NYCPlaywrights October 25, 2025
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NYCPlaywrights
Oct 25, 2025, 5:08:07 PM (6 days ago) Oct 25
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Greetings NYCPlaywrights
*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
Theater for the New City's Village Halloween Costume Ball
Get ready for a spooktacular night of costumes, music, and fun at Theater for the New City's Village Halloween Costume Ball!
Friday, October 31 · 3:30 - 7pm EDT
Theater For the New City
155 1st Avenue New York, NY 10003
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/theater-for-the-new-citys-village-halloween-costume-ball-tickets-1770863272719?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
Theater-by-the-Grove, the producing artistic company at Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance, is excited to open a call for new plays to be submitted for consideration for a full production in late February 2026 for the New Works Festival. Submissions from established, professional, working, or amateur playwrights will all be considered. Plays Should Be: Full-length—at least 1 hr. 30 min duration.
***
The A is For Playwriting Contest and the all it takes is ONE ACT Play Festival engages playwrights who are passionate about abortion rights and reproductive justice, and offers audiences the opportunity to see those stories performed by theatre professionals in live staged readings. Since the inauguration of our Playwriting Contest in 2020, we have received over 1,000 one-act plays about reproductive justice from all around the world, and have brought 12 of them to the stage!
***
Walnut Street Theatre is searching for bold new voices to introduce students to the artform of live theatre with an inspirational and thought-provoking story that speaks to them directly. For over 40 years, our Touring Outreach company has brought high-quality, professional theatre to over 60,000 students annually across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware schools.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** A PLAY ABOUT DAVID MAMET WRITING ABOUT HARVEY WEINSTEIN ***
David Mamet’s new play, we are assured, is fiction and any resemblance to living persons is “entirely coincidental”. Given that the protagonist is an overweight movie tycoon ruined by accusations of sexual misconduct, coincidence clearly has a long arm.
Leaving aside its origins, what is dismaying is the clumsiness of the satire on manipulative moguls: despite the formidable presence of John Malkovich, the play offers the rare spectacle of Mamet punching below his weight.
We first see the hero, Barney Fein (rhymes with Weinstein), insulting and defrauding a screenwriter who turns on him and says: “You’re an evil man.” That seems an all-too-accurate description of a character whose venality knows no depths. Coveting an award for humanitarian services to film, Fein attempts to buy off an allegedly recalcitrant juror by offering him a night with a Eurasian starlet, Yung Kim Li. But when Fein himself, thwarted by a prospective date and pumped up with a sexually activating drug, meets Li, he makes a bungling attempt at seduction which leads to a court case, revelations of serial abuse and the collapse of his empire.
One problem is that Mamet has already harpooned Hollywood in the vastly superior Speed-the-Plow, which exposed the homosocial ethos of a male-dominated industry.
More...
https://archive.ph/zXZTU#selection-1411.0-1439.66
***
This is an absolutely terrible, no good, rotten, left out in the sun too long idea. Have any of you had to sit and read Olenna in a class and had men sit there and say that the woman deserved everything she got? Have you read any Mamet play, for that matter?
Yes, David Mamet will reportedly return to the stage with a play inspired by Harvey Weinstein, starring John Malkovich. Sure, Malkovich is fine and great, whatever. The problem here is a “Mamet play inspired by Harvey Weinstein.”
It’s like someone took a dart board, listed a bunch of playwrights, picked up a dart, and just threw it and then said, “What if we get the man whose work puts forth a message that sexual harassment is a myth to write this play, instead?” Maybe I’m a little angry about the fact that I can still remember the men justifying Olenna when I read it, and maybe that anger is righteous, but this is just an all-around mess of a concept.
More...
https://www.themarysue.com/david-mamet-harvey-weinstein-play-bad-no-stop/
***
Bitter Wheat review
It was boring. I didn’t like it.
Dear Alice,
Thanks for filing your review in good time (for once!). But I’m not sure the whole thing sent? If that is your entire response, I just wondered if you could flesh it out a little bit. Can you explain why it made you feel that way? Is ‘boring’ really the right word for a 90 minute work from one of the 20th century’s great playwrights, with John Malkovich making his long awaited return to the stage in the leading role?
Best wishes,
The Editor
Bitter Wheat review Draft #2
It was boring. I didn’t like it. My editor has asked me to expand on this response but I don’t see why I have to do edits when David Mamet clearly hasn’t. Why can’t I just toss off my opinions in whatever form I see fit, and then air them in front of a wide and surprisingly receptive audience, preferably one primed with quotes from the New York Times proclaiming my genius?
