NYCPlaywrights August 1, 2026
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NYCPlaywrights
Aug 1, 2026, 5:11:16 PM (13 hours ago) Aug 1
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Greetings NYCPlaywrights
*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
Parallel Exit: Sunset Circus
Featuring circus artists from Cirque du Soleil, Big Apple Circus, and beyond, Parallel Exit's Sunset Circus features a sensational cast of seven circus artists, including aerialists, jugglers, acrobats, and comedians who will bring audiences laughter, awe, and perhaps a tear. This unique theatrical circus experience presents innovative circus acts interwoven with characters who would be at home in your own backyard, entertaining everyone from kids to parents and grandparents.
August 29 at 5PM
Bryant Park
40th and 42nd Streets and Fifth and Sixth Avenues in New York, NY 10018
https://bryantpark.org/calendar/event/sunset-circus
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
The Bite Sized Theatrical Spooktacular 2026
We are looking for original short plays (or other theatrical pieces) that are 10 minutes or less.
This production is on Halloween, and we encourage any submissions that may resonate thematically, whether they directly relate to Halloween or not.
While we will consider anything and everything, we especially want to see submissions that are comedic or spooky, as this fits best with the tone of the evening!
***
Wicked Cat Productions is seeking short plays for a new evening of work exploring kink, fetish, and/or desire
We are looking for plays that are bold, curious, theatrical, and respectful of the communities they engage with. The hope is to build an evening that surprises the audience, subverts expectations, and treats desire as something complex, funny, strange, tender, powerful, awkward, joyful, dangerous, sacred, unserious, deeply serious, or all of the above.
***
The Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers supports projects that draw on the research collections of The New York Public Library's Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (formerly the Humanities and Social Sciences Library). The Center seeks top-quality writing from academics as well as from creative writers and independent scholars. Visual artists whose projects require extensive use of Library collections are also encouraged to apply. Visit www.nypl.org/research-collections for detailed information about the collections of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** TALKING ABOUT MIME ***
The San Francisco Mime Troupe eventually gave birth to the Diggers, a community action group that Mr. Coyote helped found, which offered free food, clothes and medical care to the hippies of the Haight-Ashbury scene.
Bill Graham, who became a powerhouse rock promoter, began his career as the troupe’s business manager, organizing benefits that featured acid-rock royalty like the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service.
Mr. Davis had studied in Paris under Étienne Decroux, who was one of Marcel Marceau’s key teachers and was known as the father of modern French mime — or “meem,” as Mr. Davis called it, observing the French pronunciation. But under Mr. Davis, the San Francisco troupe veered from tradition early on; it freely used dialogue and blended the avant-garde theatricality of Bertolt Brecht with the provocateur sensibility of Lenny Bruce.
The result was a sharply political form of commedia dell’arte, the centuries-old Italian theatrical form known for its masks, broad comedic stylings and earthy humor.
More...
https://archive.ph/hOsUh
***
Deburau is credited as the father of mime but down the years the genre has been sustained by a long line of chalk-faced Frenchman. On Deburau’s death, actor Paul Legrand succeeded him as the new Pierrot at Théâtre des Funambules, giving the character the more tearful, sentimental dimension we still see in many mime acts today. Ever faithful to the winning white face paint, Legrand did away with his predecessor’s bulky outfit and often chose to perform in his ordinary clothes (beret and breton stripe anyone?). Then, in the 20th century, French theatrical practitioners like Jacques Lecoq and Étienne Decroux were central in developing mime as a formal artistic genre. Both writers published detailed theoretical explorations of the subject.
Last but not least, perhaps the most well-known French mime artist in recent years was Marcel Marceau, whose performances of his persona, "Bip the Clown" achieved international acclaim. Marceau even put his mime act to heroically good use, while working for the French Resistance during the Second World War. Performing silently as Bip, the mime kept groups of Jewish children quiet for hours as they escaped across the border from occupied France into Switzerland.
More...
https://www.theatreinparis.com/blog/a-history-of-mime-the-most-oh-so-french-of-art-forms
***
Mimes are sometimes hated in fiction. No real reason is ever given, but the Uncanny Valley may have something to do with it - after all, their pure white faces and refusal to speak give them a definite alien aura. This trope isn't limited to people who hate mimes, but also works of fiction that seem to have it out for them. In other words a character doesn't have to say "I hate mimes" for it to be this trope. All the character needs to do is fall on, punch, kick, or otherwise cause intentional or accidental harm to a mime. A variation of this is Everyone Hates Morris Dancers, without a reason for it ever being given.
More...
