Edward Albee, August Wilson, Tony Kushner and Annie Baker, is delaying the start of its season and, even then, will produce only three new plays rather than the customary six.

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, one of the country’s oldest and most storied regional theaters, recently announced a second round of emergency fund-raising to remain operational. The Lookingglass, a major anchor of Chicago’s theater scene, is halting production for the year. The Brooklyn Academy of Music laid off 13 percent of its staff. BAM’s Next Wave Festival, which helped catapult generations of forward-thinking artists to prominence, presented 31 shows in 2017. This year, it will present seven.

Theater has always been a risky endeavor. Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Dangling Conversation” asked “Is the theater really dead?” back in 1966. The current situation, however, risks building to an unprecedented crisis: the shuttering of theaters across the country and a permanent shrinking of the possibilities of the American stage. For those of us in New York, it might be easy to look at Broadway’s return to pre-Covid audience numbers and think it signals something like normal. But Broadway in its current form depends on nonprofit theaters to develop material and support artists. Nonprofit theaters are where many recent hits — including “A Strange Loop” and “Hamilton,” both of which won Pulitzer Prizes — started out.

So how do we avoid this catastrophe? Just as in other areas of recent American life where entire industries were imperiled — banks, the auto industry — this crisis requires federal intervention.

That’s right: The American nonprofit theater needs a bailout.

Regional and nonprofit theaters were in trouble well before 2020 and the force majeure of the pandemic. Most regional and nonprofit theaters were built on a subscription model, in which loyal patrons paid for a full season of tickets upfront. Foundation grants, donations and single ticket sales made up the balance of the budgets.

For much of the 20th century, this model worked. It locked in money and audiences, mitigated the risk of new or experimental shows and cultivated a dedicated base of enthusiasts. But this model has been withering for the entire 21st century. Subscriber numbers are falling, and nothing has arisen to take the place of that revenue or that audience. Not surprisingly, ticket prices have gotten higher, making new audiences more challenging to find.

This smoldering crisis was exacerbated by the pandemic, a ruinous event that has closed theaters, broken the theatergoing habit for audiences and led to a calamitous increase in costs at a moment when they can least be absorbed. A collapse in the nonprofit sector doesn’t just mean fewer theaters and fewer shows across the country; it also means less ambitious work, fewer risks taken and smaller casts. The reverberations will be felt up and down the theatrical chain, and a new generation of talent will be neglected. As with a bank collapse, in which a few foundering institutions can bring down a whole system, the entire ecosystem of American theater is imperiled. And American theater is too important to fail.

This is why federal intervention is required. It might seem like a radical suggestion, but in fact, it’s not even new. The Federal Theater Project, which ran from 1935 to 1939, was part of the New Deal effort to fund artistic endeavors. The project sparked an explosion in theatrical activity and inspired a generation of theater makers — including Arthur Miller, Elia Kazan and Orson Welles — and through its Negro Theater Project provided targeted support for Black theater artists across the country.

From the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s, theater artists founded pioneering nonprofit companies in Oregon (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); Dallas (Theater ’47); Houston (Alley Theater); Washington, D.C. (Arena Stage); Los Angeles (Mark Taper Forum); Connecticut (Long Wharf); Kentucky (Actors Theater of Louisville); San Francisco (American Conservatory Theater); and New York City (New York Shakespeare Festival, which became the Public).

Once theaters were up and running, charitable foundations stepped in to help. The Ford Foundation, for one, provided grants to theaters beginning in the 1950s. In 1966 the National Council on the Arts announced that “the development of a larger and more appreciative audience for the theater” should be one of the primary goals of the newly formed National Endowment for the Arts. The combination of public and private sector funding that followed had a miraculous effect. By 2005, there were over 1,200 nonprofit theaters in the United States, staging 13,000 productions a year and contributing over $1.4 billion to the U.S. economy, according to the Theater Communications Group.

Now this system — which took decades to nurture, made our national theatrical culture possible and assured our place on a world stage — is falling apart. Only the federal government can provide the scope of support needed to stabilize it. One easy and immediate first step would be to pass the Creative Economy Revitalization Act and the Promoting Local Arts and Creative Economy Workforce Act, two bills that have been languishing in Congress since 2021 and 2022. These bills would immediately send millions of dollars to local artists and arts institutions across the country.

But an even more important — and formidable — step would be to greatly increase the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts. It has accomplished astounding things over its nearly 60-year history, helping to seed and sustain orchestras, theaters, museums and community arts organizations across the country. The N.E.A. has brought art outside traditional venues like playhouses and galleries and into schools and military bases. But it has never been adequately funded and since the 1980s has ludicrously become a popular piñata for conservative politicians looking to score easy points.

