NYCPlaywrights September 29, 2018

Greetings NYCPlaywrights

*** NYCPLAYWRIGHTS PODCAST ***

The third episode of the NYCPlaywrights Podcast "O CANADA" is now online:

The podcast includes interviews with Michael Rubinoff, creator of COME FROM AWAY; Canadian playwrights Brooke Johnson, Alexis Diamond, Claude Montminy and composer Doug Price; the selected monologue CONTES DU CAMP CANADIAN by Vivian Lermond, performed by Bruce Barton & interview with Vivian; plus a scandal in Canada & whether or not Justin Trudeau is the “prime rib” of Canada.

AND the call for submissions for the next NYCPlaywrights Podcast.

*** FREE THEATER IN NYC ***

The Seeing Place Theater

24 Hour Play Reading Marathon

Tuesday, October 2, 2018 at 12:00AM

The Seeing Place @ the Paradise Factory

64 East 4th Street, Underground Space

New York, NY 10003

In support of The Seeing Place's landmark 9th season, we're excited to bring you:

#TSP24 - Our First Annual Play Reading Marathon

our extreme way to usher in this season's theme, IN EXTREMIS.

We'll be reading a minimum of 8 plays over a 24 hour period, voted for in advance by our audiences members! Reserve your ticket for any of the 8 times slots (bonus points if you choose a late night slot!) For just a $10 suggested donation, come celebrate with our ensemble as we kick off this very important season. 

Free ($10 suggested donation)

*** PLAYWRIGHTS OPPORTUNITIES ***

Heartland Theatre Company is seeking eight short original plays to be considered for production in June of 2019 as part of our 18th annual 10-minute play festival. This year, the theme is THE LIBRARY. The competition is open to all playwrights who wish to submit a play. Eight plays will be selected and performed from among all the submissions

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The “Made in NY” Women’s Film, TV and Theatre Fund (“Women’s Fund”) is the latest in a groundbreaking series of initiatives by the City of New York Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME) designed to address the underrepresentation of all who identify as women in film, television and theatre. The NYC Women’s Fund, administered by the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), provides grants to support film, television, digital, and live theatre projects that reflects the voices, experiences and perspectives of all who identify as women.

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Stage Door Productions, Inc Twelfth Annual Original One-Act Festival

Fredericksburg, Va

Festival prizes to be awarded: Six plays shall be selected for production in the spring (March/April/May) of 2019. Of those six selected, one shall win the Grand Prize $150 and one shall win runner up $100 as determined by the festival play readers.  Of the remaining four, one shall will an Audience Favorite Prize $100 to be determined by the audience attending the festival performances.

*** For more information about these and other opportunities see the web site at http://www.nycplaywrights.org ***

*** COURTROOM DRAMA ***

Full casting is set for To Kill a Mockingbird, the new stage play based on Harper Lee's Pulitzer-winning novel. The production will begin performances on November 1 with an opening scheduled for December 13 at the Shubert Theatre.

Newly announced cast members include Baize Buzan, Thomas Michael Hammond, Ted Koch, David Manis, Danny McCarthy, Aubie Merrylees, Doron JéPaul Mitchell, Jeff Still, Shona Tucker and Rebecca Watson.

Based on an event that occurred in Alabama in the 1930s, the story of racial injustice and the destruction of childhood innocence centers on one of the most admired characters in American literature, small-town lawyer Atticus Finch. To Kill a Mockingbird features a script adapted by Aaron Sorkin and direction by Bartlett Sher.

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The circumstances of World War II and Hitler’s legacy of conquest and persecution plunged many ordinary men and women into a crucible that tested and destroyed lives. Extraordinary events seen through the eyes of an ordinary man lies at the heart of Abby Mann’s Judgment at Nuremberg.

A teleplay in the 1950s and a highly regarded film in the early 60s, Mann adapted his material into a stage play in 2001. At American Century Theater, director Joe Banno uses the Broadway script with a ghostly framing device: on the edges of the stage, the specters of two Jewish women and two sharply dressed Nazis observe the courtroom drama in silence. These shadow characters may be a theatrical conceit, but they point out what is at stake during the Nuremberg trials – justice for millions or justification for the horrific actions of a few.

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Director Steve Rohe has a valuable cast resource for reference while fine-tuning his new production of "Twelve Angry Jurors" for Footlight Players in Michigan City.

"Greta Friedman, who is the Magistrate in LaPorte, auditioned for our play and she has one of the roles," Rohe said.

"There's been a number of times when I've asked her advice or guidance about a detail and she's assured me I'm on track with my interpretation of what it's like during courtroom deliberations."

