Not All Theatre
Is On the Stage
By Tony Vellela
Indulge! Red Bull Theater has announced selections for its tenth annual short new play festival, with its theme ‘Private Lives,’ inspired by Noel Coward’s classic comedy.
The Livestream benefit event, set for Monday, July 20 at 7:30 PM, features new commissions by Jeremy O. Harris and Theresa Rebeck. They join six new plays selected from hundreds of open submissions from playwrights [more than 500] across the country, including Ben Beckley, Avery Deutsch, Leah Maddrie, Jessica Moss, Matthew Park and Mallory Jane Weiss. The festival, produced by Craig Baldwin, will be directed by Vivienne Benesch and Em Weinstein.
The festival will be presented by livestream through RedBullTheater.com, Facebook and Youtube. The event continues this annual undertaking that has inspired more than 2,500 new plays. In addition to an as yet untitled work by Jeremy O. Harris, the line-up features Rebeck’s ‘The Panel,’ where a theater panel on ‘Private Lives’ goes very quickly off the rails. Other entries are Beckley’s ‘Outside Time, Without Extension,’ Deutsch’s ‘Old Beggar Woman,’ Maddrie’s ‘Love-Adjacent, or Balcony Plays,’ ‘In the Attic’ from Moss, Park’s ‘Plague Year,’ and ‘Evermore Unrest’ from Weiss.
The Red Bull Theater has presented twenty off-Broadway productions and nearly 200 Revelation Readings of rarely seen classics, serving a community of more than 5,000 artists. Details of the festival are available at www.redbulltheater.com.
Originating in 1976, Theater for the New City’s annual five-borough street theater tour will be launched on Saturday, August 1 at 2 PM, at 10th street and 1st Avenue in Manhattan. This ambitious project is subject to city and state guidelines governing performances, but the current agenda follows this annual celebration of live outdoor theater, presenting new musicals for free in outdoor settings, produced by TNC’s producer, Crystal Field. Venues include parks, playgrounds and closed-off streets.
Photo by Jonathan Slaff.
L-R: Terry Lee King, Cheryl Gadsden, Mark Marcante. Photo by Jonathan Slaff.
The schedule for all fourteen events runs from August first until Sunday, September 13 at Manhattan’s Tompkins Square Park, comprising locales in all five boroughs. Field, who has collaborated for eleven years with composer Mark Hardwick [‘Pump Boys and Dinettes’], has written and directed a completely new opera for the TNC Street Theater company each successive year. This year’s production, ‘Liberty or Just Us: A City Park Story,’ will be an oratorio depicting a parks manager and his adventures during our time of Covid-19.
The Dramatists Guild’s Friday Night Footlights series, which celebrates new dramatic works in progress, has announced a virtual reading of ‘The Whole is Greater,’ by Ann Timmons. The comic-drama explores how the lives of a “motivational guru,” a cynical unemployed professor, a corrupt local politician, and a wily Dollar Store cashier unexpectedly intertwine. The Guild’s Footlights program connects dramatists with free performing space in which to conduct a public reading of a new work that is currently in development. Operating on a space-grant model, the Guild arranges for a venue to donate space. This year’s event, where attendance is free, will take place on Friday, July 10 from 7:30 PM to 9:30 PM, followed by an optional feedback session. More information, including location of the event, is available from ldwoskin@dramatistsguild.com.
You may have heard all sorts of rumors, but it is now official. The Broadway League has formally announced that all fall Broadway performances will be suspended through the remainder of 2020. Broadway theatres are offering refunds and exchanges for tickets purchased for performances through January 3, 2021.
League President Charlotte St. Martin explained that the ongoing work of planning for the re-opening of productions involves negotiations with all major theatrical unions. “We’ll be back,” she proclaimed. “We have so many more stories to tell!” As details emerge on sale of ticket purchasing for the new season, they will be announced at Broadway.org, including how to purchase tickets for specific productions. At the time of the suspensions on March 12, 2020, eight new shows were in rehearsals for openings in the spring.
On Book
If you find yourself enjoying the Red Bull Theater Short New Play Festival’s format, try picking up “The Best American Short Plays,” edited by Howard Stein and Glenn Young, from Applause . . . there’s also ‘24 Favorite One-Act Plays,’ edited by Bennett Cerf and Van H. Cartmell . . . and there’s even ‘13 by Shanley,’ a collection of short plays by John Patrick Shanley collected into one volume, also from Applause . . . ‘The Mentor Book of Short Plays’ was edited by Richard H. Goldstone and Abraham H. Lass . . . and finally, ‘One Act: Eleven Short Plays of the Modern Theatre,’ edited by Samuel Moon, featuring works by, among others, Arthur Miller, Thornton Wilder, Tennessee Williams and August Strindberg.
TONY VELLELA wrote and produced the PBS series about theatre, ‘Character Studies.’ His play ‘Admissions’ won the Best Play Award at the New York International Fringe Festival, and received three New York productions, all directed by Austin Pendleton, and is published by Playscripts. He has written reviews and feature stories about the entertainment world for The Christian Science Monitor, Parade, Dramatics, Reader’s Digest and dozens of other publications. His play “Maisie Drags Grover to the Theatre” is published by ArtAge Press. He has taught theatre classes at the 92nd Street Y, HB Studio, Columbia University’s Teachers’ College and other institutions. His ‘Test of Time’ won the Best Documentary CableAce Award for Lifetime Television.
CARMEL CAR & LIMOUSINE SERVICE, in business since 1978, has been selected as the official transportation company for Intermission Talk. Its wide variety of services, including special theatre packages, and reservations, are available at carmellimo.com, the Carmel App, or at 212 – 666 – 6666.
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