NYCPlaywrights February 18, 2023

[NYCPlaywrights]

Greetings NYCPlaywrights

*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***

TED SNOWDON READING SERIES 2003

Free and open to the public, the Ted Snowdon Reading Series presents four or five new plays at Manhattan Theatre Club’s City Center Stage I each year. These public readings follow a week-long developmental workshop complete with a director, a cast of actors, and the full support of MTC’s Artistic Development staff.
For email reminders about these readings, please click here and subscribe to the Reading Series email list.
 
THE 2023 READING SERIES
MARCH 6 AT 4PM: THE HEART SELLERS
BY LLOYD SUH, DIRECTED BY MAY ADRALESMARCH 13 AT 4PM: AS ABOVE
BY CHRISTINE QUINTANAMARCH 20 AT 4PM: WATCH ME
BY DAVE HARRISMARCH 27 AT 4PM: AN OXFORD MAN
BY ELSE WENT, DIRECTED BY EMMA ROSA WENT

https://www.manhattantheatreclub.com/events/readingseries/

*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

938collective is launching our inaugural Short Play Festival! And we want YOU involved.
We’re looking for new 10-20 minute plays in the early stages of development, something completely new, or a little snippet of a larger project you would like others to be involved in! The submission deadline is Friday, March 3rd.

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Bite-Sized Broadway: A Mini-Musical Podcast is opening up submissions for our second season of mini-musicals and is currently seeking submissions from musical theatre writers around the world! We are committed to lifting up and offering production opportunities to Black, Latine, Indigenous/First Nations, API, SWANA folks, those who identify as transgender, non-binary, gender fluid, and gender nonconforming, people with disabilities, and intersectional musical theatre writers. Writers from these and any other historically marginalized or underrepresented groups are strongly encouraged to submit!

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We are proud to announce our first playwright development opportunity, Two Good Dogs 'Dare to Dream' Play Festival, 2023, fostering New York City playwrights and performance artists. In our annual festivals we promote plays that call upon voices and experiences rooted in historically marginalized communities. TGD Productions is a New York-based non-profit theater company that provides inclusive opportunities for a diverse group of artists to create, collaborate, engage, and practice their craft.


*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***



*** DRAG/ANTI-DRAG ***

Maxi closed by noting the pressing issues the legislators are not talking about—the opioid epidemic and meth addiction, for starters. “I would love if you all could make sure that you all have the basic needs of Missourians met, so we [drag artists] are not constantly told that we would do better in New York, we would do better in L.A.. Because I love my city, I love my state, and I’m not going any-fucking-where. Any questions?”

Representative Peter Merideth (D-St. Louis) responded to Maxi’s “righteous anger” with an apology and a compliment. “I want to say you look incredible,” he told Maxi. “I’m looking at the detail and the work and the artistry that went into everything about how you’re presenting yourself right now, and if anybody in this room doubts that drag is a form of artistic expression, that is extremely well protected by the First Amendment in our country, I think all they have to do is look at you. Thank you for showing your art to us and being here to testify.”

Maxi got the last word: “Thank you. And I think if more people had friends that were drag queens, they would be committing less fashion faux pas.”

More...
https://www.americantheatre.org/2023/02/14/why-the-fight-over-drag-is-a-struggle-for-us-all/

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San Francisco always celebrates the holidays with its own unique flair and the Drag Queens on Ice at the Safeway Holiday Ice Rink in Union Square is no exception.

Olympic gold medalist figure skater and San Francisco resident Brian Boitano, along with many other stars from the hit show “RuPaul's Drag Race,” made an appearance at Thursday's 12th annual event.

"I didn't know there were so many ice skating drag queens in San Francisco, it’s so nice to see," RuPaul’s Drag Race star Denali said on KCBS Radio’s "Bay Current" on Friday. "What I love about drag is blending my worlds together, and seeing other queens do the same thing, it's amazing."

More...
https://www.audacy.com/kcbsradio/news/local/drag-queens-on-ice-a-san-francisco-holiday-tradition

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LGBTQ activists and drag performers say this legislative movement is the latest GOP effort to spread anti-gay and anti-trans sentiment.

“They say it will only affect our drag queens, but it’s going to affect our trans community, our nonbinary communities, our gay communities,” said Timothy Sherwood, a drag performer who was crowned Miss Gay Texas in 2022. “They are trying to spread fear and attack the way we express ourselves and the way we live our lives.”

The movement against drag shows has also sparked volatile protests. Last month, five armed members of the Proud Boys, a far-right group with a history of violence, confronted families attending a Salt Lake City show. Outside a Baltimore church event last month, counterprotesters clashed with protesters as families filed in.
The drag show bills come amid a multiyear movement by Republican state lawmakers to target LGBTQ rights, particularly trans rights, including a recent trend of bills that require students to use school bathrooms that align with the gender they were assigned at birth and bills that ban transgender girls from participating on girls sports teams.

