NYCPlaywrights August 28, 2021

Greetings NYCPlaywrights

*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***

Shakespeare in the Park

MERRY WIVES

By William Shakespeare

Adapted by Jocelyn Bioh

Directed by Saheem Ali

Featuring Abena, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Pascale Armand, MaYaa Boateng, Phillip James Brannon, Brandon E. Burton, Joshua Echebiri, Angela Grovey, Branden Lindsay, Ebony Marshall-Oliver, Jarvis D. Matthews, Jacob Ming-Trent, Jennifer Mogbock, Julian Rozzell Jr., Kyle Scatliffe, David Ryan Smith, and Susan Kelechi Watson

We’re thrilled to return to Central Park this summer for Free Shakespeare in the Park beginning July 6 through September 18, with MERRY WIVES, a fresh and joyous adaptation by Jocelyn Bioh of Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, directed by our Associate Artistic Director and Resident Director Saheem Ali.

Set in South Harlem, amidst a vibrant and eclectic community of West African immigrants, MERRY WIVES is a New York story about tricks of the heart, performed in the heart of the City—Central Park’s magical Delacorte Theater. A raucous spinoff featuring the Bard’s most beloved comic characters, this hilarious farce tells the story of the trickster Falstaff and the wily wives who outwit him in a new celebration of Black joy, laughter, and vitality.  

Free Tickets

Due to current Health and Safety protocols, there will not be any day-of-performance, free ticket distribution lines in Central Park, in the boroughs, or at The Public's flagship on Lafayette Street.

Instead, this summer, free tickets will be distributed entirely via an advanced digital lottery hosted by our new partner, GOLDSTAR.

Day-Of-Performance Standby Tickets

On the day of each scheduled performance, a limited number of free tickets may become available beginning at 12PM (noon) until the start of the performance at 8PM. This summer, we are piloting an option to request Standby tickets via Text messaging, in order to minimize waiting in line in Central Park.

Learn more and join in.

*** PRIMARY STAGES ***

NOW ENROLLING: Fall 2021 Online Classes at Primary Stages ESPA! 

Start a First Draft, keep working on Rewriting Your Draft, learn the Tools of Dialogue, or try your hand at Dramaturgy or Screenwriting. Faculty includes CARIDAD SVICH (OBIE Winner for Lifetime Achievement), DENNIS A. ALLEN II (Writer and Director, Atlantic Theater Co, National Black Theatre), LIA ROMEO (4-time Kilroys List Writer), CRYSTAL SKILLMAN (Writer, King Kirby), and many other award-winning writers who provide practical skills and expert guidance in a collaborative atmosphere. Classes begin mid-September. Flexible, artist-friendly payment plans available. http://primarystages.org/espa/writing.

*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

The Sauk is seeking scripts to consider for production as part of SAUK SHORTS 2022.

Scripts may be original works or published works that you would like us to consider. Scripts should have a performance time no longer than 15 minutes. We are looking for comedies and dramas. Plays with roles for teens and young people are encouraged. 

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Lakeshore Players Theatre is now accepting submission of 10-minute plays for its 2021-2022 season's contest.The ten winners of the contest will be performed for our 18th Annual Festival.

• The play should be approximately ten-minutes in length.

• The play must have no more than five on-stage (speaking or non-speaking) characters.

• You may submit only one play. Please do not make more than one submission.

• The play should be in a "play format" making it easy for the readers.

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FutureFest 2022

Entry must be an original work (NO musicals or plays for children) that has not been published or produced where admission was charged prior to FutureFest 2022. Staged readings/workshop productions are not necessarily disqualifying factors.

Should your script be selected and produced as one of the six finalists, you must be available to attend, in person, the weekend festival (July 15-17, 2022) in Dayton, Ohio and participate in all events. Finalists must acknowledge the Dayton Playhouse when script is published. The winning playwright awards the Dayton Playhouse the option to produce the winning play as part of its main stage season royalty free.

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

*** DOS & DON'TS ***

Submitting Your Play: Dos and Don’ts

Artistic leaders at the Playwright Realm writers’ service organization talk about how, when, and whether to send your work for consideration.

In this conversation, edited for length and clarity, two of the leaders of the acclaimed writers’ service organization the Playwrights Realm—artistic director Katherine Kovner (she/her) and associate artistic director Alexis Williams (she/her)—offer tips for submitting plays for a wide range of opportunities.

Whether to Apply

KATHERINE KOVNER: There are a lot of opportunities out there, so it can be overwhelming just to figure out how to narrow them down. But if you don’t, you will spend too much time on applications and not enough time actually working as an artist. So the first thing is to realize that you can’t apply for everything, and that that isn’t actually what you should be doing. Figure out how to narrow it down, and that will probably change year by year.

You have to think about: What type of opportunity is this, and does it fit the needs that I have at this particular moment, for the particular projects I’m working on right now, and the particular place I am in my life? Do I just really need to get out of my apartment right now, to someplace that isn’t the four walls I’ve been looking at? Do I need emergency funding or childcare? These programs are often very specific, so make sure that it’s the type of opportunity you need before you take the time to apply.

