NYCPlaywrights January 17, 2026
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NYCPlaywrights
Jan 17, 2026, 5:00:36 PM (12 days ago) Jan 17
to NYCPlaywrights
Greetings NYCPlaywrights
*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
BEAUTIFUL STRANGERS: AN EVENING OF SHORT PLAYS
Laugh, think, and connect over three short plays that prove strangers aren’t so strange after all! Beautiful Strangers is an evening of three original short plays by Lauren Flick about strangers coming together, differences softening into common ground, and the unexpected ways we connect — sometimes in places you’d least expect!
Featuring: Leslie Ellis, Ayo Haynes, Brian Patrick, Kelly Deadmon, Jack Zullo, Liz Samuel
Arrive early for a behind-the-scenes studio tour of one of Madison Avenue’s friendliest digital production agencies, Sorrentino Media, who is generously sponsoring the event.
Enjoy light bites, mix and mingle, and settle in for the performances. After the show, stay for a relaxed talkback with the actors and creatives — a chance to help shape the playwrights’ work and laugh, think, and reflect on the human moments that connect us all.
Monday, Feb 9 from 5:30 pm to 8 pm EST
Sorrentino MediaNew York, NY
232 Madison Avenue
#Suite 611 New York, NY 10016
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/beautiful-strangers-an-evening-of-short-plays-tickets-1980688547765?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
The 2026 Perlberg Festival of New Plays at Palm Beach Dramaworks is accepting submissions through May. What are we looking for?
- Comedies and Dramas (no musicals)
- Cast sizes between 2 and 5 (doubling is okay)
- Plays that really explore relationships/deeper ideas/the human condition
- Plays between 70 and 120 minutes (full-length but not epically long)
***
Six 1 Acts will be selected and produced in a black-box theatre production in Los Angeles by the Sixty-Six Theater Co. One playwright will be selected by a committee to attend a 2 week Writing Residency at the Le Studio D’Art in Paris, France.
***
Go Try Play Write
The prompt for January 2026 is: A dog whistle prompt. Write a ten-page maximum scene or an eight-page maximum monologue using the phrase, “I don’t see color.” Whether true or false, whether sincere or disingenuous, I’d argue that such a phrase masks a pre-judgement of someone based on skin color (prejudice), or a willful ignorance of systemic and historical inequities against persons of one color (racism). There are many phrases that mask prejudice and/or racist rants, diatribes, and reasonable arguments. But use, “I don’t see color,” for this prompt.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** THEATER IN MINNESOTA ***
This fall, the M State Fine Arts Department invites you to step into the potluck-powered kitchen of a rural Minnesota church with its musical comedy, “Church Basement Ladies.” Inspired by the best-selling book, “Growing Up Lutheran,” by Minnesota authors Janet Letnes Martin and Suzann Nelson, the show celebrates the unsung heroines who keep the coffee brewing and the hot dishes coming.
Set in 1964, “Church Basement Ladies” follows four spirited women as they navigate the ups and downs of church life – preparing for Christmas dinners, Easter fundraisers, weddings and funerals, all while sharing recipes, stories and plenty of laughs. Midwestern audiences will recognize their own mothers, grandmothers and neighbor ladies in these characters, whose personalities blend to create the perfect recipe for comedy and touching moments.
“This show is a love letter to the women who shaped our communities from behind the scenes,” says Director and M State Theatre Faculty Stefanie Gerhardson. “It’s funny, heartfelt and deeply familiar. Audiences will feel like they’ve just spent an evening in the church kitchen themselves.”
More...
https://www.minnesota.edu/news/church-basement-ladies-brings-heart-and-hilarity-m-states-waage-theatre
***
In reality, it’s unknown whether Dylan has read anything McPherson, including Girl From the North Country, the “Dylan musical” he encouraged McPherson to create, which will close its second run on London’s West End on March 24 after a sold-out premiere at the Old Vic. (It’s slated to play in Toronto next spring.) What we do know is that about five years ago Dylan’s manager, Jeff Rosen, contacted McPherson to see if he would be interested in using the Minnesota-born icon’s music in a theatre piece. It was a dream opportunity, but at first McPherson just couldn’t see Bob Dylan, more grit than glitz, as musical-theatre material.
But the idea simmered and, in a vision inspired by previous visits to Minnesota, McPherson conjured a guesthouse in Duluth, Minn., in the winter of 1934, halfway through the Great Depression, and the very year Robert Zimmerman’s parents wed. This backdrop may predate Dylan’s biography (he was born in 1941), but it runs in his blood. Liberated from any biographical trappings surrounding the “voice of a generation” and the genre he helped to create, it would not be a musical proper but “a play with music.”