In the context of the federal budget, the funds required for a theatrical bailout are pocket change: For the fiscal year of 2024, the Biden administration requested $211 million for the N.E.A., or about 63 cents for every person who lives in the United States. By contrast, Arts Council England plans to distribute roughly $10 for every person in England. The N.E.A. must also once again be celebrated as an essential national organ that keeps the country’s cultural life alive.

After a series of attacks on the endowment led by the Republican senator Jesse Helms and Christian right figures like Jerry Falwell in the 1980s and ’90s, Congress changed the N.E.A.’s rules so that it can no longer give grants to individual artists, except in the field of literature, and cannot fund the general operating expenses of arts organizations. These rules — the outdated results of an earlier generation’s culture war — must be repealed.

In September 1965, President Lyndon Johnson signed into law the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act, which created the N.E.A. The act contained a long declaration of findings and purpose outlining Congress’s view as to why the arts were necessary and deserving of support. “An advanced civilization must not limit its efforts to science and technology alone,” Congress declared. “Democracy demands wisdom and vision in its citizens. It must therefore foster and support a form of education and access to the arts and the humanities, designed to make people of all backgrounds and wherever located masters of their technology and not its unthinking servants.”

These words ring even truer today. The arts nurture the human spirit, reflect the human condition for us and, at their best, allow us moments in which we can transcend the limitations of our own points of view and see the world anew. The government has long recognized that the market is not enough to sustain this project. Indeed, at times the relentless focus on shareholder value and corporate balance sheets puts the market and American art at odds.

If nonprofit theaters are to survive and fulfill their national purpose, it will take far more than cost cutting, layoffs and emergency fund-raising campaigns. Government aid is both necessary and essential, as is our nation’s renewed recognition that the arts are vital both to the survival of democracy and to the enlargement of the human spirit.

Isaac Butler is a cultural critic and the author of “The Method: How the 20th Century Learned to Act” and an author of “The World Only Spins Forward,” an oral history of “Angels in America.”

[pwunion]

Brianna Barrett

Brianna Barrett is a writer and performer from Portland, Oregon, fascinated with identity crises, double lives, mortality, grief, and the forgotten history of stuff that happened surprisingly-not-that-long-ago. Recipient of the Kennedy Center's Mark Twain Prize in Comic Playwriting (Acts of Creation) and twice-voted Portland's Best Storyteller in Willamette Week.

Barrett's theatrical work has been developed at Theatre33, Naked Angels LA, and with LineStorm Playwrights at Artists Repertory Theatre. Her short plays are published by Samuel French/Concord Theatricals and Applause Books. She has an MFA in Playwriting from UCLA.

[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.

[mybookplacenet]

Featured Post: Mother of Valor by Gary Corbin

About Mother of Valor: Val’s toughest adversary yet is someone she hardly knows: her mother. Rookie cop Val Dawes uncovers a national sex trafficking ring with ties to a violent right-wing splinter group. Evidence reveals the group is planning a violent attack in a matter of days. Suddenly her estranged mother, who left without a trace a decade before, re-enters her life. Manipulative and cunning, Mom divides Val’s attention and loyalties, disrupting Val’s promising career and her rekindled relationship with her father. As the attack draws near, Val tries to protect her family, leading to shocking discoveries about why her mother returned—and why she left in the first place. Can Val keep her community safe without destroying her family? Targeted Age Group: Adult Written by: Gary Corbin Buy the ebook: Buy the Book On Amazon Link to Series Author Bio: Gary Corbin is a writer, editor, and playwright in Camas, WA, a suburb of Portland, OR. In addition to eight published novels, his creative and journalistic work has been published in BrainstormNW, the Portland Tribune, The Oregonian, and Global Envision, among others. His plays have enjoyed critical acclaim and have been produced on many Portland-area stages. Gary is a member of the Willamette Writers Group, PDX Playwrights, and the Bar Noir Writers Workshop. He also participates in workshops and conferences in the Portland, Oregon area. A homebrewer and home coffee roaster, Gary is a member of the Oregon Brew Crew and a BJCP National Beer Judge. He loves to ski, cook, and root for his beloved Patriots and Red Sox. And when that’s not enough, he escapes to the Oregon coast with his sweetheart. Follow the author on social media: Learn more about the writer. Visit the Author's Website Facebook Fan Page Twitter YouTube Read the full article

[shakespearenews]

The playwright and performer Taylor Mac translated “Titus Andronicus” for the project, but declined to have his work in the reading series, according to the festival. Separately, he has written “Gary: A Sequel To Titus Andronicus,” which opens April 21 on Broadway. (A spokesman for “Gary” did not respond to a request for comment.)