"Twelve Angry Jurors," the male and female version of the classic "Twelve Angry Men" written by Reginald Rose, opens Feb. 2 and continues weekends until Feb. 11 at the theater space located Michigan City.

Rohe, who lives in Porter, is also associated with 4th Street Theater in Chesterton, where he was cast as Juror No. 10 for a production of "Twelve Angry Men" that ran in 2011.

"This is a play that is timeless," said Rohe, who counts "Twelve Angry Jurors" as his 21st production at Footlight Players since 1998.

"The same battles about different views and grounded opinions are just as true today as decades ago when this story had its first audiences."

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The handsome wooden courtroom that has been erected on the stage of the Lyceum Theater is Christopher Plummer’s personal playground. This may sound like a frivolous description of a forum for the lofty and abidingly important debate that occupies “Inherit the Wind,” the 1955 drama that opened last night, also starring Brian Dennehy, in a revival that is just about as wooden as its set.

But while the subject of teaching evolution and religion in public schools is even more topical than it was when Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s worthy war horse first galloped onto Broadway more than half a century ago, Mr. Plummer at play is something sacred. If the Bible-quoting fundamentalists in “Inherit the Wind” want to make a case for the spark of divinity that separates man from beast, they need only point to the show’s august star, having the time of his life, as Exhibit A.

Approaching the end of his eighth decade, Mr. Plummer knows that if all the world’s a stage, few places in it are more temptingly so than a courtroom, an arena that would seem to have been conceived expressly for showboats with scripts.

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Even if the stage were not a battleground of tables and chairs in gun-metal gray, it wouldn't take long to recognize the terrain in ''A Few Good Men,'' Broadway's new play about a court-martial. ''It's an open-and-shut case,'' goes an early line. ''I suspect there's more to this case than what's reported in the division report,'' goes another. The cast of antagonists includes a sarcastic Navy defense attorney who doesn't want to be a hero (Tom Hulce), a tightly wound commanding officer who insists on being one (Stephen Lang) and some cowed enlisted men caught in the crossfire. Let the scene change, and more than a few good marching men in crew cuts and khaki will sound off, ''One, two, three-four!''

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Attention, please. All New Yorkers eager to experience the edge-of-your-seat suspense and gut-churning excitement commonly associated with two weeks of federal jury duty, please report to the Gerald Schoenfeld Theater, where a new Broadway revival of "The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial" opened last night. Roll call at 8 p.m.

Kidding aside, it is just possible that a stint weighing a worker's compensation case could offer more thrills than this eye-glazing attempt to resurrect Herman Wouk's 1953 play, adapted from his novel "The Caine Mutiny." Directed with metronome in hand by Jerry Zaks, this workmanlike production gives few clues to the enduring appeal of Mr. Wouk's tale of possible cowardice and possible insubordination, plus a humdinger of a typhoon, some disappearing strawberries and a nut job memorably named Queeg.

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"NUTS" by Tom Topor, being presented by the Great Neck Theater Guild, is not the usual run-of-the-judiciary courtroom drama. It is a sanity hearing in the psychiatric wing of Bellevue Hospital to determine whether or not a woman is capable of standing trial for manslaughter.

A few months ago, this revival of a play filled with sex and sex issues might have been just another exploration of a woman's right to her own destiny. Recent events, however, have added powerful political shadings to a hearing in which a woman is defending her integrity and mental health before a panel of accusatory white men.

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In "Parade," a man's religion, origin and social position mark him for persecution at a moment when the public needs an outlet for its collective frustration. Uhry and Brown base their work on the 1913 trial of Leo Frank, a Jewish Northerner indicted for the murder of a 13-year-old girl at the factory he supervised in Atlanta, a city still hurting from the Civil War. Though Frank is not the only suspect, he is, as an outsider, the preferred scapegoat of a showboat prosecutor who's under pressure from a constituent-wary governor. The public devours every bit of news, true or fake, that reinforces its worldview.

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IN Emily Mann's ''Execution of Justice,'' the case of the People vs. Dan White is on trial in the court of theater and is found guilty of a miscarriage of justice. That conclusion is reached after a thought-provoking evening that is scrupulous in its quest for objectivity. With the playwright acting as investigative reporter, the play is not a polemic but a judicious assessment of a turbulent episode in recent American political history.

Written and directed by Miss Mann, the play opened last night at the Virginia Theater after previous productions at a number of America's regional theaters. During the work's journey to Broadway, Miss Mann has carefully distilled the text, eliminating testimony that might be considered extraneous or hortatory.

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