More...
https://www.americantheatre.org/2018/03/15/girl-from-the-north-country-how-does-it-feel/
***
Like Closer, Wright's play shows four characters— in this case, two married couples living in small town Minnesota: the choral teacher Cathy (Amanda Grove) and her pharmacist husband David (Damon Bonetti) and housewife Beth (Janice Rowland) and her video-store owner husband Brad (Chris Fluck). Cathy opens the play by reciting a lengthy "honey-do" list of chores, clearly displaying the doldrums of married life but ending on a note of sincere joy at her marriage when she writes, "I love you and feel proud to be your wife."
Meanwhile, Beth lies in a bed with David, dreaming that "the world out there has disappeared" as she struggles to consummate their romantic friendship. After three years of making out in bathrooms at parties, she's slowly realizing that "We're married to the wrong people." When she asks, "Is real love possible?" David replies, "When I'm with you I feel alive." But in either case, he admits, he's "totally out of touch with reality."
More...
https://www.broadstreetreview.com/articles/luna-theatre-orange-flower-water
***
For six decades, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has occupied a myriad of cultural “centers”: a historic center of the regional theatre movement, an artistic center for professional theatre in the Midwest, and an erudite center for European “classics” (Shakespeare, the Greeks, Moliere, etc.). Indeed, I came of age on a fertile shelf of wind-swept prairie called North Dakota, nowhere near my perceived center of anything. Word on the plains was that if you wanted to witness Shakespeare done well, you must make the five-hundred-mile journey to the Guthrie Theater. In my first year of college, I witnessed a brilliant, anachronistic production of Hamlet directed by Garland Wright on that original, iconic thrust stage. An eight-hour drive to the center changed my life. From that day forward, I recognized my vocation in the theatre.
More...
https://howlround.com/indigenous-theatre-reclaims-center-minneapoliss-guthrie-theater
***
For 46 years, Playwrights’ Center — the artistic launching pad of some of the nation’s most acclaimed playwrights — operated out of a former church building in Minneapolis’ Seward neighborhood. But playwriting is a team sport, and the Center was bursting at its rafters.
“It came to the point where we had to start saying no to things because we didn’t have the space to say yes,” said Robert Chelimsky, the Center’s executive director.
Today, PWC finally has the space.
The interior of the Playwrights’ Center’s new space in St. Paul, Minn. Credit: Sheila Regan
At a grand opening celebration on September 20, visitors toured its new building — double the size of its old — in St. Paul’s Creative Enterprise Zone, a city-designated arts hub along University Ave., bordering Minneapolis.
In a space reclaimed from two vacant industrial buildings, performers offered what Producing Artistic Director Nicole Watson called “artistic amuse-bouche,” short snippets of scenes in development by the Center’s playwrights. In a scene from JuCoby Johnson’s “Help! Help! Want. Want. Want.” a mysterious repairman visited a woman getting high in the woods. Another featured an upbeat musical number — sung by a fish — from Tim Lord and Avi Amon’s “Through the Sunken Lands.”
More...
https://www.minnpost.com/artscape/2025/09/this-twin-cities-stage-for-aspiring-playwrights-just-got-a-lot-bigger/
***
Purple sequins. Purple blazers. Purple berets. In Minnesota, such a flourish of purple can only mean one of two things: a Minnesota Vikings football game, or a gathering of fans of one of the state’s most beloved sons: Prince.
“What else could I wear?” said Marie Finley, 27, whose lilac-purple dress was figured with gold shapes that she joked were raindrops, “at least for tonight.”
It was the perfect outfit for the show’s first preview last Thursday night of the new musical “Purple Rain,” a stage adaptation of Prince’s 1984 cult-classic film and the album of the same name. (The show, whose opening night is set for Nov. 5, is scheduled to run through Nov. 23.)
There was no better place to premiere “Purple Rain” than in the musician’s hometown, Minneapolis, where he was a visible member of the community and remains a revered figure. He died unexpectedly in 2016 at the age of 57.
More...
https://archive.ph/OEh2N
***
Quote of the Day: Gender is our place in the world. Character named Mandy, or Randall, in Lee Blessings’ newest play, Minneapolis/St. Paul. The Twin Cities Theater Bloggers were invited to a reading of his latest work, and a discussion with the playwright afterwards. The rest of the line goes like this You’re expected to like this. You’re reliable for that. Timely theme, don’t you think? And, the title refers to the twin cities in Minnesota that are separated by the Mississippi River. Some people don’t cross the river. St. Paul folks like St. Paul and complain about the driving and parking, crime, etc. in Minneapolis. Minneapolis folks stick to their side of the river and have similar complaints about their neighboring city. It’s kind of like the Chevy/Ford debate, or the iphone/android preference (the kids will understand this one better).
