NYCPlaywrights October 24, 2026
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NYCPlaywrights
Oct 24, 2026, 5:03:55 PM (21 hours ago) Oct 24
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Greetings NYCPlaywrights
*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
LaGuardia Performing Arts Center Rough Draft Festival
This Fall’s Rough Draft Festival features invited artists sharing works in progress through performances and conversations with participating artists. Audiences are invited into the creative process, gaining insight into how new work evolves through experimentation, revision, and collaboration.
*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
LaGuardia Performing Arts Center Rough Draft Festival
This Fall’s Rough Draft Festival features invited artists sharing works in progress through performances and conversations with participating artists. Audiences are invited into the creative process, gaining insight into how new work evolves through experimentation, revision, and collaboration.
SKIN TO SKIN - Triptych of an American Epidemic
MAMA/RUN
FURBALL
October 27 - 30
LaGuardia Performing Arts Center
31-10 Thomson Ave, Long Island City, NY 11101
Entrance: 45-50 Van Dam Street
https://www.lpac.nyc/upcoming-events/rough-draft
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
MUSE Collective seeks 10-minute plays by female-identifying playwrights
Inspired by the nine Muses of Greek mythology, this opportunity invites female-identifying playwrights to explore creativity, inspiration, and storytelling through original short plays and monologues.
Selected scripts will be included in NINE MUSES, an anthology of short works which will be available on the MUSE Collective website.
***
Dreamscape Theater Company (dreamscapetheater.com) in Corvallis, Oregon, is seeking original short plays (no longer than 15 minutes) to be considered for production, March 6-7, 2027.
Plays must reflect women’s history. Characters can be real or fictional as long as the play is in keeping of the theme of the festival: Celebrating Women’s History: Stories of Creativity, Change, Courage.
***
Go Try Play Write - The prompt for October 2026 is an Ionesco prompt:
This prompt is based on the play Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco (you do not need to know the play to write the prompt). It’s the day after the 2026 midterm elections, and everyone voted for the person or party you despise. You know this because they’ve all turned into an animal with whom you can’t really communicate with. Write a 10-page maximum scene of you dealing with this event. Pick one animal that everyone turns into. Have fun.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
MAMA/RUN
FURBALL
October 27 - 30
LaGuardia Performing Arts Center
31-10 Thomson Ave, Long Island City, NY 11101
Entrance: 45-50 Van Dam Street
https://www.lpac.nyc/upcoming-events/rough-draft
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
MUSE Collective seeks 10-minute plays by female-identifying playwrights
Inspired by the nine Muses of Greek mythology, this opportunity invites female-identifying playwrights to explore creativity, inspiration, and storytelling through original short plays and monologues.
Selected scripts will be included in NINE MUSES, an anthology of short works which will be available on the MUSE Collective website.
***
Dreamscape Theater Company (dreamscapetheater.com) in Corvallis, Oregon, is seeking original short plays (no longer than 15 minutes) to be considered for production, March 6-7, 2027.
Plays must reflect women’s history. Characters can be real or fictional as long as the play is in keeping of the theme of the festival: Celebrating Women’s History: Stories of Creativity, Change, Courage.
***
Go Try Play Write - The prompt for October 2026 is an Ionesco prompt:
This prompt is based on the play Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco (you do not need to know the play to write the prompt). It’s the day after the 2026 midterm elections, and everyone voted for the person or party you despise. You know this because they’ve all turned into an animal with whom you can’t really communicate with. Write a 10-page maximum scene of you dealing with this event. Pick one animal that everyone turns into. Have fun.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** TOM HANKS THEATER ***
Tom Hanks on the Electrifying (and Terrifying) Experience of Writing a Play
Tom Hanks on the Electrifying (and Terrifying) Experience of Writing a Play
...Then at an invaluable weeklong workshop in 2024 at Portland Stage in Maine, it became clear that James and I needed to work together in person in order to wrestle the play into shape. We settled on my agent’s offices in the Chrysler Building in Manhattan. Would it be the crucible of creativity we needed?
