Crystal Skillman’s, The Telling Trilogy, was specifically written and directed to be produced at Seventh Street Small Stage — a long room behind a bar/restaurant.  The audience sits around the side of the room with the action going on next to them, around them and in front of them. 

Daniel Reitz’s, Fall Forward, was originally staged at a Methodist Church just a few blocks from the World Trade Center.  Here the audience congregates in the courtyard joined by one of the actors.  They are then led into the church, seated  on benches and the action takes place in the  pews facing them.

Both of these are examples of many of the innovative site specific productions that Daniel stages and directs.  And this summer he is teaching a class at Primary Stages’ Einhorn School of Performing Arts to a group of young directors.  Wanting to learn more about the class, the topic and what these directors think about the process, we invited Daniel to record a podcast with six of his students.  Tune in – it’s a chance to listen to the teacher and the students, all with slightly different thoughts.

And Daniel is also directing a new show Keep Your Baggage With You (At All Times) as part of the Dream Works Festival.  It begins performances August 6.

 WHITE EMBERS by Saviana Stanescu (’06) – East confronts West in this thriller about international adoptions and how they can impact a
child’s life.

DANCE LESSONS by Josh Koenigsberg (’10) — diner employees Sue and Norm get ready for another dreary day of dreary work in a dreary world — until Norm reveals that he’s secretly been taking dance lessons.

Watch for this new publication and congrats to all the winners.

• Kirk Wood Bromley (Playing With Canons, Plays and Playwrights for the New Millennium – the ebook) — his play Remission is nominated for Outstanding Performance Art Production and Dan Berkey for Best Solo Performer
• Joshua Conkle (’10) — his play MilkMilkLemonade garnered nominations for Michael Cyril Creighton (best actor in a featured role),  Jess Barbagallo, Jennifer Harder,  and   Nikole Beckwith (best actress in a featured role)
• James Comtois (’07) for outstanding full length original script  Infectious Opportunity; ditto to Ashlin Halfnight (’07) for Balaton; ditto again to Crystal Skillman (’08) for The Vigil or the Guided Cradle.

Winners will be announced September 20.  Great job done by all the nominees.

The chosen piece will be given a full reading in the Schaeberle Theater at Pace University in lower Manhattan, with actors chosen from the musical theater student body. There will be a two week rehearsal period starting Wednesday, January 5, 2011 with 8 performances starting January 18 and ending January 23, 2011.

PLEASE SUBMIT THE FOLLOWING (If you would like your submissions returned, please include a self-addressed stamped envelope with your application):

• CD or mp3 files of three songs with sheet music (lead sheets are acceptable)
• A brief description of each song as to its plot placement
• A brief synopsis of the musical including time period and number of scene locations
• A character breakdown including age, sex, approximate vocal part and a short description of each character.
• Biographical information for each composer, lyricist & book writer. (Please include address/phone number/email)

SEND YOUR PACKAGE TO:
Robert Meffe
Pace New Musicals
c/o Pace University Department of Performing Arts
41 Park Row, 12th Floor
New York, NY 10038

or if submitting electronically: pacenewmusicals@gmail.com

If submitting electronically, please send files in Adobe pdf format, Microsoft Word format or Finale files up to Finale 2010.

Deadline: October 8, 2010

PLEASE NOTE:

• Please submit 3 songs only. If you send us a full recording, we will only listen to the first 3 songs.
• Submissions do not need to be produced in a studio. We are looking for talent and potential, not how well something is produced.
• You will be notified by October 31, 2010 if you have been selected to present your musical.
• Please include copyright clearances if they are necessary.  Works cannot be considered without these.
• If the piece is currently under option, please submit a letter from the option holder giving permission for entry.

On line at bn.com you can find our newest anthology, also.  Just click here and you’ll go right to our page.  And they are selling it at a nice discount.  So don’t delay — this is a good chance to save and get a copy just in time for vacation reading.

Applications for the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop can be downloaded at http://e2ma.net/go/8428214262/2928809/96244481/3825/goto:http:/www.bmi.com/genres/entry/534241, or requested by emailing theatre@bmi.com. Applications should include: Composer: Three (3) contrasting compositions on CD, up-tempo, comedy song, ballad. Please include copy of score that includes lyrics.

Lyricist: Three (3) contrasting lyrics – up-tempo, comedy song, ballad.

Composer/Lyricist: Three (3) contrasting songs on CD – up-tempo, comedy song, ballad. Please include copy of score that includes lyrics.

Please send completed applications to:

Jean Banks BMI  – 250 Greenwich Street, New York, NY 10007-0030

When Martin (editor of our books and moderator of many of the podcasts) found out about this he immediately invited them both to talk about their experiences as actors and about their plays which are published in this year’s anthology. 

Jerrod Bogard is the author of Spin Cycle and he shares with listeners how this collection of one-acts came together as an evening of theatre.  He further explains how it is different from most such collections in that it has a through line which joins them together making five short plays feel like one play in five acts.  You really get an appreciation of the process that goes into making a great production.  And Jerrod is a delight to listen to.

