NYCPlaywrights March 30, 2024
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NYCPlaywrights
Mar 30, 2024, 5:10:43 PMMar 30
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Greetings NYCPlaywrights
*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
Thesis Festival: Reading of "Extraordinary Aliens"
by Lingyi Wang
Saturday, April 27 · 4 - 5:30pm EDT
Minor Latham Playhouse
118 Milbank Hall 3009 Broadway New York, NY 10027
A reading of the new play "Extraordinary Aliens" by senior Theatre major Lingyi Wang for the thesis in Playwriting, advised by Theatre Department faculty member Andy Bragen.
This performance is part of Thesis Festival 2024:
Senior Theatre majors present their theses in research, solo performance and playwriting; design, performance, and stage management are by Barnard and Columbia theatre students, advised by Theatre Department faculty and staff.
Tickets are free of charge; seating will be by general admission. Walk-up patrons will also be admitted if seats are available.
With Barnard and Columbia students; more information at https://theatre.barnard.edu/current-season
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/thesis-festival-reading-of-extraordinary-aliens-saturday-april-27-4pm-tickets-872976124087?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
*** NYCPLAYWRIGHTS ZOOMERS IN APRIL ***
Memberships are available for NYCPlaywrights Zoomers - we meet on Zoom each Monday at 7PM to do readings of our work. Workshops are a great way to meet fellow playwrights, commiserate about the challenges of crafting a good play and celebrate victories, whether getting a full-blown production or finally getting a tricky scene to work.
Check out our website here ~ https://nycp-zoomers.blogspot.com
How do our meetings work? Find out here ~ https://nycp-zoomers.blogspot.com/2023/12/welcome-to-nycplaywrights-zoomers-some.html
Here are Frequently Asked Questions ~ https://nycp-zoomers.blogspot.com/p/zoomers-frequently-asked-questions-faq.html
You can also sit in on a Monday session for free - email na...@nycplaywrights.org to request a spot.
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
Eastbound Theatre, a division of the Milford Arts Council, once again partners with Westport Community Theatre for a program of original short plays under the banner of “East/West PlayFest 2024”.
East/West PlayFest seeks short one-act plays for production in July.
Six finalists will receive a production of their play, with 2 outdoor performances at the Milford Historical Society. The program will be repeated the following weekend at Westport Community Theater.
***
The Post-Meridian Radio Players, based in Eastern Massachusetts, is seeking one to two original script adaptations of the novels or short stories of H.G. Wells. PMRP’s work pays homage to the golden age of radio, and our productions take place as staged readings before a live audience, with sound effects performed live. Since 2006, we have brought original and public domain radio plays to life in our distinctive format, which includes script-in-hand actors and live foley artists.
***
Submissions are being accepted for the Equity Library Theater of New York Summer 2024 Virtual Play Festival.
Seeking short plays (no more than 10 pp/minutes), from playwrights from around the globe. Also seeking monologues (no more than 5pp/minutes). Musicals welcome!
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** OFF-BROADWAY BOOM ***
May 1954 ~ The Theater: Boom off Broadway
Anybody who intends to produce a Broadway show needs his overhead examined. If he has a musical like Wonderful Town, he needs $225,000 to start with, has to pay out more than $44,000 a week and charge a $7.20 top. If he is lucky enough to have such a rare hit as Wonderful Town, he can net more than $5,000 a week. But even though fearless angels are easy to find (178 contributed $300,000 to the forthcoming Shirley Booth musical, By the Beautiful Sea), the risks are still great. This week there are fresh signs of a challenging movement that may yet check Broadway's stranglehold on its box office.
More...
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,819685,00.html
***
March 1955 ~ Drama Mailbag: Letter Writer Hails Off-Broadway as a Cultural Boom - Other Comments
To the Drama Editor: Today, "art theatres" are an established part of our culture. And I believe the off-Broadway theatre is at the threshold of a similar surge.
More...
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1955/03/06/93728510.html?pageNumber=328
***
December 1964 ~ Rialto News: What is Wrong Off Broadway?
WHAT'S wrong with the off‐Broadway theater? Is the boom petering out at last (as so many cynics said it would)?
Ironic, indeed, that these and similar questions are being asked by many seriousminded theater people at a moment when off‐Broadway's contributions to the commercial theater stick out like Fujiyama on a postcard. Right now, in terms of playwrights, who are, in case anyone has forgotten, the theater's blood plasma, there are three on the boards with a fourth soon due, whose origins are in the little theaters that sprouted around the town during the last dozen years or so.
