NYCPlaywrights November 29, 2025
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NYCPlaywrights
Nov 29, 2025, 5:15:37 PMNov 29
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Greetings NYCPlaywrights
*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
Midtown Concerts: The New York Baroque Dance Company
In celebrating the upcoming 50th anniversary of The New York Baroque Dance Company, solo dancers Julia Bengtsson and Caroline Copeland will perform “Les Caractères de la danse” with music by Jean Fery Rebel and a suite of dances from Handel’s Terpsichore. Both of these works were choreographed by the award-winning artist Catherine Turocy and represent the theatrical performance style.
The New York Baroque Dance Company, founded in 1976 by Catherine Turocy and Ann Jacoby, leads the field of Baroque dance performance, appearing across the country and in Europe, Mexico, Canada and Japan. On the cutting edge of historical performance, NYBDC also mentors dancers in research and the Baroque style. World-renowned artists Caroline Copeland and Julia Bengtsson are among the most gifted dancers in the field.
Dec 18 from 1:15pm to 2pm EST
St. Malachy Roman Catholic Church - The Actors' Chapel
239 West 49th Street
New York, NY 10019
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/midtown-concerts-the-new-york-baroque-dance-company-tickets-1967109828450?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
*** BLACK WOMAN GENIUS ***
The deadline for NYCPlaywrights' call for monologues for our BLACK WOMAN GENIUS project is tomorrow, November 30 at 11:59PM.
More information: https://www.nycplaywrights.org/2025/11/nycplaywrights-seeks-monologues-theme.html
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
The Road is proud to begin its SEVENTH year of Under Construction, a playwright’s group that develops socially and politically relevant voices and thoughts to the American stage. Under Construction will be meeting both virtually and in person in 2026 and is open to playwrights on a national level. We will be selecting 8 playwrights to join the virtual 2026 cohort and 8 playwrights to join us live at our theatre.
***
New York Shakespeare Exchange and The CRY HAVOC Company are thrilled to debut our collaborative project Brave New Work, a short play development series that invites NYC playwrights to create original work inspired by, expanding, reflecting upon, remixing, and critiquing the plays of William Shakespeare.
***
The Westchester Review seeks 10-minute plays. We are an exclusively online journal, publishing quarterly issues. We welcome submissions from a diverse range of writers, including voices and perspectives that have historically been underrepresented in the literary sphere.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
Midtown Concerts: The New York Baroque Dance Company
In celebrating the upcoming 50th anniversary of The New York Baroque Dance Company, solo dancers Julia Bengtsson and Caroline Copeland will perform “Les Caractères de la danse” with music by Jean Fery Rebel and a suite of dances from Handel’s Terpsichore. Both of these works were choreographed by the award-winning artist Catherine Turocy and represent the theatrical performance style.
The New York Baroque Dance Company, founded in 1976 by Catherine Turocy and Ann Jacoby, leads the field of Baroque dance performance, appearing across the country and in Europe, Mexico, Canada and Japan. On the cutting edge of historical performance, NYBDC also mentors dancers in research and the Baroque style. World-renowned artists Caroline Copeland and Julia Bengtsson are among the most gifted dancers in the field.
Dec 18 from 1:15pm to 2pm EST
St. Malachy Roman Catholic Church - The Actors' Chapel
239 West 49th Street
New York, NY 10019
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/midtown-concerts-the-new-york-baroque-dance-company-tickets-1967109828450?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
*** BLACK WOMAN GENIUS ***
The deadline for NYCPlaywrights' call for monologues for our BLACK WOMAN GENIUS project is tomorrow, November 30 at 11:59PM.
More information: https://www.nycplaywrights.org/2025/11/nycplaywrights-seeks-monologues-theme.html
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
The Road is proud to begin its SEVENTH year of Under Construction, a playwright’s group that develops socially and politically relevant voices and thoughts to the American stage. Under Construction will be meeting both virtually and in person in 2026 and is open to playwrights on a national level. We will be selecting 8 playwrights to join the virtual 2026 cohort and 8 playwrights to join us live at our theatre.
