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NYCPlaywrights January 18, 2025
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NYCPlaywrights
Jan 18, 2025, 5:12:29 PMJan 18
to NYCPlaywrights
Greetings NYCPlaywrights
*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
Between the Acts with New York Theatre Ballet
Join New York Theatre Ballet for a free, informal workshop about all things dance! This program is perfect for ages 12+ and is welcoming and accessible to all, no dance experience is required.
New York Theatre Ballet's Between the Acts (BTA) program is designed to build multigenerational new-to-dance audiences through free and informal talks, workshops, and performances hosted in public “third spaces.” BTA events serve as an accessible initial touchpoint to dance, designed to strip down the “insider” language and often “elitist” perception of classical ballet to make someone feel welcome in a theater.
Sundays, February 9 - March 2 | 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Free | 14Y, 1st Floor Studio
344 East 14th Street New York, NY 10003
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/between-the-acts-with-new-york-theatre-ballet-tickets-1115783712119?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
*** AGENCY OF THE LOST BY SERENA NORR ***
Is this world too much? Can't figure out the order or even what you want? Simply leave and start again in the lost dimension. Get lost with us when "Agency of the Lost" by Serena Norr runs from 1/28-2/1 atThe Tank! Limited run!
https://thetanknyc.org/calendar-1/2024/1/28/agency-for-the-lost
*** RESISTING FASCISM ****
The judges have spoken - on Sunday January 19 we will announce the three finalist pieces for our RESISTING FASCISM project. Excerpts from all finalist and semi-finalist pieces will be posted throughout the next month, one piece per day, on NYCPlaywrights.org. Congratulations to all!
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
Please consider submitting your full-length play for high schoolers on the theme of Difficult Choices. Three winners will be selected for an opportunity to have their submitted play published in the Gitelman & Good Publishers permanent catalog.
***
The Gulfport Community Players is accepting submissions for the Summer 2025 One-Acts. Established in July 2000, the Summer One-Acts is the longest-running one-act competition in the Tampa Bay Area. We accept submissions from authors who reside in the United States of America.
***
PLAYWRIGHTS’ REVOLUTION 2025 seeks plays that are aligned with Capital Stage’s mission to bring cutting-edge and thought-provoking plays to our community, constantly pursuing an artistic vision that explores the very core of what it means to be human.
Plays must be full-length in any genre: comedy, drama, etc.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** CANADIAN PLAYWRIGHTS ***
Michel Tremblay’s 1965 Les Belles-Soeurs was the first play to feature joual (the Quebecois dialect). Tremblay explained during a 2018 interview, “I wanted to try to put on the page as precisely what I heard when I was young… Well, it was the 70’s so we were trying things. We were experimenting…” (Michel Tremblay on His Play Hosanna, Quebec and Separation) He has managed to elevate and immortalize this regional aspect of Canada onto a theatre stage. This play also shown how middle-aged women had expertise in slang and are integrated into the regional nuances of the province, even while staying ingrained in the domestic sphere. Their dialect shows their engagement with the geographical, cultural, and societal structures all around them. The bursting energy of language and quick quips work as a parallel to the women’s engagement with the stamps/plotline throughout this play. Even while Les Belles-Soeurs was written in French, the “parapolitical role” of Anglophone British cultural and political supremacy permeates throughout these different dialects of Canada (Janes). French has an official academy to rule over the language, and yet the people still breathe their own spin into every spoken word. Cree and Ojibway languages were suppressed by residential schools, but people refused to allow their heritages to die.
More...
https://convivialthinking.org/index.php/2023/01/13/decolonizing-dialects-and-languages/
***
Judith Thompson interview 2015
Canadians are known for being polite. Your work is not polite. What or who would you say supported the formation your raw, unapologetic voice?
I have always been compelled to tell the truth. The emperor really has no clothes.
What are the unique struggles you’ve faced as a woman in your field? Many pretend that discrimination doesn’t exist, because it’s an uncomfortable discussion, but it’s a very real issue – isn’t it?
When I wrote a lot for film the verbal harassment was constant – male producers would just bring up sex for no reason, i.e. “My last girlfriend wouldn’t swallow... what is with that?” or “how often do you have sex?” I answered with such hostility they would stop. In theatre I haven’t noticed too much, though there is a condescending attitude from some male artistic directors.
I feel many theatre artists are afraid to get political in their work, for fear of making the ever dreaded “soap-box theatre,” but you’re not afraid of going there. For example, Rare very forwardly made the case for not aborting Down’s Syndrome bearing fetuses, and it was very powerful. What do you have to say to artists who want to have strong messages but are worried about being pigeon holed as “political”?