We revisited our research about the 1939 World’s Fair, and kept landing on a didactic bit of narration: “The present is but an instant between an infinite past and a hurrying future…” This came from the designer Norman Bel Geddes’s “Futurama,” a vast design for a future world, presented by General Motors in what was the fair’s most popular attraction.
We forged ahead, developing back stories for each character, figuring out which speeches resonated, and testing the number of jokes audiences would tolerate. We wanted to get the era right. One character played by Sanders owns a Greek diner just off Sheridan Square; another, Carmen Perry (O’Hara), works at a handbag factory, and lives with her brother’s family in the Bronx. Virginia, Carmen’s niece (Kayli Carter), is the president of her school’s radio club and obsessed with the advent of television. I portray a wealthy tech entrepreneur from 2089 who meets these characters when he travels back in time.
More...
https://archive.ph/QJ4Cc
***
Academy Award winner Tom Hanks is returning to Broadway in a show he's co-writing. This World of Tomorrow, co-written by Hanks and James Glossman, will play Broadway in fall 2027 at a Shubert-owned theatre to be announced.
This World of Tomorrow previously had its world premiere in 2025 at The Shed Off-Broadway (read the reviews here). Hanks starred opposite Tony winner Kelli O'Hara (Fallen Angels), who will reprise her Off-Broadway performance for Broadway.
This marks Hanks' return to Broadway in more than 14 years; he was previously Tony-nominated for Lucky Guy, penned by his longtime friend Nora Ephron.
This World of Tomorrow is based on a short story written by Hanks for his 2017 book Uncommon Type. Hanks will play a scientist, Bert Allenberry, living in the late 21st century, where it is possible to time travel back to the past. He travels back to June 8, 1939, to the New York World’s Fair and meets a woman named Carmen (played by O'Hara), with whom he falls in love.
More...
https://playbill.com/article/tom-hanks-and-kelli-ohara-to-costar-in-the-world-of-tomorrow-on-broadway
***
Tom Hanks joined Wendie Malick and Tony Shalhoub for Westport Country Playhouse's 100th playreading in its 20-year-old Script in Hand series on Monday, Oct. 5.
The sold-out event featured a reading of "Portrait of a Woman in Repose," a new play written by Nicky Glossman and directed by James Glossman. The play centers on art, memory, survival and efforts to restore what has been lost.
"For nearly a century, Westport Country Playhouse has welcomed legendary performers to our historic theatre, and we're enormously proud to continue that tradition with Tom Hanks, Wendie Malick, and Tony Shalhoub taking the stage," Mark Shanahan, the Playhouse's artistic director, said ahead of the event.
More...
https://patch.com/connecticut/westport/2-time-oscar-winner-tom-hanks-performs-script-hand-playreading-westport
***
For this production, Daniel Sullivan has taken the two Henry IV plays, parts 1 & !!, and turned them into one long-ish but entertaining evening that centers on Prince Hal and Falstaff. The story revolves around the aging King IV, played by Joe Morton, beset by enemies and rebellion, and his son Hal, played by Hamish Linklater, a dissolute youth keeping the always amusing but criminal company of Falstaff. In the course of the plays, Prince Hal matures into the man who becomes King and rejects Falstaff unless he too, despite his age, grows up.
Tom Hanks, plumped up to Falstaffian proportions, with long grey hair and long beard is just having such a good time in this role as liar, rascal, manipulator, prevaricator, scoundrel and friend that the pleasure is infectious. On the evening I attended the play needed to pause for an unexpected medical emergency among the audience. Hanks came on stage as Falstaff and vamped for some 15 minutes, engaging the audience and charming all present.
More...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomteicholz/2018/06/18/tom-hanks-reigns-as-falstaff-in-shakespeare-center-henry-iv/
***
When the June 13 performance of the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles production of Henry IV was halted due to an ill audience member, Oscar winner Tom Hanks kept the crowd entertained with a series of amusing ad-libs.
After the show had been stopped for several minutes, Hanks returned to the stage bellowing, “Get back here!… No one’s to leave!” The stage and screen star also joked, “God has decided this play needed a second intermission!… Get back here or find this sword and many a dagger placed neatly in the tires of your carriage!”