***
New York Shakespeare Exchange and The CRY HAVOC Company are thrilled to debut our collaborative project Brave New Work, a short play development series that invites NYC playwrights to create original work inspired by, expanding, reflecting upon, remixing, and critiquing the plays of William Shakespeare.
***
The Westchester Review seeks 10-minute plays. We are an exclusively online journal, publishing quarterly issues. We welcome submissions from a diverse range of writers, including voices and perspectives that have historically been underrepresented in the literary sphere.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** POST-DRAMATIC THEATRE ***
I recently saw Thekla Gaiti’s play Postdramatic at Milano Off Fringe Festival. I was intrigued, excited and somewhat perplexed by the nature of the work and the performance it requires that I decided an interview was needed to find out more abut her and the theatrical style she has adopted, which was new me.
Thekla, let’s start with an introduction to your background and training.
I’m an actress, performer and educator based in Athens, working across theatre, film, music and television. Recently I have been exploring conceptual photography and solo performance. I’ve trained extensively in acting, voice and movement, with a focus on physical theatre, improvisation and both solo and ensemble performance. Postdramatic is my first solo piece, and it began as a photo series before evolving into a full-scale performance.
The title of your play gives away its genre, so can you tell us something of the history and characteristics of this style of theatre?
Certainly. When we speak of postdramatic theatre, we refer to a broad range of performance practices that have emerged since the late 20th century, roughly from the 1970s onward. It didn’t arise from a single movement, but from wider cultural shifts: the crises of the 20th century, the rise of mass and digital media, the decline of grand narratives and a growing scepticism toward fixed identities and stable meanings.
In this context, artists began experimenting with new forms of expression, incorporating methods and practices from a variety of artistic and disciplinary traditions, while questioning the traditional foundations of dramatic theatre: plot, character psychology, linear storytelling and the primacy of the written text. The term itself became widely established after Hans-Thies Lehmann’s seminal study Postdramatic Theatre in 1999, which was quickly recognised internationally as a key reference point for understanding these new aesthetics.
More...
I recently saw Thekla Gaiti’s play Postdramatic at Milano Off Fringe Festival. I was intrigued, excited and somewhat perplexed by the nature of the work and the performance it requires that I decided an interview was needed to find out more abut her and the theatrical style she has adopted, which was new me.
Thekla, let’s start with an introduction to your background and training.
I’m an actress, performer and educator based in Athens, working across theatre, film, music and television. Recently I have been exploring conceptual photography and solo performance. I’ve trained extensively in acting, voice and movement, with a focus on physical theatre, improvisation and both solo and ensemble performance. Postdramatic is my first solo piece, and it began as a photo series before evolving into a full-scale performance.
The title of your play gives away its genre, so can you tell us something of the history and characteristics of this style of theatre?
Certainly. When we speak of postdramatic theatre, we refer to a broad range of performance practices that have emerged since the late 20th century, roughly from the 1970s onward. It didn’t arise from a single movement, but from wider cultural shifts: the crises of the 20th century, the rise of mass and digital media, the decline of grand narratives and a growing scepticism toward fixed identities and stable meanings.
In this context, artists began experimenting with new forms of expression, incorporating methods and practices from a variety of artistic and disciplinary traditions, while questioning the traditional foundations of dramatic theatre: plot, character psychology, linear storytelling and the primacy of the written text. The term itself became widely established after Hans-Thies Lehmann’s seminal study Postdramatic Theatre in 1999, which was quickly recognised internationally as a key reference point for understanding these new aesthetics.
More...
https://broadwaybaby.com/features/embracing-the-incomplete-thekla-gaiti-on-postdramatic-theatre-and-the-art-of-unresolved-meaning/2776
***
Hans-Thies Lehmann: The terms come afterwards; they are perspectives on the reality. ‘Postdramatic’ isn’t merely a definition: whether one sees something as postdramatic or dramatic is a matter of perspective.
If you choose to, you can find dramatic structure in the most open of performance practices – and vice verse. I’m not so certain about ‘postdramatic’ as a paradigm, as a unity. Because it’s not just an umbrella concept, it’s an answer to a problem,an artistic problem that
arose from dramatic representation.The answers to the problem are varied.