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EveryoneHatesMimes
***
JUDY WOODRUFF: Now to another in our Brief But Spectacular series, where we ask people to describe their passions.
Tonight, we hear from artist and performer Bill Bowers, who teaches mime, a theatrical technique that uses gestures, instead of words. He's at New York University.
BILL BOWERS, Mime: I am from a big, quiet family in Montana. I was an incredibly shy younger person.
I am also a gay man, which the word gay didn't even exist back then, but I knew about silence early on for all of those reasons. I got older and learned that there was an art form about not talking. I thought, oh, my God, that's perfect. I'm in.
I loved mime once I learned more about it. When I had a chance to put my focus on being a mime performer, I really went in that direction.
A story came on the news that Marcel Marceau was embarking on his 80th birthday world tour. And I thought, I have got to study with Marcel Marceau. I sought him out. I was intimidated by him. He was a very famous, very old French mime. And all of that came into the room with him.
He talked about himself in the third person a lot. He said: "People say Marceau is genius. I say, no, Marceau is not the genius. Genius is where Marceau and the people meet."
More...
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/brief/214131/bill-bowers
***
“Seriously, I don’t think you see the potential for hilarity here, and, you know, miming is one of the first things actors have to learn —”
“Do you not hear what I’m saying? We’re not doing mimes,” David snapped in a tone reminiscent of my mother when she’d finally had it “up to here” with her four daughters pestering her to add more impulse items to the shopping cart. “I. Hate. Mimes. There will not be mimes on our show. Ever. So don’t bring it up again.”
Terri and I simultaneously pulled back our heads and widened our eyes at each other, which is the universal body language for What is that guy’s deal?
We’d been brainstorming subjects for our friend and creative cohort to feature in her “Terri Tries It” segment that appears on the art-centric TV show that I produce and David directs. So far, Terri had tried everything from ballet to glass-blowing. David was often skeptical at first — he required convincing and thought-out planning before he’d even begin to consider a subject. But he had never before displayed this much contempt for any one idea.
“I don’t like mimes, you know,” I said. “I don’t find them funny at all, but I don’t hate them. What is it about them that you hate so much?”
“Hate’s a strong word. It would probably be more accurate to say that —”
“Fine, forget about hate, that’s not the point.” I fought off an argh, took a deep breath, and continued, “Why do you strongly dislike mimes? Is it because they’re like clowns? I mean, I hate clowns. Like, I really hate them. They freak me out.” I imagined David must have had some terrifying childhood mime encounter.
My coulrophobia (fear of clowns, it’s a thing) began when, at a young age, I saw the movie Poltergeist, in which a clown doll tries to kill a boy. As if the nightmares featuring that creepy killing toy clown weren’t traumatizing enough, I also watched Stephen King’s miniseries It, in which Tim Curry plays an evil monster clown with sharpened teeth. Killer Clowns from Outer Space sealed the deal.
More...
https://divabarbarella.com/read-weep/diary-of-a-diva/i-hate-mimes/
***
Étienne Decroux, the father of corporeal mime, developed a grammar of movement meant to internalize all of human drama within the body’s edges. For the head alone, he stipulated two hundred and fifty positions. He parsed a further one hundred and eight of the head’s inclinations to demonstrate yet a wider range of emotions, though he later realized even this was insufficient. And perhaps because I am not a mime student, mastering this sounds to me like a banausic prospect. There’s also little that’s natural in codified movements, though I suppose that’s the art of it. Otherwise, we would all be mimes by virtue of moving while keeping quiet.
Though if there is a grammar at work, then miming is a language, meaning mimes are far from silent. The mime is an artist, and artists cannot keep from clamoring for notice. Mimes chatter on while trying to make their faces disappear into a whiteness, trying to speak for all of us. Overlaying their skin with clown makeup to express universal emotion, whiting out their features so that we might more easily identify with the theatrical drama, so that we might perceive the mimes as our simulacra. As if we are just as loquacious, our own emotions just as stripped of color. As if because we fail to understand the grammar of movement and never studied mime in Paris, our bodies cannot form their own sentences.
More...
https://acrossthemargin.com/grammar-of-mime/
*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
Parallel Exit: Sunset Circus
Featuring circus artists from Cirque du Soleil, Big Apple Circus, and beyond, Parallel Exit's Sunset Circus features a sensational cast of seven circus artists, including aerialists, jugglers, acrobats, and comedians who will bring audiences laughter, awe, and perhaps a tear. This unique theatrical circus experience presents innovative circus acts interwoven with characters who would be at home in your own backyard, entertaining everyone from kids to parents and grandparents.