Dear Alice,
This is a fair point and it’s great to see your confidence in your writing improving. But I’m still not sure this is a response we can publish. Could you give a bit of context to your opinions? And some sense of the plot?
Best,
The Editor
Bitter Wheat review Draft #3
It was boring. I didn’t like it. It was just a mish-mash of vaguely comedic scenes about a thinly veiled version of Weinstein exploiting a young female actor, plus some ‘ironic’ racism and a bit where a terrorist showed up with a gun. The Weinstein guy is called ‘Barney Fein’, which insults my fingers in the typing. The marble floor is quite nice. The end.
More...
https://exeuntmagazine.com/reviews/review-bitter-wheat-garrick-theatre/
***
David Mamet saw it coming.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, director and screenwriter penned an op-ed with the title, “Why I am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal” in 2008, and he watched his career implode.
He didn’t assault a fellow artist or commit a felony. His “thought crime” was more than enough. Mamet recently admitted just how much his political transformation cost him.
In a word? Dearly. Why, it’s almost like there’s a modern Blacklist against conservative artists.
Now, a new play is focusing on Mamet, and it takes Mamet’s conservativism personally.
The Hollywood Reporter sums up, “A Play About David Mamet Writing About Harvey Weinstein,” in one terse sentence:
…a fictional David Mamet is poisoned, castrated and murdered with his own playwriting award.
Now, imagine if a similar play targeted, say, Lena Dunham or Stephen Colbert, two chronically liberal artists, in such a violent manner. What might the reaction be? Colbert got canceled for losing CBS $40 million a year, and we’ve endured more than a week of media mourning.
More...
https://archive.ph/cUJj7#selection-715.0-741.85
***
The genesis for the play happened when I read a tiny little blurb that [Mamet] was writing about Harvey Weinstein and that the play would get produced in London. It made me absurdly angry. I couldn’t really figure out why, and then I realized, Wait, hold on, this play’s being produced. There’s no script yet. He hasn’t started writing it. His Broadway producer came to him and was like, “You should write about this.” And he did. And now he has a theater lined up in London, and he’s writing about this. Why? Why this playwright? It was something so absurd. And I just thought, if Mamet gets to write about Weinstein, then I get to write about Mamet.
His play, Bitter Wheat, did eventually premiere in London in 2019. Were you still working on your play when that happened?
Yes. And the play evolved. When I first found out about it, it was the height of #MeToo, and all this stuff was going on. And then by the time Bitter Wheat happened, the world had shifted a little. And I realized when the anger had died down, what I was actually really interested in was more of a dissection than a takedown. And it was less about David Mamet is doing this awful thing, and how dare he when he writes this kind of play. And it became more about who gets to write what plays and what’s my complicity?
More...
https://archive.ph/f5LwZ#selection-1765.2-1787.361
***
Art imitates life imitates art? “A Play About David Mamet Writing a Play About Harvey Weinstein,” a very meta stage show whose title references the fiery playwright and disgraced Hollywood producer, will stage a charity reading this summer in New York City.
Written by Mathilde Dratwa (“Dirty Laundry”) and directed by “Russian Doll” co-creator Leslye Headland, the play will have its New York premiere on July 21 at the Judith O. Rubin Theater at Playwrights Horizons, as a reading to benefit the New York Civil Liberties Union. The one-night-only event will feature Billy Eichner (“Billy on the Street”), Abbi Jacobson (“Broad City”), Heléne Yorke (“The Other Two”) and Kara Young (“Purpose”).
More...
https://archive.ph/Ihwwm#selection-1823.2-1831.439
***
A Play about David Mamet Writing a Play about Harvey Weinstein by Mathilde Dratwa may have been inspired by the fact that Mamet actually did pen a play about Weinstein (and Culpepper said, “It sucked from most accounts,”), but that doesn’t have much to do with the story.
“Our show follows a white actress firmly in her adult years encountering a young Black ingenue actress. As our protagonist conceptualizes a play about Mamet writing a play about Weinstein, we witness a very abstract examination of sexism in the entertainment industry specifically, but which will be relatable to anyone living in the real world,” Culpepper said in an email. “The male monsters discussed in our show are largely at the invention of our female protagonist. This is presented to the audience in scenes depicting the extremes of such situations. The trigger warnings will hopefully indicate to our audience that this isn’t a gentle show, but I believe the dark humor is consistent with a present trend in comedy, and am fortunate to have a great cast who can navigate this deftly.”