More...
https://www.ahk.nl/fileadmin/download/ahk/Lectoraten/kunstpraktijk/After_Theatre_-_Naar_het_theater.pdf
***
In framing his argument, Lehmann returns with frequency to Bertolt Brecht, who in the early twentieth century sought to radicalize theater by interrupting its passive consumption. Employing alienating mechanisms such as dual roles, choruses, visible set changes, and announcements, Brechtian performance distanced the audience from the action in order to enable critical thought and combat alienation in society at large.
While building on some of Brecht’s tenets—the performative over the performance, text over plot, and function over form—Lehmann makes the case that the Brechtian separation between performer and viewer can be understood as a continuation of (rather than a departure from) traditional dramaturgic roles. Even when the fourth wall is broken and the audience is made aware of the constructed nature of the play, Lehmann argues, the fictive “world” of the play is left largely intact, spinning around a central fable. In addition, the moral and critical reactions that Brecht aimed to incite were akin to the Aristotelian goal of catharsis, though achieved through different means. In both approaches, the audience is apart, affected.
More...
https://intermsofperformance.site/keywords/postdramatic/jens-hoffmann
***
Postdramatic theatre does not have a coherent plot, definable characters, a certain setting. It is interested in exploring reality and the pretence of performance.
The making of the piece and the receiving of the piece happen simultaneously, in the same time and place, and draws attention to the weird relationship between performers and audiences, and attempts to bring this into the performance.
It addresses the relationship between the form and subject matter of theatre. The stage ought to be a ‘point of departure’ for a piece.
More...
https://hmillington.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/2016/11/11/the-postdramatic/
***
Researchers have argued that there were two motivations for the postdramatic turn in the theater. One was post-disciplinarity’s dissolution in direct-democracy practices. The other was the attempt to borrow the performative poetics of contemporary art, which, as theater researchers falsely imagined, was based on the artist’s direct, living, nonsymbolic presence in the performative process. This is what differentiated the artist from the actor, who was immersed in the temporality of role-playing and staged repetition. Theater scholar Erika Fischer-Lichte defined this presence as “autopoetic,” as opposed to mimetic. This nondramatic, non-staged presence on stage has come to be called “postdramatic” in almost all critical theater studies.
More...
https://www.e-flux.com/journal/120/415768/the-postdramatic-theater-s-misadventures-in-the-age-of-contemporary-art
***
***
Hans-Thies Lehmann: The terms come afterwards; they are perspectives on the reality. ‘Postdramatic’ isn’t merely a definition: whether one sees something as postdramatic or dramatic is a matter of perspective.
If you choose to, you can find dramatic structure in the most open of performance practices – and vice verse. I’m not so certain about ‘postdramatic’ as a paradigm, as a unity. Because it’s not just an umbrella concept, it’s an answer to a problem,an artistic problem that
arose from dramatic representation.The answers to the problem are varied.
More...
https://www.ahk.nl/fileadmin/download/ahk/Lectoraten/kunstpraktijk/After_Theatre_-_Naar_het_theater.pdf
***
In framing his argument, Lehmann returns with frequency to Bertolt Brecht, who in the early twentieth century sought to radicalize theater by interrupting its passive consumption. Employing alienating mechanisms such as dual roles, choruses, visible set changes, and announcements, Brechtian performance distanced the audience from the action in order to enable critical thought and combat alienation in society at large.
While building on some of Brecht’s tenets—the performative over the performance, text over plot, and function over form—Lehmann makes the case that the Brechtian separation between performer and viewer can be understood as a continuation of (rather than a departure from) traditional dramaturgic roles. Even when the fourth wall is broken and the audience is made aware of the constructed nature of the play, Lehmann argues, the fictive “world” of the play is left largely intact, spinning around a central fable. In addition, the moral and critical reactions that Brecht aimed to incite were akin to the Aristotelian goal of catharsis, though achieved through different means. In both approaches, the audience is apart, affected.