Instead of Mr. Mac’s translation, the festival will feature a “Titus” from Amy Freed, who also translated “The Taming of the Shrew.”

[burkedeboer]

North to the Abyss

2 F, 1 M.

During the gold rush, a woman travels to the coastal Alaskan town from which her husband sent his last letter. She intends to track him down, but instead finds greater mystery in the nature of his disappearance.

A note on the text: though only her opening monologue is in verse, you may notice that all of Rachel’s dialogue is timed to iambic pentameter. She is the only character that does so, and should help to distinguish her class from the other characters.

This 10 Minute Play was written in spring of 2018. The full text is below the break.

At center stage - RACHEL VASSALL. A well-to-do young woman, educated in turn of the century universities. She reads from a letter.

RACHEL “My dearest Rachel, the light of my life, Our time apart has only just begun And already I long for my return. I remind myself of what’s to be had: How better we shall live with these riches, That is, should this journey north prove fruitful. Yet, though I am confident in myself As I now have arrived in Alaska And look to the next steps of my travels, I would that my feet could now beat southward.

Every night I spend in a lonely bed And awake beside an empty pillow Is another sunset and rise wasted. I know we shall be together quite soon - As soon as the springtime, I’ll come to you. And yet it is not nearly soon enough.

I curse what this world requires of us, That it should require us be apart. But we shall overcome this great distance, As distance only is measured on maps, And there’s no mortal measure for our love. I am yours eternal. All my love, Claude.”

This was the first letter from Alaska. He said he would write whenever he could. I have a letter too from Seattle, where he waited ashore all of one night, a night he spent writing his love to me. That was Claude’s way; he always kept his word. So how, I wonder, did it come to pass that this letter should also be his last?

(Exits)

(A post office in a coastal Alaskan town. The 20th century has barely just begun; this is the sort of town that barely knows it, and won’t catch up with new century for some time. It is minded by the lone clerk and postmaster, BILL SAYER, an older man who stands behind a desk. He groans loudly as RACHEL enters. She looks at him alarmed.)

SAYER Sorry, miss, sorry to growl at ya, it’s just my back. I got them floating kidneys, y’know. Makes the lower back hurt something fierce. I got a balm for it though. But that’s talk for the apothecary not the post office. What can I do for you?

RACHEL What does the name Claude Vassall mean to you?

SAYER Both a lot and not much. From the look about you, I’d say he means more to you.

RACHEL I’d certainly hope so - he’s my husband.

SAYER Is that so? Well. It’s nice to meet you. Though it could have been under nicer circumstances.

RACHEL What do you mean? I haven’t heard from him; not hide nor hair nor whisper since the fall. I’ve no idea or notion how he is.

SAYER Yes, that’s right.

RACHEL Excuse me?

SAYER I’m terribly, awfully sorry, Mrs. Vassall. I didn’t realize, I-... Well. Easiest way to put it is that I know as much as you. Or as little, as it were. Nobody else has seen him either, not in this town. Not on this realm.

RACHEL What do you mean by “realm?” When did he leave?

SAYER In the fall.

RACHEL When he arrived? I have his last letter. I’ve kept it by my heart these last few months.

SAYER I’m sorry. We tried to warn him against staking that claim.

RACHEL Yes-- his claim, on some island in your bay.

SAYER Not just some island. Abaddon Island. That’s what the Russians called it anyway, and we may have changed a lot with this territory but that’s one thing we kept our hands off of. It’s better that way.

RACHEL I’m afraid I don’t understand, Mister-...?

SAYER Oh, of course, where are my manners. Sayer, ma’am. Bill Sayer. I’m the postmaster here. When your husband came and dropped off the letter, I didn’t realize who he was or where he was going or I would have talked to him myself. Maybe I should have gone out of my way to find him afterwards. After I heard from Eliza - she’s the lady what runs the inn he stayed at, and I heard from her that he had the Abaddon claim. And he planned to stake it. Then he was gone.

RACHEL Please don’t say it like that, Mr. Sayer. “Gone,” it just sounds so terribly final.

SAYER I’m sorry Mrs. Vassall, I know he was your husband. But let me-- I’m sorry. There’s something you need to know.

RACHEL I only need to know where to find him.

SAYER No-- I-- Listen. If I may: The man that sold him that claim sold it to him in California.

