NYCPlaywrights July 4, 2026
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NYCPlaywrights
Jul 4, 2026, 5:04:47 PM (4 days ago) Jul 4
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Greetings NYCPlaywrights
*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
OTHELLO
Shakespeare’s searing tragedy of love, jealousy, power, and betrayal — live in Harlem.
Carl Cofield directs the emotional tragedy of rage and resentment for Uptown Shakespeare in the Park, starring James Udom as Othello, Nick Westrate as Iago and Isabel Arraiza as Desdemona. “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy.”
JULY 5–26
TUE–SUN · 8:30 PM
Fridays at 9 PM
ASL performance July 14
Runtime: 1:45, no intermission
https://www.cthnyc.org/othello/
*** RHINESTONES, TIGERS & REVENGE — SHANGRI-LA-LA Comes to NYC July 25 & 26 ***
Come for the tigers. Stay for the revenge.
Shangri-La-La is a wildly funny new comedy musical inspired by a real-life Las Vegas lawsuit against Siegfried & Roy — told with rhinestones, tigers, courtroom chaos, showbiz glitter, and the wisecracking ghost of Bugsy Siegel.
Written by Mike Meier, with co-writer Peter Giambalvo, the one-hour festival version of Shangri-La-La leaves the courtroom behind and dives into the dazzling creation myth of Siegfried & Roy — two outsiders who transform themselves into Las Vegas legends through ambition, illusion, rhinestones, reinvention, and a little help from the ghosts of Sin City.
Tickets/info: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/shangri-la-la-a-comedy-musical-about-siegfried-roy-tickets-1989267183696?aff=odcleoeventsincollection
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
The East Carolina University School of Theatre & Dance is seeking submissions for its Uncharted Series of new plays with dynamic roles for college-aged actors. We are seeking plays that center the experience of late adolescence/early adulthood – where it is important that the characters are in that specific age range, rather than plays with characters that could be played by actors of any age.
***
The NJ-based Swan Dive Theater Collective seeks submissions of 10-minute plays by women, non-binary, and trans playwrights from New Jersey and the New York City metropolitan area for its Third Annual Short Play Festival, to be held on March 7, 2027. Swan Dive is a Montclair theater collective dedicated to advancing the stories of women and other marginalized gender identities by introducing new works and fostering community.
***
Savage Wonder is accepting submissions for our 10-minute playwriting competition.
Submissions may include plays or musicals.
Playwrights must meet one of the following criteria:
Current or former: US military, law enforcement, fire service, EMS, foreign service, intelligence service, DoD employee, DoD Contractor; or Immediate family of the service member.
We are looking for work that is whimsical, intimate, absurd, and surprising. Unlike some past competitions, we are not looking for straightforward dramatic realism or non-fiction storytelling. Bring us something that takes a risk — something that could only have come from you.
*** FOURTH OF JULY THEATER ***
A quarrel for independence from a tyrannical regime via a political system that seems to perpetually piddle, twiddle, and resolve on important issues for the sake of saving diplomatic face may have once resembled ancient history. But, on the precipice of the 250th anniversary of the United States, the essence of “1776” hits a new nerve. The ill-famed, yet splendid Ford’s Theatre provides an ideal historical backdrop to a story of its country’s founding that is, at times, underutilized. Nonetheless, “1776” cleverly apprises a renowned story while unveiling the humanity of such a heroic event.
Developed by Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone, “1776” is widely counted among those great American musicals connoisseurs constantly refer to and in some circles, as the original “Hamilton.” With a libretto heavily influenced by first-person accounts of the founding of the United States, it provides a unique lens on a familiar occurrence. The show made its Broadway debut in March of 1969 to the acclaim of audiences and critics alike. Among its original accolades, it was the first musical to be performed at the White House and scored a Tony for Best Musical, among others.
