NYCPlaywrights March 27, 2021

Greetings NYCPlaywrights

*** FREE THEATER ONLINE ***

VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE

NOW STREAMING THROUGH APRIL 11, 2021

USE CODE VANYAFREE TO STREAM FREE

This Tony® Award-winning Best Play (2013) takes 3 mismatched siblings (played to the hilt by Kristine Nielsen, David Hyde Pierce and Sigourney Weaver), adds 1 boy toy (Billy Magnussen), throws in themes from Chekhov, pours it all into a blender and mixes it up. The result? An utterly hilarious, touching work by master of comedy, Christopher Durang.

(After you register they will send you an email with a link to watch the show.)

*** DRAMATISTS GUILD END OF PLAY ***

End of Play.  is an annual initiative, created by the Dramatists Guild, to incentivize the completion of new plays, scores or songs over the period of one month. Starting with a successful launch in 2020, hundreds of participating dramatic writers across the world connected with one another to overcome obstacles that stand in the way of writing the first draft of new plays.

Each year, writers set goals for themselves at the beginning of End of Play.TM Month and post weekly updates about how they are doing to the community. Goals may include writing a new full-length play/musical, two one-act plays/musicals, or completing a second draft of any of the above. Ultimately, the goal of End of Play.TM  is to get writers to the finish line through motivation and community.  

How to Participate

Interested in taking part? The next round of End of Play.™ will take place in the month of April 2021 (pens up April 1, pens down April 30). Sign up using the registration form...

More info...

*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

Egg & Spoon’s 2021 Incubation Series provides developmental support for three BIPoC writers’ full-length plays over the summer of 2021. This expands previous Egg & Spoon programming by facilitating fifteen-hour workshops for playwrights. This program reflects our passion for developing new plays, and our commitment to building a more equitable and vibrant future for the American theatre.

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2021 One Act Play Festival (OAPF) Presented by Artists’ Exchange

Plays should be original, short one act plays 10-15 minutes long (ideal length 10 minutes; no longer than 20 minutes maximum will be considered). Previously produced plays acceptable. Seeking Short Plays: Comedic, absurd, dramatic, satirical, farcical, musical, etc. are all welcome for review. Works for actors of all ages (children thru seniors) and abilities are strongly encouraged. Selected plays will be performed outdoors by Artists’ Exchange in Cranston, Rhode Island in late June 2021

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Sullivan County Dramatic Workshop seeks 10 minute plays to be presented at the Rivoli Theatre1 May 7 through May 16, 2021. In the event that theatres are not allowed to open due to New York State covid restrictions, SCDW will present these plays in a virtual format. All plays chosen must meet the following requirements:

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

*** THE DARK LADY ***

It remains one of the great mysteries of English literature. Who, exactly, was the “Dark Lady” of Shakespeare’s Sonnets? Did she even exist? And, if so, who was this tantalising woman with “raven” brows and black hair to whom Shakespeare addressed a string of overtly passionate and sometimes explicit poems? Scholars have debated the issue for decades — potential candidates include Aline Florio, wife to a translator, Mary Fitton, a lady-in-waiting, and “Black Luce”, a brothel-owner.

But for many, the chief contender is Emilia Bassano, an accomplished poet and musician, whom historian A.L. Rowse identified as the elusive Dark Lady in 1973. She has been the occasional subject of novels and dramas as well as academic studies; now, a new play at Shakespeare’s Globe aims to coax Emilia out of the wings of history and on to centre stage at the very theatre dedicated to the bard.

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The mysterious "Dark Lady" of Shakespeare's sonnets has long fascinated readers, with debate raging about her true identity. Now new research adds weight to the theory that the sexually voracious object of the poet's desire was an infamous London prostitute.

A Shakespeare scholar claims to have found evidence supporting a suggestion made in the 1930s that she was a madam called "Lucy Negro" or "Black Luce", who ran a notorious bawdy house in Clerkenwell.

Dr Duncan Salkeld, reader in Shakespeare studies at the University of Chichester, told The Independent that he has unearthed documentary records that lead him to conclude that she is "the foremost candidate for the dubious role of the Dark Lady".

Many of the sonnets 127 to 152 are addressed to an unidentified woman – the "Dark Lady" – with whom the Bard imagines an adulterous sexual relationship. She is a temptress, in sonnet 144 – "my female evil" and "my bad angel".

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When Caroline Randall Williams’s book of poetry “Lucy Negro, Redux” was published in 2015, she hoped its words would transcend the pages on which they were printed. But she said she never imagined that the book would be turned into a ballet.

Paul Vasterling, the artistic director at Nashville Ballet, based in the Tennessee city that is also Ms. Williams’s hometown, read the book in 2016 and knew immediately that he wanted to adapt it for the stage. “The images the book pulled up for me are very dancelike,” Mr. Vasterling said. “Poetry is close to dance because it’s open to interpretation, and you bring yourself to it.”