I never have a message. I try only to ask questions that lead to more questions. I try to be authentic. In the case of Rare, I asked the cast what they thought of the reality that 95% of parents choose to terminate when they learn their child will have Down’s Syndrome. Nick said, “That’s discrimination, that’s wrong, that’s against our right to be who we are... we’re unique, we’re rare...” I wouldn’t dream of silencing him.
How does a playwright start getting their work out there? What was your journey like, from an anonymous face to one of the faces of Canadian theatre?
I started with a teacher from NTS who knew people in the theatre, and showed my play around. Otherwise, the best way is to get into the emerging playwrights’ groups that every theatre offers.
More...
https://nineteenquestions.com/2015/08/12/judith-thompson/
***
Djanet Sears is raising the curtain on Black dramatic literature.
Sears, an assistant professor, teaching stream and an award-winning playwright and director, recently finished teaching Black Playwrights: Resistance, Resilience and Transformation — a fourth-year seminar at the Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies that’s cross listed with the Black Canadian Studies Certificate and part of the Canadian Studies program administered by University College.
The course explored dramatic literature by writers from the African diaspora in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and the Caribbean from 1959 to the present.
“I left various schools, never having read a play by a Black playwright,” says Sears, reflecting on her own education.
The course was designed to enhance the students’ knowledge and understanding of dramatic writing and broaden traditional answers to the question of which people create literature for the stage.
“We get into the nitty gritty,” says Sears. “We analyze texts, using those critical thinking skills that they've acquired, because this is a fourth-year seminar, and we're applying theory to practice — how might a director (or designer) analyze a script, lead a team, and transform an intellectual concept into a three-dimensional visual narrative and performance vision?
“I encourage the students to look at plays from the perspective of a director, costume designer, sound designer, video projection designer, or set designer, so that they can employ a perspective from which to dig for deeper meaning and identify the layers of thematic ideas and motifs.”
More...
https://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/news/playwright-djanet-sears-puts-black-dramatists-centre-stage
***
From nearly the very start of his career as a playwright in 1981, Michel Marc Bouchard’s dramatic work has probed ideas about what it means to be a queer individual both within Québécois society and the world at large. Born in small-town Quebec, Bouchard went on to study theatre at the University of Ottawa, and secured his place in the national theatre pantheon with Les Feluettes, a coming-of-age romance between two young men presented through a play within a play that recalls a past atrocity. (It was later turned into an award-winning film adaptation, Lilies, directed by John Greyson.) A number of Bouchard’s other works have received movie renditions, including Les Muses orphelines and Tom at the Farm, the latter of which Xavier Dolan brought to the big screen in 2013.
More...
https://www.cbc.ca/artsprojects/superqueeroes/michel-marc-bouchard
***
Playwright George Boyd said he wanted to rescue George Dixon from obscurity when he penned his debut play Shine Boy.
Dixon, the first Black world champion in boxing history, was born July 29, 1870, in Africville, N.S., and died in New York City on Jan. 6, 1906.
Standing five feet three inches and fighting at weights between 87 and 120 pounds, Dixon was the first Canadian to win a world championship.
He was also the first Black boxer to win championships in multiple weight classes: bantamweight, featherweight and paperweight.
George Boyd speaks about his play "Shine Boy"
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/george-boyd-george-dixon-shine-boys-boxer-playwright-interview-archive-1.5920038
***
Tomson Highway has never been one to be confined by expectations. The 70-year-old Cree author, playwright, pianist and songwriter is best known for his comedic plays and genre-spanning books which explore the residential school system, life on reserve and Indigenous culture. In May, Highway received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement.
Highway is set to travel across Canada this month to deliver his CBC Massey Lectures, Laughing with the Trickster: On Sex, Death and Accordions. Comparing Christian, ancient Greek and Indigenous mythologies, the lectures delve into the five themes of language, creation, sex and gender, humour, and death. Laughing with the Trickster will be released as a book on Sept. 27 and lectures will be broadcast on CBC Radio’s IDEAS beginning in November. Highway spoke to Tobin Ng.
Tobin Ng: What does it mean for you to be delivering the Massey Lectures?
Tomson Highway: I looked at the list of people who have done the Massey Lectures in the past, and I respect and admire their intelligence. To be added to the list is a great honour — that means that somebody thinks I’m smart. All these years I thought I was stupid, but that’s not the case!