More...
https://playbill.com/article/watch-tom-hanks-impromptu-in-character-address-to-audience-during-mid-performance-halt-at-henry-iv
***
Nora Ephron’s “Lucky Guy," which has Tom Hanks making his Broadway debut at the Broadhurst Theatre, weaves together two tales during its riveting two-plus hours. First is the “messy, messy” life story of protagonist Mike McAlary, an often-respected, occasionally despised newspaper columnist who left his mark on the city’s tabloid scene in the 1980s and ’90s.
More broadly, “Lucky Guy” is about a changing industry which the late playwright, a New York Post reporter at the start of her own career, depicts with subtlety in a story that’s set across 13 years and ends just before the Internet uprooted everything. In a testosterone-heavy cast, the play’s one female supporting actress does double duty, first as a city desk reporter whose every third word has four letters, then, in scenes set years later, as an all-business, profanity-free professional whose go-ahead on one infamous New York City story leads to the proudest moment of McAlary’s career.
More...
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/broadway/review-ephron-lucky-guy/1971267/
We revisited our research about the 1939 World’s Fair, and kept landing on a didactic bit of narration: “The present is but an instant between an infinite past and a hurrying future…” This came from the designer Norman Bel Geddes’s “Futurama,” a vast design for a future world, presented by General Motors in what was the fair’s most popular attraction.
We forged ahead, developing back stories for each character, figuring out which speeches resonated, and testing the number of jokes audiences would tolerate. We wanted to get the era right. One character played by Sanders owns a Greek diner just off Sheridan Square; another, Carmen Perry (O’Hara), works at a handbag factory, and lives with her brother’s family in the Bronx. Virginia, Carmen’s niece (Kayli Carter), is the president of her school’s radio club and obsessed with the advent of television. I portray a wealthy tech entrepreneur from 2089 who meets these characters when he travels back in time.
More...
https://archive.ph/QJ4Cc
***
Academy Award winner Tom Hanks is returning to Broadway in a show he's co-writing. This World of Tomorrow, co-written by Hanks and James Glossman, will play Broadway in fall 2027 at a Shubert-owned theatre to be announced.
This World of Tomorrow previously had its world premiere in 2025 at The Shed Off-Broadway (read the reviews here). Hanks starred opposite Tony winner Kelli O'Hara (Fallen Angels), who will reprise her Off-Broadway performance for Broadway.
This marks Hanks' return to Broadway in more than 14 years; he was previously Tony-nominated for Lucky Guy, penned by his longtime friend Nora Ephron.
This World of Tomorrow is based on a short story written by Hanks for his 2017 book Uncommon Type. Hanks will play a scientist, Bert Allenberry, living in the late 21st century, where it is possible to time travel back to the past. He travels back to June 8, 1939, to the New York World’s Fair and meets a woman named Carmen (played by O'Hara), with whom he falls in love.
More...
https://playbill.com/article/tom-hanks-and-kelli-ohara-to-costar-in-the-world-of-tomorrow-on-broadway
***
Tom Hanks joined Wendie Malick and Tony Shalhoub for Westport Country Playhouse's 100th playreading in its 20-year-old Script in Hand series on Monday, Oct. 5.
The sold-out event featured a reading of "Portrait of a Woman in Repose," a new play written by Nicky Glossman and directed by James Glossman. The play centers on art, memory, survival and efforts to restore what has been lost.
"For nearly a century, Westport Country Playhouse has welcomed legendary performers to our historic theatre, and we're enormously proud to continue that tradition with Tom Hanks, Wendie Malick, and Tony Shalhoub taking the stage," Mark Shanahan, the Playhouse's artistic director, said ahead of the event.
More...
https://patch.com/connecticut/westport/2-time-oscar-winner-tom-hanks-performs-script-hand-playreading-westport
***
For this production, Daniel Sullivan has taken the two Henry IV plays, parts 1 & !!, and turned them into one long-ish but entertaining evening that centers on Prince Hal and Falstaff. The story revolves around the aging King IV, played by Joe Morton, beset by enemies and rebellion, and his son Hal, played by Hamish Linklater, a dissolute youth keeping the always amusing but criminal company of Falstaff. In the course of the plays, Prince Hal matures into the man who becomes King and rejects Falstaff unless he too, despite his age, grows up.