August 29 at 5PM
Bryant Park
40th and 42nd Streets and Fifth and Sixth Avenues in New York, NY 10018
https://bryantpark.org/calendar/event/sunset-circus
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
The Bite Sized Theatrical Spooktacular 2026
We are looking for original short plays (or other theatrical pieces) that are 10 minutes or less.
This production is on Halloween, and we encourage any submissions that may resonate thematically, whether they directly relate to Halloween or not.
While we will consider anything and everything, we especially want to see submissions that are comedic or spooky, as this fits best with the tone of the evening!
***
Wicked Cat Productions is seeking short plays for a new evening of work exploring kink, fetish, and/or desire
We are looking for plays that are bold, curious, theatrical, and respectful of the communities they engage with. The hope is to build an evening that surprises the audience, subverts expectations, and treats desire as something complex, funny, strange, tender, powerful, awkward, joyful, dangerous, sacred, unserious, deeply serious, or all of the above.
***
The Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers supports projects that draw on the research collections of The New York Public Library's Stephen A. Schwarzman Building (formerly the Humanities and Social Sciences Library). The Center seeks top-quality writing from academics as well as from creative writers and independent scholars. Visual artists whose projects require extensive use of Library collections are also encouraged to apply. Visit www.nypl.org/research-collections for detailed information about the collections of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** TALKING ABOUT MIME ***
The San Francisco Mime Troupe eventually gave birth to the Diggers, a community action group that Mr. Coyote helped found, which offered free food, clothes and medical care to the hippies of the Haight-Ashbury scene.
Bill Graham, who became a powerhouse rock promoter, began his career as the troupe’s business manager, organizing benefits that featured acid-rock royalty like the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service.
Mr. Davis had studied in Paris under Étienne Decroux, who was one of Marcel Marceau’s key teachers and was known as the father of modern French mime — or “meem,” as Mr. Davis called it, observing the French pronunciation. But under Mr. Davis, the San Francisco troupe veered from tradition early on; it freely used dialogue and blended the avant-garde theatricality of Bertolt Brecht with the provocateur sensibility of Lenny Bruce.
The result was a sharply political form of commedia dell’arte, the centuries-old Italian theatrical form known for its masks, broad comedic stylings and earthy humor.
More...
https://archive.ph/hOsUh
***
Deburau is credited as the father of mime but down the years the genre has been sustained by a long line of chalk-faced Frenchman. On Deburau’s death, actor Paul Legrand succeeded him as the new Pierrot at Théâtre des Funambules, giving the character the more tearful, sentimental dimension we still see in many mime acts today. Ever faithful to the winning white face paint, Legrand did away with his predecessor’s bulky outfit and often chose to perform in his ordinary clothes (beret and breton stripe anyone?). Then, in the 20th century, French theatrical practitioners like Jacques Lecoq and Étienne Decroux were central in developing mime as a formal artistic genre. Both writers published detailed theoretical explorations of the subject.
Last but not least, perhaps the most well-known French mime artist in recent years was Marcel Marceau, whose performances of his persona, "Bip the Clown" achieved international acclaim. Marceau even put his mime act to heroically good use, while working for the French Resistance during the Second World War. Performing silently as Bip, the mime kept groups of Jewish children quiet for hours as they escaped across the border from occupied France into Switzerland.
More...
https://www.theatreinparis.com/blog/a-history-of-mime-the-most-oh-so-french-of-art-forms
***
Mimes are sometimes hated in fiction. No real reason is ever given, but the Uncanny Valley may have something to do with it - after all, their pure white faces and refusal to speak give them a definite alien aura. This trope isn't limited to people who hate mimes, but also works of fiction that seem to have it out for them. In other words a character doesn't have to say "I hate mimes" for it to be this trope. All the character needs to do is fall on, punch, kick, or otherwise cause intentional or accidental harm to a mime. A variation of this is Everyone Hates Morris Dancers, without a reason for it ever being given.
More...
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EveryoneHatesMimes
***
JUDY WOODRUFF: Now to another in our Brief But Spectacular series, where we ask people to describe their passions.
Tonight, we hear from artist and performer Bill Bowers, who teaches mime, a theatrical technique that uses gestures, instead of words. He's at New York University.
BILL BOWERS, Mime: I am from a big, quiet family in Montana. I was an incredibly shy younger person.
I am also a gay man, which the word gay didn't even exist back then, but I knew about silence early on for all of those reasons. I got older and learned that there was an art form about not talking. I thought, oh, my God, that's perfect. I'm in.