More...
https://playoffthepage.com/2016/05/meeting-lee-blessing-at-the-playwrights-center/
*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
BEAUTIFUL STRANGERS: AN EVENING OF SHORT PLAYS
Laugh, think, and connect over three short plays that prove strangers aren’t so strange after all! Beautiful Strangers is an evening of three original short plays by Lauren Flick about strangers coming together, differences softening into common ground, and the unexpected ways we connect — sometimes in places you’d least expect!
Featuring: Leslie Ellis, Ayo Haynes, Brian Patrick, Kelly Deadmon, Jack Zullo, Liz Samuel
Arrive early for a behind-the-scenes studio tour of one of Madison Avenue’s friendliest digital production agencies, Sorrentino Media, who is generously sponsoring the event.
Enjoy light bites, mix and mingle, and settle in for the performances. After the show, stay for a relaxed talkback with the actors and creatives — a chance to help shape the playwrights’ work and laugh, think, and reflect on the human moments that connect us all.
Monday, Feb 9 from 5:30 pm to 8 pm EST
Sorrentino MediaNew York, NY
232 Madison Avenue
#Suite 611 New York, NY 10016
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/beautiful-strangers-an-evening-of-short-plays-tickets-1980688547765?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
The 2026 Perlberg Festival of New Plays at Palm Beach Dramaworks is accepting submissions through May. What are we looking for?
- Comedies and Dramas (no musicals)
- Cast sizes between 2 and 5 (doubling is okay)
- Plays that really explore relationships/deeper ideas/the human condition
- Plays between 70 and 120 minutes (full-length but not epically long)
***
Six 1 Acts will be selected and produced in a black-box theatre production in Los Angeles by the Sixty-Six Theater Co. One playwright will be selected by a committee to attend a 2 week Writing Residency at the Le Studio D’Art in Paris, France.
***
Go Try Play Write
The prompt for January 2026 is: A dog whistle prompt. Write a ten-page maximum scene or an eight-page maximum monologue using the phrase, “I don’t see color.” Whether true or false, whether sincere or disingenuous, I’d argue that such a phrase masks a pre-judgement of someone based on skin color (prejudice), or a willful ignorance of systemic and historical inequities against persons of one color (racism). There are many phrases that mask prejudice and/or racist rants, diatribes, and reasonable arguments. But use, “I don’t see color,” for this prompt.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** THEATER IN MINNESOTA ***
This fall, the M State Fine Arts Department invites you to step into the potluck-powered kitchen of a rural Minnesota church with its musical comedy, “Church Basement Ladies.” Inspired by the best-selling book, “Growing Up Lutheran,” by Minnesota authors Janet Letnes Martin and Suzann Nelson, the show celebrates the unsung heroines who keep the coffee brewing and the hot dishes coming.
Set in 1964, “Church Basement Ladies” follows four spirited women as they navigate the ups and downs of church life – preparing for Christmas dinners, Easter fundraisers, weddings and funerals, all while sharing recipes, stories and plenty of laughs. Midwestern audiences will recognize their own mothers, grandmothers and neighbor ladies in these characters, whose personalities blend to create the perfect recipe for comedy and touching moments.
“This show is a love letter to the women who shaped our communities from behind the scenes,” says Director and M State Theatre Faculty Stefanie Gerhardson. “It’s funny, heartfelt and deeply familiar. Audiences will feel like they’ve just spent an evening in the church kitchen themselves.”
More...
https://www.minnesota.edu/news/church-basement-ladies-brings-heart-and-hilarity-m-states-waage-theatre
***
In reality, it’s unknown whether Dylan has read anything McPherson, including Girl From the North Country, the “Dylan musical” he encouraged McPherson to create, which will close its second run on London’s West End on March 24 after a sold-out premiere at the Old Vic. (It’s slated to play in Toronto next spring.) What we do know is that about five years ago Dylan’s manager, Jeff Rosen, contacted McPherson to see if he would be interested in using the Minnesota-born icon’s music in a theatre piece. It was a dream opportunity, but at first McPherson just couldn’t see Bob Dylan, more grit than glitz, as musical-theatre material.
But the idea simmered and, in a vision inspired by previous visits to Minnesota, McPherson conjured a guesthouse in Duluth, Minn., in the winter of 1934, halfway through the Great Depression, and the very year Robert Zimmerman’s parents wed. This backdrop may predate Dylan’s biography (he was born in 1941), but it runs in his blood. Liberated from any biographical trappings surrounding the “voice of a generation” and the genre he helped to create, it would not be a musical proper but “a play with music.”