More...
https://mdtheatreguide.com/2026/03/theatre-review-1776-at-fords-theatre/
***
All this intimacy, whether it is meant to ingratiate or intimidate, serves but one purpose: Johnson’s own political ends. “All the Way” illuminates in intricate detail (sometimes too intricate detail) how Johnson bent a recalcitrant Congress to his purpose, as if engaging in a long arm-wrestling contest with hundreds of other combatants, as he labored to pass a signature piece of legislation, the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Riding the crest of his fame from “Breaking Bad,” Mr. Cranston strides onto the Broadway stage with an admirable confidence, meeting the challenge of animating Mr. Schenkkan’s sprawling civics lesson as if he’s thoroughly at home. Although Johnson is not the exclusive focus of the play — many passages focus on the strategizing among various black civil rights organizations — Mr. Cranston’s heat-generating performance galvanizes the production. Even when Johnson is offstage or the writing sags with exposition, the show, directed solidly if a little stolidly by Bill Rauch, retains the vitalizing imprint of his performance.
The play’s superior first act digs into the strategies Johnson deployed to impress upon a grieving nation his ability to lead. Johnson was famed for his long work hours and sledgehammer energy, and Mr. Cranston’s jet-fueled performance captures the restlessness, the drive, the sheer stamina that the new president called upon to meet the greatest challenges of his career. Johnson is desperate to pass the Civil Rights Act, both to honor his predecessor’s legacy and because it aligned with his deepest beliefs. Even more important, he needs a major legislative victory to help secure him a full term in power.
More...
https://archive.ph/lTF2D
***
It remains the best musical about America. Within its sweeping scope, Ragtime puts disparate, often opposing viewpoints in direct confrontation, pushing forward at the dawn of a new Millennium. Its characters are fighting – outwardly, for justice and security, inwardly, for personal strength and happiness. It’s an ecstatic, gut-wrenching, and timely masterpiece by three writers at a pinnacle of their careers. Now in its second Broadway revival at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater, Ragtime is still as pulse-pounding and current as it’s ever been.
Most of that is thanks to the absolute knockout nature of its writing. The book by Terrence McNally faithfully adapts E.L. Doctorow’s melting pot novel, giving equal shrift to its three central characters. Stephen Flaherty’s music is unafraid to go big and the sheer power of his melodies and repeated motifs rumble inside the show’s emotional core. Lynn Ahrens’ lyrics give every character their own means of externalizing their inner selves. Her words seamlessly evoke the vernacular of each of the three orbiting groups without merely giving the same voice to them all.
More...
https://exeuntnyc.com/reviews/review-ragtime-at-the-vivian-beaumont-theater/
***
When I went to buy tickets for Parade at the Orpheum Theatre, the first stop on the national tour for this Tony-winning revival, I found two orchestra seats being resold on Ticketmaster well under the original price. In fact, they were the cheapest available in the entire theater — even cheaper than the back row of the balcony. When my wife and I arrived at row AA on Friday night, we found out why: we were seated in the middle of a school group of 13-or-so-year-olds. Ah. Maybe a few kids dropped out at the last second and the frazzled organizers were just trying to get some money back.
It makes sense why teachers would want to bring young (but not too young) students to Parade. The musical, which is based on the real-life trial and eventual lynching of Jewish American Leo Frank in the 1910s, is a compelling reminder of the deep-rooted prejudices we’re still reckoning with today, specifically antisemitism and racism, in that order. Thanks largely to Max Chernin’s performance as Leo — sung with crystalline clarity and thoroughly convincing as a Brooklyn Jew in the “foreign land” of Georgia — that lesson is presented in an unforgettable way.
More...
https://onefanshow.com/2025/01/29/review-parade-offers-a-grim-history-lesson-on-first-stop-of-national-tour/
***
I had never seen Annie Get Your Gun, mostly because I fall into that category of people who usually shy away from musicals heavy on showtunes, but I quickly found out that I’m not wholly unfamiliar with the show. Irving Berlin’s “There’s No Business Like Show Business” and “Anything You Can Do” have fully entrenched themselves into pop culture’s infrastructure, a testament both to Berlin and the popularity of the show.
Directed by longtime theater collaborator Jerry Crouch, the play is a fairly straightforward interpretation of the musical’s 1999 revival. Community theater is always going to struggle with a lack of budget, but putting on a musical of this size with as little as possible — and with the help of a dedicated cast of volunteers — is perhaps what’s most interesting about this production.
Annie Get Your Gun uses the framing device of a play-within-a-play. It opens with Buffalo Bill (Richard Blue) introducing the characters and the story’s basic outline before the curtains open for “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” This is a pretty magnificent moment, with approximately 40 cast members on stage, and the musical’s Tommy Keeler (Alan Malpass) spinning from a rope that descends from the ceiling. The only problem — if you can call it that — is that none of the subsequent numbers are quite as huge as the opener. This is a minor quibble (let me tell you how many horror movies have the same issue) and is probably a case of practicality since so much here is dependent on ingenuity.