TN: One thing you were very intentional about was weaving Cree words into your lectures. Why was that important to you?
TH: It’s my native tongue. Over the past few years, English has become my third language. I’m not comfortable with the language — it doesn’t work for me, the way my brain works. Cree is the language that I’m most familiar with.
See how I’m talking very seriously right now? If we were talking in Cree, we would be laughing from the very first syllable. It’s a laughing language, it’s a joyful language — and my favourite activity in the world is to laugh.
More...
https://broadview.org/tomson-highway-interview/
***
« Dans une identité, il y a plusieurs couches, il y a des identités. Quand j'ai envie de me définir, celle qui me tient le plus à cœur est l'identité franco-ontarienne. » Le célèbre dramaturge Jean Marc Dalpé parle fièrement de ses origines pendant un entretien d'une heure avec Marie-Louise Arsenault. Il réagit aux politiques de Doug Ford, parle avec amour de ses parents adoptifs, raconte des anecdotes de l'époque où il jouait le clown aux côtés de Brigitte Haentjens et, bien sûr, traite de sa passion pour le théâtre.
https://ici.radio-canada.ca/ohdio/premiere/emissions/les-grands-entretiens/segments/entrevue/111902/jean-marc-dalpe-vie-biographie
(translation)
“In an identity, there are several layers, there are identities. When I want to define myself, the one that is closest to my heart is the Franco-Ontarian identity.” Renowned playwright Jean Marc Dalpé speaks proudly about his origins during an hour-long interview with Marie-Louise Arsenault. He reacts to Doug Ford’s policies, speaks lovingly of his adoptive parents, tells anecdotes from the time he played the clown alongside Brigitte Haentjens and, of course, discusses his passion for theatre.
***
A local Ontario company responsible for the now-viral hat Doug Ford wore to a meeting with Canada’s Prime Minister and premiers to discuss Donald Trump’s tariff threat says the impact of Ford promoting its product has been “totally overwhelming.” On Wednesday morning, Ford appeared in Ottawa sporting a hat with the caption “Canada is not for sale” after Trump pushed the idea of a merger with the U.S. to make Canada the 51st state.
https://globalnews.ca/news/10960957/canada-not-for-sale-doug-ford-caps/
*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***
Between the Acts with New York Theatre Ballet
Join New York Theatre Ballet for a free, informal workshop about all things dance! This program is perfect for ages 12+ and is welcoming and accessible to all, no dance experience is required.
New York Theatre Ballet's Between the Acts (BTA) program is designed to build multigenerational new-to-dance audiences through free and informal talks, workshops, and performances hosted in public “third spaces.” BTA events serve as an accessible initial touchpoint to dance, designed to strip down the “insider” language and often “elitist” perception of classical ballet to make someone feel welcome in a theater.
Sundays, February 9 - March 2 | 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM
Free | 14Y, 1st Floor Studio
344 East 14th Street New York, NY 10003
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/between-the-acts-with-new-york-theatre-ballet-tickets-1115783712119?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
*** AGENCY OF THE LOST BY SERENA NORR ***
Is this world too much? Can't figure out the order or even what you want? Simply leave and start again in the lost dimension. Get lost with us when "Agency of the Lost" by Serena Norr runs from 1/28-2/1 atThe Tank! Limited run!
https://thetanknyc.org/calendar-1/2024/1/28/agency-for-the-lost
*** RESISTING FASCISM ****
The judges have spoken - on Sunday January 19 we will announce the three finalist pieces for our RESISTING FASCISM project. Excerpts from all finalist and semi-finalist pieces will be posted throughout the next month, one piece per day, on NYCPlaywrights.org. Congratulations to all!
*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***
Please consider submitting your full-length play for high schoolers on the theme of Difficult Choices. Three winners will be selected for an opportunity to have their submitted play published in the Gitelman & Good Publishers permanent catalog.
***
The Gulfport Community Players is accepting submissions for the Summer 2025 One-Acts. Established in July 2000, the Summer One-Acts is the longest-running one-act competition in the Tampa Bay Area. We accept submissions from authors who reside in the United States of America.
***
PLAYWRIGHTS’ REVOLUTION 2025 seeks plays that are aligned with Capital Stage’s mission to bring cutting-edge and thought-provoking plays to our community, constantly pursuing an artistic vision that explores the very core of what it means to be human.
Plays must be full-length in any genre: comedy, drama, etc.