RACHEL I recall; I did share a house with him.

SAYER I only bring it up because the man who sold it was some sort of swindler.

RACHEL Was he so ignoble? Was the claim false?

SAYER No, the claim was true.

RACHEL Then tell me how my husband was “swindled?”

SAYER It’s just a matter of the fact being that no one around here would sell or advise the sale-of the claim on Abaddon Island. It was first staked back in the day when all the claims around here were getting staked. The old boy who took it up never came back. Things were in such a boom in those days, the town was just starting to spring up, not even platted yet, people coming and going every which way and nobody thought much of anything when a year passed and the claim wasn’t renewed so it defaulted back to the office. They figured he must’ve just left town, like so many others. Sold it again. But this time it was sold to a man who staked the Klondike and the Fortymile and had had himself a whole bunch of success. And he had struck gold outside of town here again, and folks in town knew him, so when spring turned to summer and we hadn’t seen him a search party got rounded up. Then these Chugach came to town, they got some villages down the coast both ways, been here for longer than any white folks, this is their land and their culture. They come out to sell their wares. So the posse asked them about that island, if they had any advice. And they told those men the same thing I’m gonna tell you: stay away.

RACHEL Is there some Native folklore about it?

SAYER Yes ma’am. It’s a forbidden land, in their eyes. I guess way back when the Russians were here, fur trapping expeditions sent attachments there, and it’s the same story. Same story as what happened to the posse too. Same story way back a thousand years. It’s been told too many times and I hate to tell it again. This time about your poor husband. I’m just afraid that when it comes to Abaddon Island, that’s the only way the story gets told.

RACHEL Then how did the rights to such an island, home to only warnings and precautions, come to be in the Lower Forty-Eight? Traded from a swindler to my husband?

SAYER Couldn’t tell ya. Don’t know. After the rights expired for the second time, a man named Chuch Buckford bought it. By that time I was working here. But I wasn’t postmaster yet, or else I would’ve refused to sell it to him. He went on and on about how all of this was only superstition. About how he was a man of reason, and a positivist, and how he would prove to us that there was nothing to fear. He had some sort of plan about it, or so he said. And he said it a lot. But he never went. After Chuch, I don’t know exactly how it changed hands, other than through poker games and maybe barters of some other sort. The state of things came to be that if a man put up a gold claim as part of a bet, then his opponent would demand to read it over and make double sure it wasn’t The Island. Or, if the opponent was a fresh-faced greenhorn, then everyone else around the table would intervene on his behalf and inspect the claim themselves. See, that’s why I say when Mr. Vassall arrived so keen to take on Abaddon Island I knew for a fact that it had been sold to him elsewhere. Every year, through the years, a different face would come into the office and renew the claim before it expired. A different man, every year, with all sorts of plans and ideas about how to get in and get out. One boy said he was gonna just row out there at dawn and back before dusk each day. I don’t know if he did it. It carried on this way for some time.

RACHEL And so it did, ‘til my husband arrived.

SAYER Yes ma’am, so it did.

(Enter RUTH, carrying a hefty bag of postage.)

RUTH Good fuckin’ shit, Bill, they must be thawing out up north, look at this load of postage! Snowbanks still up past your tits though, but looks like them logging camps finally got their shit down here. Good Lord, I’ve packed bears out of the backcountry that were lighter than this. (She slams the bag down. Beat) Who is this, why’s she crying?

RACHEL Oh am I really? Please, I don’t mean to.

SAYER No, there’s no reason to be embarrassed. I apologize for my courier. Ruth.

RUTH Yes Bill?

SAYER I’d like you to meet Mrs. Vassall.

RUTH ...Vassall? That’s not--

SAYER That is.

RUTH Oh hon.

RACHEL There’s been plenty of pity for me now, I’d appreciate it if you spared it.

RUTH Well alright. So Bill gave you the low-down then?

RACHEL He did.

RUTH I’m sorry, Mrs. Vassall. We tried to warn him.

RACHEL And tried to warn me, but I’m undeterred. I intend to travel to your island, and I intend to see it for myself.

SAYER Ma’am-- Nobody’s seen The Island for theirselves and came back to talk about it.

RACHEL I understand.

SAYER Nobody knows what happened to your husband, specifically, but let me tell you, everyone knows the general notion.

RACHEL I cannot believe that unless I see.

RUTH I’d go after my fella if he pulled a similar stunt.

SAYER Ruth… Ma’am, please, have a good think about this idea. Even if it wasn’t Abaddon Island. No offense, but you seem very well educated.