More...
https://mountainx.com/arts/art-news/review_annie_get_your_gun_at_act/
***
Stephen Sondheim was quoted in a Yale interview that he believed “Assassins” to be one of his “only perfect works.” He described it as a “conceptual piece exploring the dark side of the American Dream,” comparing it to “Sweeney Todd” as a story about “righting a wrong the wrong way.” He loved the idea of defying linear time, allowing the assassins from different eras to interact before, during, and after the kills, as if they were motivated by the same passion rather than their insanity. Sondheim stated the show was “about righting a wrong, and how, if you do it the wrong way, you’re in a lot of trouble.”
Co-directors Phillip Wong and Michael Hartsfield closely followed Sondheim’s tale of the assassins as a satirical commentary on American culture and its glorification of violence. Wong and Hartsfield also mastered Sonheim’s complicated songs with tempi changes and lyrics that include 20 plus words in a single phrase without taking a breath, like Booth’s welcome, “Hey, pal, feelin’ blue? Don’t know what to do? Hey pal – I mean you, yeah. C’mere and kill a president.”
More...
https://mdtheatreguide.com/2026/04/theatre-review-assassins-at-laurel-mill-playhouse/
***
It is widely known that West Side Story (WSS) is based directly on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (R&J). Jerome Robbins had at first envisioned Juliet as a Jewish girl and Romeo as an Italian Catholic. The action, set during the Easter-Passover season, was to have occurred on the Lower East Side of New York City. Hence the title might have been EAST Side Story. (Another working title was Gangway!) That was in 1949. Six years later, Laurents and Leonard Bernstein were working (independently) in Hollywood, where they conferred on the aborted project. The newspapers were filled with reports of street riots by Chicano Americans in Los Angeles.
Those headlines turned the trick, triggering the imaginations of the collaborators. The locale swiftly shifted to New York’s West Side, and in 1957 WSS exploded onto the American State. In the decades that have passed, WSS has become a contemporary classic.
More...
https://www.westsidestory.com/1957-broadway
OTHELLO
Shakespeare’s searing tragedy of love, jealousy, power, and betrayal — live in Harlem.
Carl Cofield directs the emotional tragedy of rage and resentment for Uptown Shakespeare in the Park, starring James Udom as Othello, Nick Westrate as Iago and Isabel Arraiza as Desdemona. “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy.”
JULY 5–26
TUE–SUN · 8:30 PM
Fridays at 9 PM
ASL performance July 14
Runtime: 1:45, no intermission
https://www.cthnyc.org/othello/
*** RHINESTONES, TIGERS & REVENGE — SHANGRI-LA-LA Comes to NYC July 25 & 26 ***
Come for the tigers. Stay for the revenge.
Shangri-La-La is a wildly funny new comedy musical inspired by a real-life Las Vegas lawsuit against Siegfried & Roy — told with rhinestones, tigers, courtroom chaos, showbiz glitter, and the wisecracking ghost of Bugsy Siegel.
Written by Mike Meier, with co-writer Peter Giambalvo, the one-hour festival version of Shangri-La-La leaves the courtroom behind and dives into the dazzling creation myth of Siegfried & Roy — two outsiders who transform themselves into Las Vegas legends through ambition, illusion, rhinestones, reinvention, and a little help from the ghosts of Sin City.
Tickets/info: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/shangri-la-la-a-comedy-musical-about-siegfried-roy-tickets-1989267183696?aff=odcleoeventsincollection
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
The East Carolina University School of Theatre & Dance is seeking submissions for its Uncharted Series of new plays with dynamic roles for college-aged actors. We are seeking plays that center the experience of late adolescence/early adulthood – where it is important that the characters are in that specific age range, rather than plays with characters that could be played by actors of any age.
***
The NJ-based Swan Dive Theater Collective seeks submissions of 10-minute plays by women, non-binary, and trans playwrights from New Jersey and the New York City metropolitan area for its Third Annual Short Play Festival, to be held on March 7, 2027. Swan Dive is a Montclair theater collective dedicated to advancing the stories of women and other marginalized gender identities by introducing new works and fostering community.