Nat Cassidy describes his play, Any Day Now as a normal three act family drama — except that Dad’s a zombie.  His thoughts on why he wrote this and the various pop culture influences (and non-influences) are all part of the process of a talented and intelligent author.  And Nat has that wonderful combination of charm and friendly good nature.

Check out this new podcast and learn a bit more about Plays and Playwrights 2010 and this new production of Henry VI Part 3.

NYTE prides itself on helping professionals and audience members in our community make great use of new technology–and that’s why we’ve recently published our first e-book. It’s currently available on Kindle only:

Plays and Playwrights for the New Millennium – the e-book.

But we’re planning to publish to other formats/readers in the near future, and to expand our selection of titles, too.

So why should you be thinking about e-books?

Reason #1 — so easy to get, so easy to use. You never have to leave the house, don’t have to put on your shoes, don’t have to wait til daylight to shop.  You can buy it at 3:05 a.m. and by 3:07 a.m. it will be ready to read on your iPhone, iTouch, iPad, BlackBerry and PC.  Got a Kindle? It will be there, too,of course. 

And it’s easy on the eyes.  I make the font a little bigger and I don’t have to fumble for my glasses to read it. Click to shut it down and when you come back to it, it’s exactly on the right page.  Don’t have to dog-ear the pages or worry that the bookmark will fall out.

Want to skip around? Just go to the Table of Contents and click on the play you want to read.  There you are in a nano second.  And you can get a free sample downloaded to see if you really like it.  Give it a try.

Reason #2 — You can read it anywhere. Download it to all your devices–your iPhone, BlackBerry, etc.  Read it on the subway, read it at lunch, read it on your way to an audition.  It is the most convenient way, I am finding, to read whether it be for pleasure or for a more serious purpose.  The book you want is always in your pocket or on your laptop and that is worth a lot.  And having it on your PC where you can go to it when you just want to take a few minutes off from working on another assignment is fun. 

Reason #3 — This anthology seems to be a first.  We’ve checked around and we don’t seem to be able to find any other anthologies of contemporary plays.  This excites us as we still believe this is a group of playwrights that is decidedly underserved where publishing is concerned.  Contemporary work should be easy to find. 

One caveat with the Kindle store — unless you know the name of the e-book or can follow a link, you will have a difficult time finding this.  Unfortunately in the navigation bar there is no heading for “drama” or “plays” so send out this link to your friends — no obligation to purchase, but this way they can get to look at what we feel is a great e-book.  And it’s only $10.

I thought I would give you a bit of advance notice as to the playwrights we have published here at NYTE Small Press who will have new plays produced in the festival.  Make a note, so you can try to see some of their newer work come August.

Chad Beckim (his play ‘nami is published in Plays and Playwrights 2007) will be represented twice.  Look for Cookie and A Matter of Choice.

Boo Killebrew (her play They’re Just Like Us is also in 2007) is part of the ensemble theatre company, Collaboration Town, and their new piece, for which she is part of the writing team  is called The Momentum. 

Arlene Hutton (her short play Faerie Tale is included in Plays and Playwrights 2001 as part of Washington Square Dreams) will have a new play to check out entitled Running.

Leslie Bramm who wrote the Foreword to our latest anthology and whose play, Marvelous Shrine, we published in Plays and Playwrights 2008 will be at the festival with his work, Venus and Mona.

Stan Richardson whose play Another Brief Encounter we also published in PP ’07 will present Veritas and you can listen to him talk about this play with his director Ryan Davis on a recent nytheatrecast episode. 

That’s a whole bunch to look forward to.  Hope you’ll be able to catch some or all in August.

I thought I would share some of my thoughts here.  First, I really don’t know who is the target audience for this annual event. Barbra Streisand was the keynote speaker (she has written a book which will be out in the fall).  Throughout the hall various celebrities were  autographing their latest books.  (I never did find out if you had to own the book and bring it with you or if they were available for sale on the floor.) The large publishers and various large distributors had large booths.  Along the periphery were smaller/mid-size publishers, basically sitting alone. 

To be allowed into the exhibition hall, you just had to fill out a simple form and pay a fee. Never having been before, we felt it was time we checked it out.  What did we learn? Basically, it was a chance for us to talk one on one with various companies that provided services pertaining to e-books (that’s really why we went — this is a topic we know is changing all the time).

My thoughts — Barnes & Noble wants to have as big a presence online with e-books as they do with regular books.  They are encouraging small presses such as ours to sign up and be able to upload content on your own.  That’s what we did with the Kindle and it seems to be working out quite well. B&N’s system will be up and running by the end of the summer and I’m sure we’ll have a presence there. Apple, for their iPad, and Sony for their e-reader seem less interested in dealing with small presses.  It isn’t that you can’t get your content in their stores, it’s just that they make it a bit harder (using a middleman to get your content online, etc.). 

Another thought I had as we wandered the aisles and look around is that the hardware is far more advanced than what anyone right now is capable of really making use of.  When the suppliers of content catch up, it will be a whole new world again.  I can hardly wait to see what the next few years have in store — how different will ‘reading’ be and will we take advantage of all the powerful technology that’s just on the horizon.