In order of arrival — the critical consensus has been that they provide some of the more significant theatergoing experiences currently available—they are:
Frank Gilroy with “The Subject was Roses,” Mr. Gilroy having first shown his light with “Who'll Save the Plowboy?”; Murray Schisgal with “Luv,” he having graduated following the production of “The Typists” and “The Tiger”; William Hanley with “Slow Dance on the Killing Ground,” his initial exposure having been “Mrs. Dally Has a Lover” and “Whisper Into My Good Ear.” On Dec. 29 there will be Edward Albee's “Tiny Alice” at the Billy Rose, in which house there had been Mr. Albee's “Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” following the young playwright's presentation of “The Zoo Story” and others.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/1964/12/20/archives/rialto-news-what-is-wrong-off-broadway.html
***
A Brief History of Off-Broadway, 1955–1985
“The great off-Broadway boom of our era has been a rampageous conglomeration of glory and garbage; if you want to taste of the glory a little, go and know the living experience of Brendan Behan at One Sheridan Square. This is not the hothouse-forced, panic-shouted Behan of The Quare Fellow (off Broadway) or the constrained, over-manipulated Behan of The Hostage (on Broadway). This is The Hostage come to Off Broadway and Off Broadway come to perfect pitch in one of its few legitimate functions: the revival of important works, old or new, in less ornate and more honest productions than elsewhere.”
More...
https://www.villagevoice.com/a-brief-history-of-off-broadway-1955-1985/
***
March 1996 ~ Off B'way B.O. Boom
Any way you look at it, the commercial Off Broadway box office is exploding. It’s been apparent for some time that reasonable production costs in the $350,000 to $650,000 range for a show with strong reviews and word of mouth offer producers what has become almost unheard of in the Broadway district: timely recoupment and handsome profits.
Producer Fred Zollo and his partners found that out a couple of years ago, when they shunned Broadway and planted David Mamet’s “Oleanna” at the 349 seat Orpheum Theater on Second Avenue in the East Village, where the controversial play more than doubled its investment. That theater has had a subsequent hit with “Stomp,” which has been in profit for months and is running with no end in sight. Not far away, at the Astor Place Theater, Blue Man Group in “Tubes” has been selling out, or close, since November 1991, and it too, looks like a now and forever proposition. Other solid money makers included “Nun-sense” at the Douglas Fairbanks and “All in the Timing” at the John Houseman.
More...
https://variety.com/1995/legit/news/off-b-way-b-o-boom-99124125/
***
November 2019 ~ Off-Broadway Bounces Back
The boom in new and/or improved performing spaces began last season when the renovated stages on Theatre Row opened. This season, on the same street, Playwrights Horizons will move into its new home, and the Shubert Organization will open The Little Shubert with Tommy Tune White Tie and Tails in November. In addition, plans have begun to convert the former Worldwide Cinema complex into a honeycomb of theatres and rehearsal spaces, and the Abingdon Theatre Company will acquire a new space on West 36th Street. (For more details, see the related story in the news section of this week's issue.)
So, with new stages and projects expanding the Off-Broadway horizon, it's not difficult to be optimistic despite the bleakness of the recent past. Here's a sampling of the upcoming season.
More...
https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/broadway-bounces-back-40613/
***
March 2024 ~ Off-Broadway is booming — and it’s a lesson for theaters everywhere
While theaters in the city and around the country have struggled in the face of skyrocketing expenses and sagging attendance, a group of commercial off-Broadway shows have bucked the trend and are packing in ticket-buyers.
Two of them, I’m both happy and sad to say, are completely sold out. Another has been chugging along for more than a year.
These hits have little obvious in common with one another. They include a farcical sendup of a long-dead first lady, a campy Céline Dion musical and a serious two-hander play set during a tense therapy session.
Taken together, though, these off-Broadway gems offer an optimistic lesson to theaters everywhere: Clever, appealing, fresh ideas brilliantly executed are what put butts in seats. Now and forever.
“It is an exciting moment, isn’t it?” said Eva Price, producer of “Titanique” at the Daryl Roth Theatre on Union Square East.
“I’ve been producing off-Broadway for over 15 years and I have been waiting for this heyday of off-Broadway to happen for a long time. Honestly, I think it’s the topics, the themes and the tone of the shows which are resonating with audiences. The current crop of off-Broadway shows are a blast, an escape and a balm for these tough times and audiences are craving that type of entertainment.”
More...
https://www.aol.com/off-broadway-booming-lesson-theaters-172923967.html
***
INTERNET OFF-BROADWAY DATABASE
The Internet Off-Broadway Database, also known as the IOBDB,
provides a catalogue of all shows ever produced Off-Broadway.
For the purposes of the IOBDB, Off-Broadway refers to any production that has satisfied the following requirements:
Played at a Manhattan theatre with a seating capacity of 100-499 or was eligible for the Lucille Lortel Awards*
*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
Thesis Festival: Reading of "Extraordinary Aliens"
by Lingyi Wang
Saturday, April 27 · 4 - 5:30pm EDT
Minor Latham Playhouse
118 Milbank Hall 3009 Broadway New York, NY 10027
A reading of the new play "Extraordinary Aliens" by senior Theatre major Lingyi Wang for the thesis in Playwriting, advised by Theatre Department faculty member Andy Bragen.