***
Savage Wonder is accepting submissions for our 10-minute playwriting competition.
Submissions may include plays or musicals.
Playwrights must meet one of the following criteria:
Current or former: US military, law enforcement, fire service, EMS, foreign service, intelligence service, DoD employee, DoD Contractor; or Immediate family of the service member.
We are looking for work that is whimsical, intimate, absurd, and surprising. Unlike some past competitions, we are not looking for straightforward dramatic realism or non-fiction storytelling. Bring us something that takes a risk — something that could only have come from you.
*** FOURTH OF JULY THEATER ***
A quarrel for independence from a tyrannical regime via a political system that seems to perpetually piddle, twiddle, and resolve on important issues for the sake of saving diplomatic face may have once resembled ancient history. But, on the precipice of the 250th anniversary of the United States, the essence of “1776” hits a new nerve. The ill-famed, yet splendid Ford’s Theatre provides an ideal historical backdrop to a story of its country’s founding that is, at times, underutilized. Nonetheless, “1776” cleverly apprises a renowned story while unveiling the humanity of such a heroic event.
Developed by Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone, “1776” is widely counted among those great American musicals connoisseurs constantly refer to and in some circles, as the original “Hamilton.” With a libretto heavily influenced by first-person accounts of the founding of the United States, it provides a unique lens on a familiar occurrence. The show made its Broadway debut in March of 1969 to the acclaim of audiences and critics alike. Among its original accolades, it was the first musical to be performed at the White House and scored a Tony for Best Musical, among others.
More...
https://mdtheatreguide.com/2026/03/theatre-review-1776-at-fords-theatre/
***
All this intimacy, whether it is meant to ingratiate or intimidate, serves but one purpose: Johnson’s own political ends. “All the Way” illuminates in intricate detail (sometimes too intricate detail) how Johnson bent a recalcitrant Congress to his purpose, as if engaging in a long arm-wrestling contest with hundreds of other combatants, as he labored to pass a signature piece of legislation, the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Riding the crest of his fame from “Breaking Bad,” Mr. Cranston strides onto the Broadway stage with an admirable confidence, meeting the challenge of animating Mr. Schenkkan’s sprawling civics lesson as if he’s thoroughly at home. Although Johnson is not the exclusive focus of the play — many passages focus on the strategizing among various black civil rights organizations — Mr. Cranston’s heat-generating performance galvanizes the production. Even when Johnson is offstage or the writing sags with exposition, the show, directed solidly if a little stolidly by Bill Rauch, retains the vitalizing imprint of his performance.
The play’s superior first act digs into the strategies Johnson deployed to impress upon a grieving nation his ability to lead. Johnson was famed for his long work hours and sledgehammer energy, and Mr. Cranston’s jet-fueled performance captures the restlessness, the drive, the sheer stamina that the new president called upon to meet the greatest challenges of his career. Johnson is desperate to pass the Civil Rights Act, both to honor his predecessor’s legacy and because it aligned with his deepest beliefs. Even more important, he needs a major legislative victory to help secure him a full term in power.
More...
https://archive.ph/lTF2D
***
It remains the best musical about America. Within its sweeping scope, Ragtime puts disparate, often opposing viewpoints in direct confrontation, pushing forward at the dawn of a new Millennium. Its characters are fighting – outwardly, for justice and security, inwardly, for personal strength and happiness. It’s an ecstatic, gut-wrenching, and timely masterpiece by three writers at a pinnacle of their careers. Now in its second Broadway revival at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theater, Ragtime is still as pulse-pounding and current as it’s ever been.
Most of that is thanks to the absolute knockout nature of its writing. The book by Terrence McNally faithfully adapts E.L. Doctorow’s melting pot novel, giving equal shrift to its three central characters. Stephen Flaherty’s music is unafraid to go big and the sheer power of his melodies and repeated motifs rumble inside the show’s emotional core. Lynn Ahrens’ lyrics give every character their own means of externalizing their inner selves. Her words seamlessly evoke the vernacular of each of the three orbiting groups without merely giving the same voice to them all.