*** FOR MORE INFORMATION about these and other opportunities see the web site at https://www.nycplaywrights.org ***
*** CANADIAN PLAYWRIGHTS ***
Michel Tremblay’s 1965 Les Belles-Soeurs was the first play to feature joual (the Quebecois dialect). Tremblay explained during a 2018 interview, “I wanted to try to put on the page as precisely what I heard when I was young… Well, it was the 70’s so we were trying things. We were experimenting…” (Michel Tremblay on His Play Hosanna, Quebec and Separation) He has managed to elevate and immortalize this regional aspect of Canada onto a theatre stage. This play also shown how middle-aged women had expertise in slang and are integrated into the regional nuances of the province, even while staying ingrained in the domestic sphere. Their dialect shows their engagement with the geographical, cultural, and societal structures all around them. The bursting energy of language and quick quips work as a parallel to the women’s engagement with the stamps/plotline throughout this play. Even while Les Belles-Soeurs was written in French, the “parapolitical role” of Anglophone British cultural and political supremacy permeates throughout these different dialects of Canada (Janes). French has an official academy to rule over the language, and yet the people still breathe their own spin into every spoken word. Cree and Ojibway languages were suppressed by residential schools, but people refused to allow their heritages to die.
More...
https://convivialthinking.org/index.php/2023/01/13/decolonizing-dialects-and-languages/
***
Judith Thompson interview 2015
Canadians are known for being polite. Your work is not polite. What or who would you say supported the formation your raw, unapologetic voice?
I have always been compelled to tell the truth. The emperor really has no clothes.
What are the unique struggles you’ve faced as a woman in your field? Many pretend that discrimination doesn’t exist, because it’s an uncomfortable discussion, but it’s a very real issue – isn’t it?
When I wrote a lot for film the verbal harassment was constant – male producers would just bring up sex for no reason, i.e. “My last girlfriend wouldn’t swallow... what is with that?” or “how often do you have sex?” I answered with such hostility they would stop. In theatre I haven’t noticed too much, though there is a condescending attitude from some male artistic directors.
I feel many theatre artists are afraid to get political in their work, for fear of making the ever dreaded “soap-box theatre,” but you’re not afraid of going there. For example, Rare very forwardly made the case for not aborting Down’s Syndrome bearing fetuses, and it was very powerful. What do you have to say to artists who want to have strong messages but are worried about being pigeon holed as “political”?
I never have a message. I try only to ask questions that lead to more questions. I try to be authentic. In the case of Rare, I asked the cast what they thought of the reality that 95% of parents choose to terminate when they learn their child will have Down’s Syndrome. Nick said, “That’s discrimination, that’s wrong, that’s against our right to be who we are... we’re unique, we’re rare...” I wouldn’t dream of silencing him.
How does a playwright start getting their work out there? What was your journey like, from an anonymous face to one of the faces of Canadian theatre?
I started with a teacher from NTS who knew people in the theatre, and showed my play around. Otherwise, the best way is to get into the emerging playwrights’ groups that every theatre offers.
More...
https://nineteenquestions.com/2015/08/12/judith-thompson/
***
Djanet Sears is raising the curtain on Black dramatic literature.
Sears, an assistant professor, teaching stream and an award-winning playwright and director, recently finished teaching Black Playwrights: Resistance, Resilience and Transformation — a fourth-year seminar at the Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies that’s cross listed with the Black Canadian Studies Certificate and part of the Canadian Studies program administered by University College.
The course explored dramatic literature by writers from the African diaspora in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and the Caribbean from 1959 to the present.
“I left various schools, never having read a play by a Black playwright,” says Sears, reflecting on her own education.
The course was designed to enhance the students’ knowledge and understanding of dramatic writing and broaden traditional answers to the question of which people create literature for the stage.
“We get into the nitty gritty,” says Sears. “We analyze texts, using those critical thinking skills that they've acquired, because this is a fourth-year seminar, and we're applying theory to practice — how might a director (or designer) analyze a script, lead a team, and transform an intellectual concept into a three-dimensional visual narrative and performance vision?
“I encourage the students to look at plays from the perspective of a director, costume designer, sound designer, video projection designer, or set designer, so that they can employ a perspective from which to dig for deeper meaning and identify the layers of thematic ideas and motifs.”