I loved mime once I learned more about it. When I had a chance to put my focus on being a mime performer, I really went in that direction.
A story came on the news that Marcel Marceau was embarking on his 80th birthday world tour. And I thought, I have got to study with Marcel Marceau. I sought him out. I was intimidated by him. He was a very famous, very old French mime. And all of that came into the room with him.
He talked about himself in the third person a lot. He said: "People say Marceau is genius. I say, no, Marceau is not the genius. Genius is where Marceau and the people meet."
More...
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/brief/214131/bill-bowers
***
“Seriously, I don’t think you see the potential for hilarity here, and, you know, miming is one of the first things actors have to learn —”
“Do you not hear what I’m saying? We’re not doing mimes,” David snapped in a tone reminiscent of my mother when she’d finally had it “up to here” with her four daughters pestering her to add more impulse items to the shopping cart. “I. Hate. Mimes. There will not be mimes on our show. Ever. So don’t bring it up again.”
Terri and I simultaneously pulled back our heads and widened our eyes at each other, which is the universal body language for What is that guy’s deal?
We’d been brainstorming subjects for our friend and creative cohort to feature in her “Terri Tries It” segment that appears on the art-centric TV show that I produce and David directs. So far, Terri had tried everything from ballet to glass-blowing. David was often skeptical at first — he required convincing and thought-out planning before he’d even begin to consider a subject. But he had never before displayed this much contempt for any one idea.
“I don’t like mimes, you know,” I said. “I don’t find them funny at all, but I don’t hate them. What is it about them that you hate so much?”
“Hate’s a strong word. It would probably be more accurate to say that —”
“Fine, forget about hate, that’s not the point.” I fought off an argh, took a deep breath, and continued, “Why do you strongly dislike mimes? Is it because they’re like clowns? I mean, I hate clowns. Like, I really hate them. They freak me out.” I imagined David must have had some terrifying childhood mime encounter.
My coulrophobia (fear of clowns, it’s a thing) began when, at a young age, I saw the movie Poltergeist, in which a clown doll tries to kill a boy. As if the nightmares featuring that creepy killing toy clown weren’t traumatizing enough, I also watched Stephen King’s miniseries It, in which Tim Curry plays an evil monster clown with sharpened teeth. Killer Clowns from Outer Space sealed the deal.
More...
https://divabarbarella.com/read-weep/diary-of-a-diva/i-hate-mimes/
***
Étienne Decroux, the father of corporeal mime, developed a grammar of movement meant to internalize all of human drama within the body’s edges. For the head alone, he stipulated two hundred and fifty positions. He parsed a further one hundred and eight of the head’s inclinations to demonstrate yet a wider range of emotions, though he later realized even this was insufficient. And perhaps because I am not a mime student, mastering this sounds to me like a banausic prospect. There’s also little that’s natural in codified movements, though I suppose that’s the art of it. Otherwise, we would all be mimes by virtue of moving while keeping quiet.
Though if there is a grammar at work, then miming is a language, meaning mimes are far from silent. The mime is an artist, and artists cannot keep from clamoring for notice. Mimes chatter on while trying to make their faces disappear into a whiteness, trying to speak for all of us. Overlaying their skin with clown makeup to express universal emotion, whiting out their features so that we might more easily identify with the theatrical drama, so that we might perceive the mimes as our simulacra. As if we are just as loquacious, our own emotions just as stripped of color. As if because we fail to understand the grammar of movement and never studied mime in Paris, our bodies cannot form their own sentences.
More...
https://acrossthemargin.com/grammar-of-mime/
***
Marcel Marceau discusses the art of mime ; part 1
Marcel Marceau, world renown mine, discusses the art and history of pantomime. Marceau talks about mime throughout history from Ancient Rome to the 20th century. He discusses some well-known mimes such as Pierrot and Charlie Chaplin. From aging, to humor and tragedy, and different cultures, Marceau explores about how the art of mime affects and reflects society. They also discuss how Marceau created and plays Bip and how the audience interacts with his character.
https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/marcel-marceau-discusses-art-mime-part-1
Marcel Marceau discusses the art of mime ; part 1
Marcel Marceau, world renown mine, discusses the art and history of pantomime. Marceau talks about mime throughout history from Ancient Rome to the 20th century. He discusses some well-known mimes such as Pierrot and Charlie Chaplin. From aging, to humor and tragedy, and different cultures, Marceau explores about how the art of mime affects and reflects society. They also discuss how Marceau created and plays Bip and how the audience interacts with his character.
https://studsterkel.wfmt.com/programs/marcel-marceau-discusses-art-mime-part-1
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