playwrights

 Greetings NYCPlaywrights


*** NYCPLAYWRIGHTS 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY ***

It's the 10 Year Anniversary of NYCPlaywrights and we've asked readers to share their stories of productions, readings etc. they may have found through of our blog and weekly email.

More playwrights stories to read:

Benjamin Peel

Tom Misuraca

Rex McGregor

Tavi Juárez


*** FREE THEATER ONLINE ***

KINKY BOOTS ... smash hit musical @ London's West End ... ONLINE Free

Hosted by Belinda

Join us as we strut into the the smash hit musical, KINKY BOOTS! Starring Matt Henry and Killian Donnelly and written by the incredible duo of Cyndi Lauper and Harvey Fierstein!

Presented at the Adeplhi Theatre in London's West End.

PLEASE CLICK ON "READ MORE" OR "LEARN MORE" BELOW FOR MORE DETAILS.

We'll socialize on Zoom before and after the show. See HOW TO CONNECT BELOW.


ABOUT THE SHOW: Charlie is a factory owner struggling to save his family business. Lola is a fabulous entertainer with a wildly exciting idea. With a little compassion and a lot of understanding, this unexpected pair learns to embrace their differences and create a line of sturdy stilettos unlike any the world has ever seen.

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THIS EVENT IS FREE. THERE IS NO MEETUP FEE. Donate to these worthwhile arts causes:

UK: http://actingforothers.co.uk/
US: https://broadwaycares.org/
Australia: https://www.actorsbenevolentfund.org.au/

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HOW TO CONNECT

Sign up on this event page and join us on the day of the show.

PART 1 - PRE-SHOW GATHERING: The pre-show gathering will officially begin at 7 p.m.

PART 2 - SHOW: At 7:30 p.m. watch the show on your own device at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hExrHHLTMf8

PART 3 - AFTER-SHOW GATHERING: At 9:45 p.m. (or whenever the show ends) join us on Zoom for a discussion and social gathering.

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OVERVIEW

WHEN: Saturday, December 19, 2020

TIME: Watch the show at 7:30 p.m. Join our Zoom social gathering at 7 p.m.

SHOW LENGTH: 2 hours, 15 minutes


WHERE: At your home, Anywhere


** PRIMARY STAGES ESPA SPRING CLASSES ***

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

Start a First Draft, keep working on Rewriting Your Draft, learn techniques of Writing for Zoom, or try your hand at an Adaptation or Short Form Screenplay. Faculty includes ADAM GWON (Writer, Scotland, PA), ABE KOOGLER (Obie Winner, Fulfillment Center), MICHAEL WALKUP (Producing Artistic Director, Page 73), MELISA ANNIS (Writer, Director, Dramaturg, NYU Faculty), DANIEL TALBOTT (Writer, "The Conners"), and many other award-winning writers who provide practical skills and expert guidance in a collaborative atmosphere. 

Classes begin mid-February. Flexible, artist-friendly payment plans available. 


*** OPPORTUNITIES FOR PLAYWRIGHTS ***

To encourage the development of quality theatrical materials for the educational, community and children’s theatre markets, Pioneer Drama Service is proud to sponsor the annual Shubert Fendrich Memorial Playwriting Contest.

This is an ongoing contest, with a winner selected by June 1 each year from all eligible submissions received the previous year.  All eligible plays accepted for publication will be considered contest finalists, from which the winner will be selected.  The contest winner will receive a $1,000 royalty advance in addition to publication.

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Molecule accepts submissions of poetry, prose (fiction & non-fiction) plays, reviews and interviews in 50 words or less (including titles and interview questions). Visual artwork of tiny things like tea bags and toothpicks, or tiny paintings, also wanted: no skyscrapers please! 

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some scripts literary magazine seeks submissions for Issue 4: "Outbreak"!
Publishing twice a year, some scripts literary magazine seeks to uplift the voices of scriptwriters who have fewer opportunities than fiction, poetry, or nonfiction writers to see their work in print. We believe scripts–whether for the stage, screen, radio, or Zoom–have literary merit and deserve recognition for their writing beyond performance. We desire to be a platform to uplift the voices of new and emerging scriptwriters first and foremost before established scriptwriters.


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


*** A CHRISTMAS CAROL ***

For all his flaws, that cranky old miser Ebenezer Scrooge has been a godsend for American theaters. Through recessions and blizzards and other upheavals, he has drawn small children and big money to his redemption story in “A Christmas Carol.”

Stage adaptations of the tale, which generally run between Thanksgiving and year-end, have been a tradition and a lifeline for troupes big and small, professional and amateur. But now, after decades in which the Dickens classic has sustained them, this year theaters are sustaining Dickens.