More...
https://www.artsci.utoronto.ca/news/playwright-djanet-sears-puts-black-dramatists-centre-stage
***
From nearly the very start of his career as a playwright in 1981, Michel Marc Bouchard’s dramatic work has probed ideas about what it means to be a queer individual both within Québécois society and the world at large. Born in small-town Quebec, Bouchard went on to study theatre at the University of Ottawa, and secured his place in the national theatre pantheon with Les Feluettes, a coming-of-age romance between two young men presented through a play within a play that recalls a past atrocity. (It was later turned into an award-winning film adaptation, Lilies, directed by John Greyson.) A number of Bouchard’s other works have received movie renditions, including Les Muses orphelines and Tom at the Farm, the latter of which Xavier Dolan brought to the big screen in 2013.
More...
https://www.cbc.ca/artsprojects/superqueeroes/michel-marc-bouchard
***
Playwright George Boyd said he wanted to rescue George Dixon from obscurity when he penned his debut play Shine Boy.
Dixon, the first Black world champion in boxing history, was born July 29, 1870, in Africville, N.S., and died in New York City on Jan. 6, 1906.
Standing five feet three inches and fighting at weights between 87 and 120 pounds, Dixon was the first Canadian to win a world championship.
He was also the first Black boxer to win championships in multiple weight classes: bantamweight, featherweight and paperweight.
George Boyd speaks about his play "Shine Boy"
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/george-boyd-george-dixon-shine-boys-boxer-playwright-interview-archive-1.5920038
***
Tomson Highway has never been one to be confined by expectations. The 70-year-old Cree author, playwright, pianist and songwriter is best known for his comedic plays and genre-spanning books which explore the residential school system, life on reserve and Indigenous culture. In May, Highway received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement.
Highway is set to travel across Canada this month to deliver his CBC Massey Lectures, Laughing with the Trickster: On Sex, Death and Accordions. Comparing Christian, ancient Greek and Indigenous mythologies, the lectures delve into the five themes of language, creation, sex and gender, humour, and death. Laughing with the Trickster will be released as a book on Sept. 27 and lectures will be broadcast on CBC Radio’s IDEAS beginning in November. Highway spoke to Tobin Ng.
Tobin Ng: What does it mean for you to be delivering the Massey Lectures?
Tomson Highway: I looked at the list of people who have done the Massey Lectures in the past, and I respect and admire their intelligence. To be added to the list is a great honour — that means that somebody thinks I’m smart. All these years I thought I was stupid, but that’s not the case!
TN: One thing you were very intentional about was weaving Cree words into your lectures. Why was that important to you?
TH: It’s my native tongue. Over the past few years, English has become my third language. I’m not comfortable with the language — it doesn’t work for me, the way my brain works. Cree is the language that I’m most familiar with.
See how I’m talking very seriously right now? If we were talking in Cree, we would be laughing from the very first syllable. It’s a laughing language, it’s a joyful language — and my favourite activity in the world is to laugh.
More...
https://broadview.org/tomson-highway-interview/
***
« Dans une identité, il y a plusieurs couches, il y a des identités. Quand j'ai envie de me définir, celle qui me tient le plus à cœur est l'identité franco-ontarienne. » Le célèbre dramaturge Jean Marc Dalpé parle fièrement de ses origines pendant un entretien d'une heure avec Marie-Louise Arsenault. Il réagit aux politiques de Doug Ford, parle avec amour de ses parents adoptifs, raconte des anecdotes de l'époque où il jouait le clown aux côtés de Brigitte Haentjens et, bien sûr, traite de sa passion pour le théâtre.
https://ici.radio-canada.ca/ohdio/premiere/emissions/les-grands-entretiens/segments/entrevue/111902/jean-marc-dalpe-vie-biographie
(translation)
“In an identity, there are several layers, there are identities. When I want to define myself, the one that is closest to my heart is the Franco-Ontarian identity.” Renowned playwright Jean Marc Dalpé speaks proudly about his origins during an hour-long interview with Marie-Louise Arsenault. He reacts to Doug Ford’s policies, speaks lovingly of his adoptive parents, tells anecdotes from the time he played the clown alongside Brigitte Haentjens and, of course, discusses his passion for theatre.
***
A local Ontario company responsible for the now-viral hat Doug Ford wore to a meeting with Canada’s Prime Minister and premiers to discuss Donald Trump’s tariff threat says the impact of Ford promoting its product has been “totally overwhelming.” On Wednesday morning, Ford appeared in Ottawa sporting a hat with the caption “Canada is not for sale” after Trump pushed the idea of a merger with the U.S. to make Canada the 51st state.
https://globalnews.ca/news/10960957/canada-not-for-sale-doug-ford-caps/
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