More...
https://exeuntnyc.com/reviews/review-ragtime-at-the-vivian-beaumont-theater/
***
When I went to buy tickets for Parade at the Orpheum Theatre, the first stop on the national tour for this Tony-winning revival, I found two orchestra seats being resold on Ticketmaster well under the original price. In fact, they were the cheapest available in the entire theater — even cheaper than the back row of the balcony. When my wife and I arrived at row AA on Friday night, we found out why: we were seated in the middle of a school group of 13-or-so-year-olds. Ah. Maybe a few kids dropped out at the last second and the frazzled organizers were just trying to get some money back.
It makes sense why teachers would want to bring young (but not too young) students to Parade. The musical, which is based on the real-life trial and eventual lynching of Jewish American Leo Frank in the 1910s, is a compelling reminder of the deep-rooted prejudices we’re still reckoning with today, specifically antisemitism and racism, in that order. Thanks largely to Max Chernin’s performance as Leo — sung with crystalline clarity and thoroughly convincing as a Brooklyn Jew in the “foreign land” of Georgia — that lesson is presented in an unforgettable way.
More...
https://onefanshow.com/2025/01/29/review-parade-offers-a-grim-history-lesson-on-first-stop-of-national-tour/
***
I had never seen Annie Get Your Gun, mostly because I fall into that category of people who usually shy away from musicals heavy on showtunes, but I quickly found out that I’m not wholly unfamiliar with the show. Irving Berlin’s “There’s No Business Like Show Business” and “Anything You Can Do” have fully entrenched themselves into pop culture’s infrastructure, a testament both to Berlin and the popularity of the show.
Directed by longtime theater collaborator Jerry Crouch, the play is a fairly straightforward interpretation of the musical’s 1999 revival. Community theater is always going to struggle with a lack of budget, but putting on a musical of this size with as little as possible — and with the help of a dedicated cast of volunteers — is perhaps what’s most interesting about this production.
Annie Get Your Gun uses the framing device of a play-within-a-play. It opens with Buffalo Bill (Richard Blue) introducing the characters and the story’s basic outline before the curtains open for “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” This is a pretty magnificent moment, with approximately 40 cast members on stage, and the musical’s Tommy Keeler (Alan Malpass) spinning from a rope that descends from the ceiling. The only problem — if you can call it that — is that none of the subsequent numbers are quite as huge as the opener. This is a minor quibble (let me tell you how many horror movies have the same issue) and is probably a case of practicality since so much here is dependent on ingenuity.
More...
https://mountainx.com/arts/art-news/review_annie_get_your_gun_at_act/
***
Stephen Sondheim was quoted in a Yale interview that he believed “Assassins” to be one of his “only perfect works.” He described it as a “conceptual piece exploring the dark side of the American Dream,” comparing it to “Sweeney Todd” as a story about “righting a wrong the wrong way.” He loved the idea of defying linear time, allowing the assassins from different eras to interact before, during, and after the kills, as if they were motivated by the same passion rather than their insanity. Sondheim stated the show was “about righting a wrong, and how, if you do it the wrong way, you’re in a lot of trouble.”
Co-directors Phillip Wong and Michael Hartsfield closely followed Sondheim’s tale of the assassins as a satirical commentary on American culture and its glorification of violence. Wong and Hartsfield also mastered Sonheim’s complicated songs with tempi changes and lyrics that include 20 plus words in a single phrase without taking a breath, like Booth’s welcome, “Hey, pal, feelin’ blue? Don’t know what to do? Hey pal – I mean you, yeah. C’mere and kill a president.”
More...
https://mdtheatreguide.com/2026/04/theatre-review-assassins-at-laurel-mill-playhouse/
***
It is widely known that West Side Story (WSS) is based directly on Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (R&J). Jerome Robbins had at first envisioned Juliet as a Jewish girl and Romeo as an Italian Catholic. The action, set during the Easter-Passover season, was to have occurred on the Lower East Side of New York City. Hence the title might have been EAST Side Story. (Another working title was Gangway!) That was in 1949. Six years later, Laurents and Leonard Bernstein were working (independently) in Hollywood, where they conferred on the aborted project. The newspapers were filled with reports of street riots by Chicano Americans in Los Angeles.
Those headlines turned the trick, triggering the imaginations of the collaborators. The locale swiftly shifted to New York’s West Side, and in 1957 WSS exploded onto the American State. In the decades that have passed, WSS has become a contemporary classic.
More...
https://www.westsidestory.com/1957-broadway
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