This performance is part of Thesis Festival 2024:
Senior Theatre majors present their theses in research, solo performance and playwriting; design, performance, and stage management are by Barnard and Columbia theatre students, advised by Theatre Department faculty and staff.
Tickets are free of charge; seating will be by general admission. Walk-up patrons will also be admitted if seats are available.
With Barnard and Columbia students; more information at https://theatre.barnard.edu/current-season
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/thesis-festival-reading-of-extraordinary-aliens-saturday-april-27-4pm-tickets-872976124087?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
*** NYCPLAYWRIGHTS ZOOMERS IN APRIL ***
Memberships are available for NYCPlaywrights Zoomers - we meet on Zoom each Monday at 7PM to do readings of our work. Workshops are a great way to meet fellow playwrights, commiserate about the challenges of crafting a good play and celebrate victories, whether getting a full-blown production or finally getting a tricky scene to work.
Check out our website here ~ https://nycp-zoomers.blogspot.com
How do our meetings work? Find out here ~ https://nycp-zoomers.blogspot.com/2023/12/welcome-to-nycplaywrights-zoomers-some.html
Here are Frequently Asked Questions ~ https://nycp-zoomers.blogspot.com/p/zoomers-frequently-asked-questions-faq.html
You can also sit in on a Monday session for free - email na...@nycplaywrights.org to request a spot.
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
Eastbound Theatre, a division of the Milford Arts Council, once again partners with Westport Community Theatre for a program of original short plays under the banner of “East/West PlayFest 2024”.
East/West PlayFest seeks short one-act plays for production in July.
Six finalists will receive a production of their play, with 2 outdoor performances at the Milford Historical Society. The program will be repeated the following weekend at Westport Community Theater.
***
The Post-Meridian Radio Players, based in Eastern Massachusetts, is seeking one to two original script adaptations of the novels or short stories of H.G. Wells. PMRP’s work pays homage to the golden age of radio, and our productions take place as staged readings before a live audience, with sound effects performed live. Since 2006, we have brought original and public domain radio plays to life in our distinctive format, which includes script-in-hand actors and live foley artists.
***
Submissions are being accepted for the Equity Library Theater of New York Summer 2024 Virtual Play Festival.
Seeking short plays (no more than 10 pp/minutes), from playwrights from around the globe. Also seeking monologues (no more than 5pp/minutes). Musicals welcome!
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** OFF-BROADWAY BOOM ***
May 1954 ~ The Theater: Boom off Broadway
Anybody who intends to produce a Broadway show needs his overhead examined. If he has a musical like Wonderful Town, he needs $225,000 to start with, has to pay out more than $44,000 a week and charge a $7.20 top. If he is lucky enough to have such a rare hit as Wonderful Town, he can net more than $5,000 a week. But even though fearless angels are easy to find (178 contributed $300,000 to the forthcoming Shirley Booth musical, By the Beautiful Sea), the risks are still great. This week there are fresh signs of a challenging movement that may yet check Broadway's stranglehold on its box office.
More...
https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,819685,00.html
***
March 1955 ~ Drama Mailbag: Letter Writer Hails Off-Broadway as a Cultural Boom - Other Comments
To the Drama Editor: Today, "art theatres" are an established part of our culture. And I believe the off-Broadway theatre is at the threshold of a similar surge.
More...
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1955/03/06/93728510.html?pageNumber=328
***
December 1964 ~ Rialto News: What is Wrong Off Broadway?
WHAT'S wrong with the off‐Broadway theater? Is the boom petering out at last (as so many cynics said it would)?
Ironic, indeed, that these and similar questions are being asked by many seriousminded theater people at a moment when off‐Broadway's contributions to the commercial theater stick out like Fujiyama on a postcard. Right now, in terms of playwrights, who are, in case anyone has forgotten, the theater's blood plasma, there are three on the boards with a fourth soon due, whose origins are in the little theaters that sprouted around the town during the last dozen years or so.
In order of arrival — the critical consensus has been that they provide some of the more significant theatergoing experiences currently available—they are:
Frank Gilroy with “The Subject was Roses,” Mr. Gilroy having first shown his light with “Who'll Save the Plowboy?”; Murray Schisgal with “Luv,” he having graduated following the production of “The Typists” and “The Tiger”; William Hanley with “Slow Dance on the Killing Ground,” his initial exposure having been “Mrs. Dally Has a Lover” and “Whisper Into My Good Ear.” On Dec. 29 there will be Edward Albee's “Tiny Alice” at the Billy Rose, in which house there had been Mr. Albee's “Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” following the young playwright's presentation of “The Zoo Story” and others.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/1964/12/20/archives/rialto-news-what-is-wrong-off-broadway.html
***
A Brief History of Off-Broadway, 1955–1985
“The great off-Broadway boom of our era has been a rampageous conglomeration of glory and garbage; if you want to taste of the glory a little, go and know the living experience of Brendan Behan at One Sheridan Square. This is not the hothouse-forced, panic-shouted Behan of The Quare Fellow (off Broadway) or the constrained, over-manipulated Behan of The Hostage (on Broadway). This is The Hostage come to Off Broadway and Off Broadway come to perfect pitch in one of its few legitimate functions: the revival of important works, old or new, in less ornate and more honest productions than elsewhere.”