Tom Hanks, plumped up to Falstaffian proportions, with long grey hair and long beard is just having such a good time in this role as liar, rascal, manipulator, prevaricator, scoundrel and friend that the pleasure is infectious. On the evening I attended the play needed to pause for an unexpected medical emergency among the audience. Hanks came on stage as Falstaff and vamped for some 15 minutes, engaging the audience and charming all present.
More...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomteicholz/2018/06/18/tom-hanks-reigns-as-falstaff-in-shakespeare-center-henry-iv/
***
When the June 13 performance of the Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles production of Henry IV was halted due to an ill audience member, Oscar winner Tom Hanks kept the crowd entertained with a series of amusing ad-libs.
After the show had been stopped for several minutes, Hanks returned to the stage bellowing, “Get back here!… No one’s to leave!” The stage and screen star also joked, “God has decided this play needed a second intermission!… Get back here or find this sword and many a dagger placed neatly in the tires of your carriage!”
More...
https://playbill.com/article/watch-tom-hanks-impromptu-in-character-address-to-audience-during-mid-performance-halt-at-henry-iv
***
Nora Ephron’s “Lucky Guy," which has Tom Hanks making his Broadway debut at the Broadhurst Theatre, weaves together two tales during its riveting two-plus hours. First is the “messy, messy” life story of protagonist Mike McAlary, an often-respected, occasionally despised newspaper columnist who left his mark on the city’s tabloid scene in the 1980s and ’90s.
More broadly, “Lucky Guy” is about a changing industry which the late playwright, a New York Post reporter at the start of her own career, depicts with subtlety in a story that’s set across 13 years and ends just before the Internet uprooted everything. In a testosterone-heavy cast, the play’s one female supporting actress does double duty, first as a city desk reporter whose every third word has four letters, then, in scenes set years later, as an all-business, profanity-free professional whose go-ahead on one infamous New York City story leads to the proudest moment of McAlary’s career.
More...
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/broadway/review-ephron-lucky-guy/1971267/
***
There are not a lot of people who are willing to throw all their things in a car and drive across the country to Cleveland for no money, but I had nothing to lose. I had nothing to keep me anywhere. I thought the whole point of being 18 or 19 years old was to throw your stuff in the back of the car and go somewhere.
Vincent Dowling said something that I thought was amazing as soon as it came out of his mouth: “Work in the theater is more fun than fun.” I had never heard it put so succinctly. I thought, Well, that’s what I think.
I had no concept. I had never been across the Sierra Nevada, and growing up around San Francisco and Northern California ... it ain’t Ohio.
I had never seen so many stone and brick houses. Old streets, old-fashioned stoplights. I had never seen those funky domed fire hydrants, 3.2 beer, stores that closed on Sundays. I didn’t know any of these things.
I first went to the theater because I was taking theater classes, mostly for fun, in junior college, and a couple of them required us to go. I was hoping to simply stay awake, and instead, what happened was that I was enthralled.
More...
https://clevelandmagazine.com/articles/life-according-to-tom-hanks/
There are not a lot of people who are willing to throw all their things in a car and drive across the country to Cleveland for no money, but I had nothing to lose. I had nothing to keep me anywhere. I thought the whole point of being 18 or 19 years old was to throw your stuff in the back of the car and go somewhere.
Vincent Dowling said something that I thought was amazing as soon as it came out of his mouth: “Work in the theater is more fun than fun.” I had never heard it put so succinctly. I thought, Well, that’s what I think.
I had no concept. I had never been across the Sierra Nevada, and growing up around San Francisco and Northern California ... it ain’t Ohio.
I had never seen so many stone and brick houses. Old streets, old-fashioned stoplights. I had never seen those funky domed fire hydrants, 3.2 beer, stores that closed on Sundays. I didn’t know any of these things.
I first went to the theater because I was taking theater classes, mostly for fun, in junior college, and a couple of them required us to go. I was hoping to simply stay awake, and instead, what happened was that I was enthralled.
More...
https://clevelandmagazine.com/articles/life-according-to-tom-hanks/
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