More...
https://intermsofperformance.site/keywords/postdramatic/jens-hoffmann
***
Postdramatic theatre does not have a coherent plot, definable characters, a certain setting. It is interested in exploring reality and the pretence of performance.
The making of the piece and the receiving of the piece happen simultaneously, in the same time and place, and draws attention to the weird relationship between performers and audiences, and attempts to bring this into the performance.
It addresses the relationship between the form and subject matter of theatre. The stage ought to be a ‘point of departure’ for a piece.
More...
https://hmillington.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/2016/11/11/the-postdramatic/
***
Researchers have argued that there were two motivations for the postdramatic turn in the theater. One was post-disciplinarity’s dissolution in direct-democracy practices. The other was the attempt to borrow the performative poetics of contemporary art, which, as theater researchers falsely imagined, was based on the artist’s direct, living, nonsymbolic presence in the performative process. This is what differentiated the artist from the actor, who was immersed in the temporality of role-playing and staged repetition. Theater scholar Erika Fischer-Lichte defined this presence as “autopoetic,” as opposed to mimetic. This nondramatic, non-staged presence on stage has come to be called “postdramatic” in almost all critical theater studies.
More...
https://www.e-flux.com/journal/120/415768/the-postdramatic-theater-s-misadventures-in-the-age-of-contemporary-art
***
In the decade between the publication of Hans-Thies Lehmann’s Post-dramatic Theatre in 1999 and the Conference “Dramatic and Post-Dramatic Theatre: Ten Years After,” held in Belgrade in 2009, Lehmann’s groundbreaking study has been translated into 18 languages and has been widely discussed and debated.
The Belgrade conference itself grew out of an attempt to respond to the vexed questions and polemics that the post-dramatic debate—the “last big theatre paradigm”—has spawned over the past decade as well as to track changes and developments in the post-dramatic theatre landscape. These conference proceedings use Lehmann’s seminal work as a starting point, each separate paper oriented towards a consideration of the “after” of the post-dramatic theatre as well as the reality generally of a “post” post-dramatic theatre.
With one eye on the present effects of the post-dramatic and the other on its future directions, the conference (and this volume) tries to answer a number of questions concerning the relation of post-dramatic theatre to text, performance and criticism both in Serbia and internationally. Well edited by Serbian theatre scholar Ivan Medenica, the 12 essays (including the editor’s Introduction which appears in both Serbian and English) reflect the multi-cultural quality of its overarching theme including texts in Serbian, French, Italian, and English. The book also includes a summary of each essay in both the language of the specific text and in Serbian.
More...
The Belgrade conference itself grew out of an attempt to respond to the vexed questions and polemics that the post-dramatic debate—the “last big theatre paradigm”—has spawned over the past decade as well as to track changes and developments in the post-dramatic theatre landscape. These conference proceedings use Lehmann’s seminal work as a starting point, each separate paper oriented towards a consideration of the “after” of the post-dramatic theatre as well as the reality generally of a “post” post-dramatic theatre.
With one eye on the present effects of the post-dramatic and the other on its future directions, the conference (and this volume) tries to answer a number of questions concerning the relation of post-dramatic theatre to text, performance and criticism both in Serbia and internationally. Well edited by Serbian theatre scholar Ivan Medenica, the 12 essays (including the editor’s Introduction which appears in both Serbian and English) reflect the multi-cultural quality of its overarching theme including texts in Serbian, French, Italian, and English. The book also includes a summary of each essay in both the language of the specific text and in Serbian.
More...
***
Hans-Thies Lehmann, German theatre researcher: Comedy, Brecht and the Theatre of Germany Today
The Conference of the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC), organised within the Comedy Festival of Bucharest (festCO), June 2-3, 2017, Central University Library "Carol I" - Bucharest, Romania
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9MRt04lgV4
Hans-Thies Lehmann, German theatre researcher: Comedy, Brecht and the Theatre of Germany Today
The Conference of the International Association of Theatre Critics (IATC), organised within the Comedy Festival of Bucharest (festCO), June 2-3, 2017, Central University Library "Carol I" - Bucharest, Romania
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9MRt04lgV4
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