More...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/14/drag-shows-republican-bills-bans

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Do you think people are against female drag queens because of a lack of education?

Absolutely. Courtney Conquers and I have been talking about writing a book because at this point in our careers, we’re so tired of explaining it to people and it would just be easier to guide them to a book. These are things that are easily looked up, but people don’t want to do the work. A lot of people feel ownership over drag, particularly cisgender men, they hold onto it very tightly but they don’t realise the entire art of drag is to allow people to express themselves and their stories and their art. I think it becomes a very complicated issue. At this point, I’m just like, ‘I’ll write a book.’

Men were stopping women from performing back then, and it’s still an issue now...

It’s funny that women need to ask permission to be women. It’s ridiculous. This obviously includes trans women.

You’ve built quite a following on Instagram, have you faced much criticism for your art?

Yes and no. I’ve definitely had a few run-ins. I do this thing where I turn their comments into a catchphrase and put it on merchandise. When I started getting more followers and popular online, I was already at the point where I was so comfortable with what I was doing, so I felt assured of my place in the community, so I didn’t feel as offended. I know from working for years in the scene and for doing drag so long that opinions don’t really matter. When I get negative comments, I just delete them. My page is a place of happiness, art, joy and exploring fun things and there’s been situations when people have gotten into arguments in the comment section defending me, which I really appreciate but I don’t need it. Criticism? I’m not open to it, unless it’s constructive, which it rarely is. Criticism by a 14-year-old on whether or not I should be doing drag based on my gender is not going to affect me.

More...
https://www.gaytimes.co.uk/culture/creme-fatale-on-conquering-drag-as-a-cis-woman-and-why-drag-race-isnt-an-option/

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"That is not consistent with our law and policy in the state of Florida and it is a disturbing trend in our society to try to sexualize these young people. That is not the way you look out for our children, you protect children, you do not expose them to things that are inappropriate," DeSantis said.

However, state Representative Anna Eskamani argued that the governor is specifically targeting drag shows as he remained silent about other similar settings.

"Drag shows under attack again, meanwhile no commentary from the Governor on bringing kids to Hooters," the Democratic representative tweeted in response to the filed complaint. "According to this logic, it's only sexually explicit if it's LGBTQ+. Why can't FL focus on solving real problems vs. creating new ones?"

Still, DeSantis said on Wednesday that R House's drag shows are "sexually explicit," and that the bar had a children's menu.

More...
https://www.newsweek.com/desantis-push-punish-restaurant-drag-shows-prompts-parents-pushback-1729245

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Hooters menu for children
https://www.originalhooters.com/menu/kids

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When Mae West’s play The Drag was first performed, in Connecticut in 1927, its author was starring as a prostitute in the scandalous Broadway hit Sex. That show was soon deemed indecent, earning her a 10-day jail sentence. She took a limo to prison and said she wore silk underwear throughout her detention. The Drag proved no less controversial: it lasted for 10 performances before it was banned.

Why the fuss? Partly because West was a woman writing about sexuality and, in particular, gay male sexuality. The Drag, subtitled A Homosexual Comedy in Three Acts and written under the pseudonym Jane Mast, is about the cost of living with a secret life. Its hero is a closeted gay socialite, Rolly Kingsbury, who comes “from one of the finest families” and is trapped in a loveless marriage. Rolly’s father is a homophobic judge, his father-in-law a therapist who specialises in gay conversion. West herself had been a male impersonator early in her career, and the play culminates in an elaborate drag ball, with largely improvised dialogue and a jazz band on stage.

More...
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/jul/05/polly-stenham-mae-west-gay-pride-the-drag-national-theatre

***

When the police burst through the door that night, all the dancing suddenly stopped. The men — adorned in the finest silk and satin dresses — looked on in shock for a brief moment before scurrying to make their getaway.

Many danced about “almost in a nude condition,” The Washington Post reported, as they struggled to strip off their garments, their ribbons and their “wigs of long wavy hair.” Others raced immediately to the back doors or leapt out of second-floor windows and onto the roofs of neighboring buildings.

A large man named William Dorsey Swann — the queen of the ball — was himself “arrayed in a gorgeous dress of cream-colored satin,” but unlike the others, he ran frantically toward the officers in a vain attempt to keep them from entering the two-story residence in northwest Washington, D.C., just half a mile from the White House.

The raid caused such a commotion that roughly 400 people arose from their beds, gathered outside to watch and even followed the police and suspects back to the station that night. In total, 13 men — all black — were arrested and “charged with being suspicious characters.” They were ordered to pay a bond or serve 30 days in jail, and their names were published in the local papers the next day for all the city to read.

It was April 12, 1888, long before the Stonewall uprising or the sexual revolution of the 1960s — by which time many gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people were already living openly and unashamedly in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and other cities.

More...
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-black-drag-queens-who-fought-before-stonewall/
***

Sweet Transvestive from Transylvania

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc80tFJpTuo&t=10s