Gone are the large-cast extravaganzas playing before cheery crowds in packed venues. Instead, theaters are using every contagion-reduction strategy they have honed during the coronavirus pandemic: outdoor stagings, drive-in productions, street theater, streaming video, radio plays and even a do-it-yourself kit sent by mail.

More...

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CHARLES DICKENS’S A CHRISTMAS CAROL, published in 1843, swiftly entered the holiday-season canon—the sort of story readers return to year after year, wherever there’s a crackling fire, a dusting of snow, and a mug of eggnog at hand. But when Dickens gave public readings from the text, the story changed a bit from one performance to another. His marked-up stage copy of the book, on view at the New York Public Library, gives readers a peek into the writer’s mind as he reworked his spirited prose.

Dickens intuited that his devoted public would get a kick out of listening to him read from the already beloved text, and he spent decades taking his A Christmas Carol act on the road. He devised different voices and styles for each character, so Tiny Tim sounded nothing like Ebenezer Scrooge. Writers of the period commonly traveled to give lectures, but “reading from your own work was new, and his degree of literary celebrity took it into the stratosphere,” says Carolyn Vega, curator at the Berg Collection at the New York Public Library.

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Lantern Theater has a Christmas gift, in the form of a finely considered reworking of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” The storyteller is the theater artist Anthony Lawton, who joins forces with lighting and scenic designer Thom Weaver and sound designer Christopher Colucci — three powerhouses in local professional theater with individual track records over the years.
Their intimate, smooth production of Dickens’ novella, adapted by Lawton, uses a good deal of the original, venturing out of the story at times for some commentary from Lawton. He cites the retro quality of the phrase “Bah! Humbug!” and asks the members of the audience to replace it in their minds with something more current and meaningful. After Lawton tells of Scrooge dismissing a man who seeks charity for workhouses, he explains what a London workhouse was and why it was a place of despair. At one point, Lawton quotes C.S. Lewis on the subject of fear. (He has also adapted Lewis’ work for the stage.)

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Reworking one of the most famous Christmas stories for these pandemic times, the streaming musical “Estella Scrooge: A Christmas Carol With a Twist” breathes new life into Charles Dickens’ classic tale.

To create this “digital theater piece,” actors were filmed individually to allow for COVID-19 social distancing. The footage was then blended with animation, backgrounds and other imagery for a final project that blurs the line between theater and film, presenting something akin to a recorded Broadway musical overlaid with modest visual effects.

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To celebrate the 175th anniversary of the Dickens' classic—and to keep the holiday tradition alive—we're sharing  this very special reading of A Christmas Carol by novelist,  and comic book creator, Neil Gaiman, that happened at NYPL in 2013. Gaiman delivered a performance worthy of Dickens himself—who was by all accounts a sensational performer of his own material—all while transformed into a Dickens lookalike at the hands of makeup artist Jeni Ahlfeld. What made Gaiman’s reading particularly special was that the text he use is an extremely rare version of A Christmas Carol, which just so happens to call The New York Public Library its home.'

More...

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Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s Wild Christmas Binge

Premiered in 2002 at Pittsburgh’s City Theater, “Mrs. Bob Cratchit’s Wild Christmas Binge” has become a popular alternative Yuletide offering for small-to-midsize theaters nationwide. But, the freewheeling satire of “A Christmas Carol” (among other things) sports playwright Christopher Durang’s usual tactic of swinging wide — missing as often as he hits. 

More...

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A Complete Ranking of Every Adaptation of A Christmas Carol

#10. Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol

Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol holds the honor of being the first animated Christmas special, premiering in 1962. Magoo’s usual myopia-based hijinks are used in a framing device that introduces a stage adaptation of Dickens’ story, but the Carol itself is played pretty straight. They jostle events around a bit, weirdly swapping Christmases Present and Past, and they also inaugurated the modern Carol ending, in which Scrooge surprises Cratchit at home and pretends to be meaner than ever before revealing his new improved personality.


#9. A Looney Tunes Christmas Carol

Nope. Nope nope nope. Allow me to make his clear: I love Bugs Bunny with the fervor of a 1940s delinquent who just snuck into a matinée for the first time, but this sucker just doesn’t work. Yosemite Sam plays Scrooge (and for some bizarre reason Sylvester is his housecat?) and Porky Pig is Cratchit. Bugs, who is never introduced or given a character of any kind, just wanders in off the street, sees Sam Scrooge being mean to Porky Cratchit, and begins a campaign of torment to make Sam change his ways. He goes so far as to dress as a Ghost and threaten Sam’s immortal cartoon soul:

Bugs “I’m taking you to see the guy in the red suit!
Sam: “You mean Santy Claus?”
Bugs: “No, I mean the other guy in the red suit!”
Sam: (points at floor) “…”

More...

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