More...
https://lakewood.advocatemag.com/echo-theatre-mamet-weinstein-play/
*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
Theater for the New City's Village Halloween Costume Ball
Get ready for a spooktacular night of costumes, music, and fun at Theater for the New City's Village Halloween Costume Ball!
Friday, October 31 · 3:30 - 7pm EDT
Theater For the New City
155 1st Avenue New York, NY 10003
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/theater-for-the-new-citys-village-halloween-costume-ball-tickets-1770863272719?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
Theater-by-the-Grove, the producing artistic company at Indiana University of Pennsylvania’s Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance, is excited to open a call for new plays to be submitted for consideration for a full production in late February 2026 for the New Works Festival. Submissions from established, professional, working, or amateur playwrights will all be considered. Plays Should Be: Full-length—at least 1 hr. 30 min duration.
***
The A is For Playwriting Contest and the all it takes is ONE ACT Play Festival engages playwrights who are passionate about abortion rights and reproductive justice, and offers audiences the opportunity to see those stories performed by theatre professionals in live staged readings. Since the inauguration of our Playwriting Contest in 2020, we have received over 1,000 one-act plays about reproductive justice from all around the world, and have brought 12 of them to the stage!
***
Walnut Street Theatre is searching for bold new voices to introduce students to the artform of live theatre with an inspirational and thought-provoking story that speaks to them directly. For over 40 years, our Touring Outreach company has brought high-quality, professional theatre to over 60,000 students annually across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware schools.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** A PLAY ABOUT DAVID MAMET WRITING ABOUT HARVEY WEINSTEIN ***
David Mamet’s new play, we are assured, is fiction and any resemblance to living persons is “entirely coincidental”. Given that the protagonist is an overweight movie tycoon ruined by accusations of sexual misconduct, coincidence clearly has a long arm.
Leaving aside its origins, what is dismaying is the clumsiness of the satire on manipulative moguls: despite the formidable presence of John Malkovich, the play offers the rare spectacle of Mamet punching below his weight.
We first see the hero, Barney Fein (rhymes with Weinstein), insulting and defrauding a screenwriter who turns on him and says: “You’re an evil man.” That seems an all-too-accurate description of a character whose venality knows no depths. Coveting an award for humanitarian services to film, Fein attempts to buy off an allegedly recalcitrant juror by offering him a night with a Eurasian starlet, Yung Kim Li. But when Fein himself, thwarted by a prospective date and pumped up with a sexually activating drug, meets Li, he makes a bungling attempt at seduction which leads to a court case, revelations of serial abuse and the collapse of his empire.
One problem is that Mamet has already harpooned Hollywood in the vastly superior Speed-the-Plow, which exposed the homosocial ethos of a male-dominated industry.
More...
https://archive.ph/zXZTU#selection-1411.0-1439.66
***
This is an absolutely terrible, no good, rotten, left out in the sun too long idea. Have any of you had to sit and read Olenna in a class and had men sit there and say that the woman deserved everything she got? Have you read any Mamet play, for that matter?
Yes, David Mamet will reportedly return to the stage with a play inspired by Harvey Weinstein, starring John Malkovich. Sure, Malkovich is fine and great, whatever. The problem here is a “Mamet play inspired by Harvey Weinstein.”
It’s like someone took a dart board, listed a bunch of playwrights, picked up a dart, and just threw it and then said, “What if we get the man whose work puts forth a message that sexual harassment is a myth to write this play, instead?” Maybe I’m a little angry about the fact that I can still remember the men justifying Olenna when I read it, and maybe that anger is righteous, but this is just an all-around mess of a concept.
More...
https://www.themarysue.com/david-mamet-harvey-weinstein-play-bad-no-stop/
***
Bitter Wheat review
It was boring. I didn’t like it.
Dear Alice,
Thanks for filing your review in good time (for once!). But I’m not sure the whole thing sent? If that is your entire response, I just wondered if you could flesh it out a little bit. Can you explain why it made you feel that way? Is ‘boring’ really the right word for a 90 minute work from one of the 20th century’s great playwrights, with John Malkovich making his long awaited return to the stage in the leading role?
Best wishes,
The Editor
Bitter Wheat review Draft #2
It was boring. I didn’t like it. My editor has asked me to expand on this response but I don’t see why I have to do edits when David Mamet clearly hasn’t. Why can’t I just toss off my opinions in whatever form I see fit, and then air them in front of a wide and surprisingly receptive audience, preferably one primed with quotes from the New York Times proclaiming my genius?