More...
https://www.americantheatre.org/2018/03/15/girl-from-the-north-country-how-does-it-feel/
***
Like Closer, Wright's play shows four characters— in this case, two married couples living in small town Minnesota: the choral teacher Cathy (Amanda Grove) and her pharmacist husband David (Damon Bonetti) and housewife Beth (Janice Rowland) and her video-store owner husband Brad (Chris Fluck). Cathy opens the play by reciting a lengthy "honey-do" list of chores, clearly displaying the doldrums of married life but ending on a note of sincere joy at her marriage when she writes, "I love you and feel proud to be your wife."
Meanwhile, Beth lies in a bed with David, dreaming that "the world out there has disappeared" as she struggles to consummate their romantic friendship. After three years of making out in bathrooms at parties, she's slowly realizing that "We're married to the wrong people." When she asks, "Is real love possible?" David replies, "When I'm with you I feel alive." But in either case, he admits, he's "totally out of touch with reality."
More...
https://www.broadstreetreview.com/articles/luna-theatre-orange-flower-water
***
For six decades, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, Minnesota, has occupied a myriad of cultural “centers”: a historic center of the regional theatre movement, an artistic center for professional theatre in the Midwest, and an erudite center for European “classics” (Shakespeare, the Greeks, Moliere, etc.). Indeed, I came of age on a fertile shelf of wind-swept prairie called North Dakota, nowhere near my perceived center of anything. Word on the plains was that if you wanted to witness Shakespeare done well, you must make the five-hundred-mile journey to the Guthrie Theater. In my first year of college, I witnessed a brilliant, anachronistic production of Hamlet directed by Garland Wright on that original, iconic thrust stage. An eight-hour drive to the center changed my life. From that day forward, I recognized my vocation in the theatre.
More...
https://howlround.com/indigenous-theatre-reclaims-center-minneapoliss-guthrie-theater
***
For 46 years, Playwrights’ Center — the artistic launching pad of some of the nation’s most acclaimed playwrights — operated out of a former church building in Minneapolis’ Seward neighborhood. But playwriting is a team sport, and the Center was bursting at its rafters.
“It came to the point where we had to start saying no to things because we didn’t have the space to say yes,” said Robert Chelimsky, the Center’s executive director.
Today, PWC finally has the space.
The interior of the Playwrights’ Center’s new space in St. Paul, Minn. Credit: Sheila Regan
At a grand opening celebration on September 20, visitors toured its new building — double the size of its old — in St. Paul’s Creative Enterprise Zone, a city-designated arts hub along University Ave., bordering Minneapolis.
In a space reclaimed from two vacant industrial buildings, performers offered what Producing Artistic Director Nicole Watson called “artistic amuse-bouche,” short snippets of scenes in development by the Center’s playwrights. In a scene from JuCoby Johnson’s “Help! Help! Want. Want. Want.” a mysterious repairman visited a woman getting high in the woods. Another featured an upbeat musical number — sung by a fish — from Tim Lord and Avi Amon’s “Through the Sunken Lands.”
More...
https://www.minnpost.com/artscape/2025/09/this-twin-cities-stage-for-aspiring-playwrights-just-got-a-lot-bigger/
***
Purple sequins. Purple blazers. Purple berets. In Minnesota, such a flourish of purple can only mean one of two things: a Minnesota Vikings football game, or a gathering of fans of one of the state’s most beloved sons: Prince.
“What else could I wear?” said Marie Finley, 27, whose lilac-purple dress was figured with gold shapes that she joked were raindrops, “at least for tonight.”
It was the perfect outfit for the show’s first preview last Thursday night of the new musical “Purple Rain,” a stage adaptation of Prince’s 1984 cult-classic film and the album of the same name. (The show, whose opening night is set for Nov. 5, is scheduled to run through Nov. 23.)
There was no better place to premiere “Purple Rain” than in the musician’s hometown, Minneapolis, where he was a visible member of the community and remains a revered figure. He died unexpectedly in 2016 at the age of 57.
More...
https://archive.ph/OEh2N
***
Quote of the Day: Gender is our place in the world. Character named Mandy, or Randall, in Lee Blessings’ newest play, Minneapolis/St. Paul. The Twin Cities Theater Bloggers were invited to a reading of his latest work, and a discussion with the playwright afterwards. The rest of the line goes like this You’re expected to like this. You’re reliable for that. Timely theme, don’t you think? And, the title refers to the twin cities in Minnesota that are separated by the Mississippi River. Some people don’t cross the river. St. Paul folks like St. Paul and complain about the driving and parking, crime, etc. in Minneapolis. Minneapolis folks stick to their side of the river and have similar complaints about their neighboring city. It’s kind of like the Chevy/Ford debate, or the iphone/android preference (the kids will understand this one better).
More...
https://playoffthepage.com/2016/05/meeting-lee-blessing-at-the-playwrights-center/
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