One thing to really think about when you’re considering an application process is red flags. One of these is fees. At the Playwrights Realm, we don’t charge an application fee. My opinion is that some application fees can be justified; readers have to be paid in some form. We choose to take on that cost institutionally. A cost to the applicant sometimes makes sense, but it should be related to the cost of what’s being done to process your application. Otherwise, the program is being used as a form of revenue, and that’s a very different thing to be getting into. So keep in mind whether the fee feels proportional to what is what is being done, and to the number of people who are applying. Fees of $50 can add up if 1,000 people are applying and only three people are being selected.

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Here are some of the do’s and don’ts of dialogue:

Use the “rule of three” for important info. If the audience needs to know and remember some bit of information in order to understand what’s going on, repeat that information three times in different ways to cement it in the minds of audiences.

Characters shouldn’t, you know, talk perfectly. In life, people don’t speak perfect English when they converse. Listen to how people speak and try to recreate realistic-sounding speech patterns, flaws and all.

Avoid using clichés in dialogue. Not to “beat a dead horse,” but clichés make dialogue sound dull and uninspired.

Don’t overuse character names in dialogue. People don’t address each other by name in every sentence they speak, because it sounds silly. (Mary, you look great. Thank you, Tom. Do you want watch a movie, Mary? Yes, Tom.) Use character names in dialogue early and then sparingly.

The beginning of a line shouldn’t echo the end of the prior line. The dialogue of one character need not repeat what was said by the other.

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1. Making a song a central trope. Emerging playwrights love to make a song THEY love into a central trope. The song is deeply meaningful to the characters; the song has a connection to their past and carries some exposition (“Mom always made us sing this song on road trips before the accident”); the song lyrics are quoted out of context; the song is played or sung at a climactic moment. Apart from the obvious– that this trope is overused– there are a few problems with this technique. Often the song that the playwright loves does not fit well within the world of the play. Sometimes the rights are not available for a certain song. But most importantly, early-career playwrights choose a song because it has a certain emotional content for THEM that other people do not necessarily share.

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1. Grab the audience from the start

Don't take too long to get started into the main action of the play. Some of the plays we read had a great opening scene, but didn’t push forward the story enough through the rest of the play. Some plays we read were more like novels and used too much narration.

Radio Drama thrives on strong narratives. Whether you’re writing a tragedy, a comedy or a play to change the world, a great storyline will keep your audience listening. However, don’t make the story too complicated with too many themes, characters and plotlines, or the listener will get confused. Watch our video on How to Start Writing.

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Most blunders in Theater Etiquette are made simply because actors are not sure what is expected of them. This article will take you from rehearsals to the closing night party and give you the dos, the don’ts and the whys.

DURING REHEARSALS 

Come prepared: Learn your lines, have your script and a pencil to write down blocking. Arrive early enough to warm up & get focused prior to call time. Cover mistakes and stay in character. Listen closely and follow directions pleasantly. Avoid walking between the Director and the stage when a rehearsal is in progress.

TECH REHEARSALS

Tech week is called ‘Hell week’ because the Rehearsals are 12 hour days and often tedious. Hang in there while the crew fine-tunes cues and equipment! It can be exhausting, so YOU can HELP the process by paying attention, staying quiet and being ready & available to jump from scene to scene. The tech crew typically arrives before everyone else and leaves after everyone else. They work crazy-hard AND they make you look and sound great! SO, Give them your focus AND the respect they deserve while they are doing their jobs.

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Don’t be a perfectionist

When a playwright finishes a script, you are only fifty-per-cent done. Producing a play is a collaborative process involving actors, directors and designers (among others), as well as the writer. Rather than presenting your text and saying, ‘This is finished,’ you’ll want to leave aspects of the play up for grabs.

I have always found that you discover an awful lot about a play in rehearsal. On the first day of rehearsal, actors ask lots of questions of you because it is your play; you are the author, the creator of it. As the rehearsal process goes on, however, the actors get to know more and more about the play, because they so closely follow one character. By the end of the rehearsal process you are almost redundant – your only function is to get the drinks in at the dress rehearsal. You transfer the power to the actors. Also, no two rehearsal processes are the same. Every time you see your play produced it will be different, and you will always find new and surprising elements in the play that you didn’t see before. In other words, there is always something ambivalent and provisional in theatrical writing: nothing is ever really nailed down, and the play changes from performance to performance. The moral of this story is: if you are a perfectionist, don’t be a playwright. That is not in the job description. If you are a playwright, things are always up in the air, always changing.

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As we emerge from our extended COVID slumber and began to return to those activities we have missed so much, we have an opportunity to, as some politicians have said, come back better than before, to apply what we have learned while we were locked down in our homes.

Post-show talkbacks are events that theater artists both love and hate. Connecting with the audience and hearing their feedback is heavenly, but some of the questions and behaviors are hellish.

What can you do to keep the experience in the angelic range with the heat turned down? Try keeping in mind the following dos and don’ts.

DO...

Be polite. You may be furious with the things said in the play and the talkback is a good time to address that—but stay focused on the work, don’t be rude to the people involved.

Remember that questions are better than comments. While you may have played an extra in your middle school’s junior production of the same play, sharing those anecdotes are better saved for your friends at dinner later. 

Work up the courage to ask something about the show that you want to know. Actors appreciate it. “People stay for talkbacks because an interest has been kindled or a debate begun,” said Actor Mark Gmazel who says he has participated in at least 100 talkbacks. “We must remember it is very difficult for the general public to formulate a question and then to overcome fear and speak in front of a microphone in front of everyone. This is the highest compliment a production can receive, even above a standing ovation.”

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