RACHEL I fail to see how that could bring offense.

SAYER It’s just I’m inclined to think you might not have a whole lot of experience in the woods. In the woods, alone, tracking a man. Would I be right?

RACHEL Yes.

SAYER Just consider what this whole undertaking would mean for you.

RACHEL Of course I have already, before I left. I took a ship up from San Francisco; I would not have made this trip hastily, but only after a winter of thought.

RUTH What you’ll wanna do, if you’re gonna head on out there, is pick yourself up a hired gun here in town.

SAYER Don’t tell her that.

RUTH Well she needs some sort of somebody helping her out. And I don’t rightly know, could be you go get a trapper or a mountaineer or some sort of timber fella. Someone that knows the wilderness real well and how to survive in it.

SAYER Nobody knows what The Island holds.

RUTH See, that’s what I’m thinking. Which is why I think of all the burly young bucks wasting their time in our taverns that would be raring to go. Remember that night when Joey Stokes walked down main street with his cap and ball Colt and shot out all the street lights one by one? Sheriff didn’t even arrest him on account of the fact that he was so impressed with Joey popping bulbs from a count of sixty paces.

SAYER Don’t ask her to talk to Joey Stokes.

RUTH Why not? It’s a heroic hunt, I’m sure he’d jump at the invitation.

SAYER Yes he would. And I like Joey Stokes. What you’re suggesting is instead of Mrs. Vassall dying alone, that Joey goes and dies with her.

(Silence)

RACHEL I trust it’s not as dire as all that. If it so worries you, Mr. Sayer, then I resolve to leave on my lonesome. I did not come to our Final Frontier with intent to rob you of your neighbors.

SAYER Much obliged. Much as I can oblige it.

RACHEL But your advice, much as I value it, can not be followed to its last letter. I did not sail north to turn south at port. I only want my husband home and safe, or, failing that, have him home and buried. Whichever fate the good Lord wills it be.

RUTH One way or another you’ll meet again.

RACHEL Yes. And meet in this world; I will find him.

RUTH I believe you when you say it. I just don’t believe me when I think it. Maybe since it’s springtime it’ll be easier. I wish you luck, ma’am.

RACHEL And you as well.

(RUTH exits. SAYER sighs, produces a box from under the desk.)

SAYER You’re set on it then?

RACHEL Yes, Mr. Sayer, I am resolute. In both my decision and intentions.

SAYER (He produces a revolver from the box.) Now I know this isn’t much. It’s just the post office pistol, issued to us should we need to defend ourselves. It’s a Peacemaker. They call it the gun that won the west, and The Island is west of here, technically. Cartographically. It would ease my mind if you had some sort of protection. (He produces a box of ammunition, sets it next to the gun on the table.) Now, legally, I’m not allowed to give this to you. Unless I deputized you a post carrier, I suppose. Not sure I’m allowed to do that either. But what I can do is leave it on the table here and step into the back. And if it was gone by the time I came back, I wouldn’t have a clue who took it. My own fault. Doubt anyone from the government would come checking on it anyway.

RACHEL I appreciate the offer-

SAYER No, now this one I’m firm on. All right, that’s my ultimatum. Either don’t go or take the gun. And I am the postmaster, I carry words and my words carry. Now it was nice meeting you, Mrs. Vassall. You are a determined sort, and that is respectable.

RACHEL And nice to meet you too, Mr. Sayer.

SAYER I just gotta pop into the back real quick. Hope to see you around.

SAYER exits to the back. There is a long silence as RACHEL considers. She then takes the gun and the ammo. She exits.

[jimhair]

I am sorry to hear of the passing of Darcelle XV. A Portland treasure. I rarely use color film, but spending a morning working with Darcelle, a few rolls of color were required. My original post from 2020: Darcelle XV has performed in Portland for 50 years and will be onstage tonight at Darcelle XV’s Showplace in Chinatown. Happy Valentines Day! May you find love ❤️ Darcelle XV, Portland, January 2023 🇺🇦💔🌎💔🌏💔🌍💔🇺🇦 #valentinesday #documentary #performance #artist #legend #author #playwright #actor #costume #designer #cabaret #owner #headliner #portrait #photography #hasselblad #camera #120 @kodak @kodakprofessional #ektar100 #film #photography #filmisnotdead #istillshootfilm #filmisalive #fromwhereistand #pdx #portland #nw #northwest #leftcoast #oregon 20011404 Ektar 1973 Hasselblad c/m 120mm Makro-Planar https://www.instagram.com/p/CqLTJleJYmz/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=