More...
https://www.villagevoice.com/a-brief-history-of-off-broadway-1955-1985/
***
March 1996 ~ Off B'way B.O. Boom
Any way you look at it, the commercial Off Broadway box office is exploding. It’s been apparent for some time that reasonable production costs in the $350,000 to $650,000 range for a show with strong reviews and word of mouth offer producers what has become almost unheard of in the Broadway district: timely recoupment and handsome profits.
Producer Fred Zollo and his partners found that out a couple of years ago, when they shunned Broadway and planted David Mamet’s “Oleanna” at the 349 seat Orpheum Theater on Second Avenue in the East Village, where the controversial play more than doubled its investment. That theater has had a subsequent hit with “Stomp,” which has been in profit for months and is running with no end in sight. Not far away, at the Astor Place Theater, Blue Man Group in “Tubes” has been selling out, or close, since November 1991, and it too, looks like a now and forever proposition. Other solid money makers included “Nun-sense” at the Douglas Fairbanks and “All in the Timing” at the John Houseman.
More...
https://variety.com/1995/legit/news/off-b-way-b-o-boom-99124125/
***
November 2019 ~ Off-Broadway Bounces Back
The boom in new and/or improved performing spaces began last season when the renovated stages on Theatre Row opened. This season, on the same street, Playwrights Horizons will move into its new home, and the Shubert Organization will open The Little Shubert with Tommy Tune White Tie and Tails in November. In addition, plans have begun to convert the former Worldwide Cinema complex into a honeycomb of theatres and rehearsal spaces, and the Abingdon Theatre Company will acquire a new space on West 36th Street. (For more details, see the related story in the news section of this week's issue.)
So, with new stages and projects expanding the Off-Broadway horizon, it's not difficult to be optimistic despite the bleakness of the recent past. Here's a sampling of the upcoming season.
More...
https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/broadway-bounces-back-40613/
***
March 2024 ~ Off-Broadway is booming — and it’s a lesson for theaters everywhere
While theaters in the city and around the country have struggled in the face of skyrocketing expenses and sagging attendance, a group of commercial off-Broadway shows have bucked the trend and are packing in ticket-buyers.
Two of them, I’m both happy and sad to say, are completely sold out. Another has been chugging along for more than a year.
These hits have little obvious in common with one another. They include a farcical sendup of a long-dead first lady, a campy Céline Dion musical and a serious two-hander play set during a tense therapy session.
Taken together, though, these off-Broadway gems offer an optimistic lesson to theaters everywhere: Clever, appealing, fresh ideas brilliantly executed are what put butts in seats. Now and forever.
“It is an exciting moment, isn’t it?” said Eva Price, producer of “Titanique” at the Daryl Roth Theatre on Union Square East.
“I’ve been producing off-Broadway for over 15 years and I have been waiting for this heyday of off-Broadway to happen for a long time. Honestly, I think it’s the topics, the themes and the tone of the shows which are resonating with audiences. The current crop of off-Broadway shows are a blast, an escape and a balm for these tough times and audiences are craving that type of entertainment.”
More...
https://www.aol.com/off-broadway-booming-lesson-theaters-172923967.html
***
INTERNET OFF-BROADWAY DATABASE
The Internet Off-Broadway Database, also known as the IOBDB,
provides a catalogue of all shows ever produced Off-Broadway.
For the purposes of the IOBDB, Off-Broadway refers to any production that has satisfied the following requirements:
Played at a Manhattan theatre with a seating capacity of 100-499 or was eligible for the Lucille Lortel Awards*
Intended to run a closed-ended or open-ended schedule of performances of more than one week
The IOBDB reserves the right to include exceptions, which may include, but are not limited to, prolific not-for-profit theatre companies with a history of transfers to Off-Broadway venues, or productions that are categorized as Off-Broadway in other first class sources. Festivals, readings, concerts, and one-night special events are not included.
http://www.iobdb.com
The IOBDB reserves the right to include exceptions, which may include, but are not limited to, prolific not-for-profit theatre companies with a history of transfers to Off-Broadway venues, or productions that are categorized as Off-Broadway in other first class sources. Festivals, readings, concerts, and one-night special events are not included.
http://www.iobdb.com
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