“Lucy Negro, Redux” tells the story of a slice of Shakespeare’s love life from the perspective of the so-called Dark Lady for whom many of his sonnets were written. Some scholars and readers, including Ms. Williams, believe that the Dark Lady was Dark Luce or Lucy Negro — not just a woman with dark eyes and hair, but a black woman who owned a brothel in London.

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When one hears mention of the Bard of Avon, one undoubtedly summons to mind images of a bearded man with a fluffy collar and balding head reciting the lines of his prose to a stunned crowd. Upon mention of his works, the mind conjures thoughts of his wonderful dramas and of his lyrical and beautiful sonnets. It is not often, then, that upon hearing the name “Shakespeare” one thinks of sexually provocative literature or the controversy which usually follows it. Upon deeper examination of his works, looking past the outward beauty of his prose, one can indeed often find sexual themes. The Dark Lady series of sonnets, however, require no deep examination to be seen as sexual. These final 28 Sonnets, detailing Shakespeare’s passionate and rather risqué affair with an unnamed woman, have been famously characterized as “bawdy” and “carnal” by many readers. The poems often feature extremely raunchy and suggestive themes, rather directly or indirectly, and give the reader a sense of the almost physical drive behind Shakespeare’s pen and his… nobler part. Despite their openly sexual nature, however, they are still timelessly beautiful in the eyes of many people. Shakespeare’s confidence as a poet was certainly not shaken even when writing such overtly sexual content.

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Emilia Bassano is just one of the many candidates proposed to have been Shakespeare's Dark Lady, to whom a couple of dozen of his sonnets are written. Here are some of the others:

Mary Fitton (Thomas Taylor 1890, Bernard Shaw 1909)

1578-1647, a maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth the First, Mary Fitton certainly had an eventful sex life, giving birth to the illegitimate son of William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke and three other illegitimate children before marrying the father of the last, a son. In the late 19th and early twentieth century Mary was a top choice as Dark Lady, since Herbert was prime candidate for "Mr W. H." the dedicatee of the sonnets.

The theory was scuppered, according to Stanley Wells and Paul Edmondson in their book Shakespeare's Sonnets (2004): "her star waned when she was discovered to have been fair." I don't know, she doesn't look very fair in her portrait above, painted in about 1595.

George Bernard Shaw wrote a play called The Dark Lady of Shakespeare's Sonnets, with Mary Fitton as the woman in question. However, there is no evidence that Mary Fitton knew Shakespeare.

Jane Davenant 

Jane was the wife of an Oxford innkeeper, at whose inn, the Crown, Shakespeare sometimes stayed en route between London and Stratford. There was a rumour that Shakespeare stood as godfather to Jane's son, William. And more than a rumour - a claim made by the man himself - that William was in fact Shakespeare's son, born in 1606. The claim was also made by Arthur Acheson in his book Mistress Davenant:the Dark Lady of Shakespeare's Sonnets (1913). And it is true that the Earl of Southampton had also stayed at the same inn and would have met Jane.

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Last month I described Shakespeare’s love, lust and ultimate dislike of the Dark Lady. So who was this sultry young woman? Several candidates have been suggested, including the idea that she did not exist at all, in other words that the entire sonnet sequence is no more than a literary exercise.

The likely lady is Emilia Lanier, an intelligent and dark-complexioned woman who was herself a minor poet. She was the orphan daughter of Baptist Bassano, one of the Queen’s Italian musicians, brought up in an aristocratic atmosphere by Susan Bertie, Countess of Kent. Emilia was five years younger than Shakespeare, and four years older than Shakespeare’s patron, the Earl of Southampton – just the right age to be the mistress of one and seductress of the other. For a while she was also the mistress of the Queen’s cousin, who was forty-three years her senior. When Emilia became pregnant, it was arranged that she be married to Alfonso Lanier, another Italian musician. Members of the Bassano musical family accompanied the performances of Shakespeare’s plays in the royal palaces. They were dark-skinned Venetians, and probably had some Jewish blood. Maybe it is not a coincidence that Shakespeare wrote a play about a Jewish family in Venice, and that one of the characters is named Bassanio.

Evidently the lady was a musician. There is a tender sonnet (Sonnet 128), written before the relationship soured, picturing her sitting and playing the harpsichord. The poet envies the keys, being tickled by her fingers:

Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap/ To kiss the tender inward of thy hand;/ Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap,/ At the wood’s boldness by thee blushing stand.

Later he realizes that he is just one of her many lovers, but he is still enslaved. In his infatuation, he asks her only to cherish his name (Sonnet 136):

Then in the number let me pass untold,/ Though in thy store’s account I one must be;/ For nothing hold me, so it please thee hold/ That nothing me, a something sweet to thee./ Make but my name thy love, and love that still,/ And then thou lovest me, for my name is Will.

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The video of the spirited three-way debate on “Who is the Dark Lady of Shakespeare’s Sonnets?” at the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship’s annual conference, is now online. Hank Whittemore argued in favor of Queen Elizabeth; John Hamill argued for Penelope Rich; and Katherine Chiljan argued for Anne Vavasour. The debate took place on October 13, 2018 in Oakland, California and was introduced by Earl Showerman and moderated by Jeff Falzone.