Dear Alice,
This is a fair point and it’s great to see your confidence in your writing improving. But I’m still not sure this is a response we can publish. Could you give a bit of context to your opinions? And some sense of the plot?
Best,
The Editor
Bitter Wheat review Draft #3
It was boring. I didn’t like it. It was just a mish-mash of vaguely comedic scenes about a thinly veiled version of Weinstein exploiting a young female actor, plus some ‘ironic’ racism and a bit where a terrorist showed up with a gun. The Weinstein guy is called ‘Barney Fein’, which insults my fingers in the typing. The marble floor is quite nice. The end.
More...
https://exeuntmagazine.com/reviews/review-bitter-wheat-garrick-theatre/
***
David Mamet saw it coming.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, director and screenwriter penned an op-ed with the title, “Why I am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal” in 2008, and he watched his career implode.
He didn’t assault a fellow artist or commit a felony. His “thought crime” was more than enough. Mamet recently admitted just how much his political transformation cost him.
In a word? Dearly. Why, it’s almost like there’s a modern Blacklist against conservative artists.
Now, a new play is focusing on Mamet, and it takes Mamet’s conservativism personally.
The Hollywood Reporter sums up, “A Play About David Mamet Writing About Harvey Weinstein,” in one terse sentence:
…a fictional David Mamet is poisoned, castrated and murdered with his own playwriting award.
Now, imagine if a similar play targeted, say, Lena Dunham or Stephen Colbert, two chronically liberal artists, in such a violent manner. What might the reaction be? Colbert got canceled for losing CBS $40 million a year, and we’ve endured more than a week of media mourning.
More...
https://archive.ph/cUJj7#selection-715.0-741.85
***
The genesis for the play happened when I read a tiny little blurb that [Mamet] was writing about Harvey Weinstein and that the play would get produced in London. It made me absurdly angry. I couldn’t really figure out why, and then I realized, Wait, hold on, this play’s being produced. There’s no script yet. He hasn’t started writing it. His Broadway producer came to him and was like, “You should write about this.” And he did. And now he has a theater lined up in London, and he’s writing about this. Why? Why this playwright? It was something so absurd. And I just thought, if Mamet gets to write about Weinstein, then I get to write about Mamet.
His play, Bitter Wheat, did eventually premiere in London in 2019. Were you still working on your play when that happened?
Yes. And the play evolved. When I first found out about it, it was the height of #MeToo, and all this stuff was going on. And then by the time Bitter Wheat happened, the world had shifted a little. And I realized when the anger had died down, what I was actually really interested in was more of a dissection than a takedown. And it was less about David Mamet is doing this awful thing, and how dare he when he writes this kind of play. And it became more about who gets to write what plays and what’s my complicity?
More...
https://archive.ph/f5LwZ#selection-1765.2-1787.361
***
Art imitates life imitates art? “A Play About David Mamet Writing a Play About Harvey Weinstein,” a very meta stage show whose title references the fiery playwright and disgraced Hollywood producer, will stage a charity reading this summer in New York City.
Written by Mathilde Dratwa (“Dirty Laundry”) and directed by “Russian Doll” co-creator Leslye Headland, the play will have its New York premiere on July 21 at the Judith O. Rubin Theater at Playwrights Horizons, as a reading to benefit the New York Civil Liberties Union. The one-night-only event will feature Billy Eichner (“Billy on the Street”), Abbi Jacobson (“Broad City”), Heléne Yorke (“The Other Two”) and Kara Young (“Purpose”).
More...
https://archive.ph/Ihwwm#selection-1823.2-1831.439
***
A Play about David Mamet Writing a Play about Harvey Weinstein by Mathilde Dratwa may have been inspired by the fact that Mamet actually did pen a play about Weinstein (and Culpepper said, “It sucked from most accounts,”), but that doesn’t have much to do with the story.
“Our show follows a white actress firmly in her adult years encountering a young Black ingenue actress. As our protagonist conceptualizes a play about Mamet writing a play about Weinstein, we witness a very abstract examination of sexism in the entertainment industry specifically, but which will be relatable to anyone living in the real world,” Culpepper said in an email. “The male monsters discussed in our show are largely at the invention of our female protagonist. This is presented to the audience in scenes depicting the extremes of such situations. The trigger warnings will hopefully indicate to our audience that this isn’t a gentle show, but I believe the dark humor is consistent with a present trend in comedy, and am fortunate to have a great cast who can navigate this deftly.”
More...
https://lakewood.advocatemag.com/echo-theatre-mamet-weinstein-play/
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