Playwriterly podcasts

From G.L. Horton's Stage Page: This is a great find, and we confess we should have found it sooner, since it's been around for almost a year-and-a-half now. Some of the podcasts on G.L.Horton's Stage Page are Boston-centric, but others, like this discussion at the International Centre for Women Playwrights Celebration about the challenges involved in getting produced (including some insights into the thinking of literary managers) will appeal to dramatists pretty much anywhere. We also think more playwrights should take advantage of the web, as Horton does (with an assist from her husband), to get their material heard -- literally -- by recording and posting excerpts.

Labels: G.L. Horton, ICWPC, International Centre for Women, playwrights, playwriting, podcasts, theatre

 

Play-stealing cop suspended

From the CBC: Act Two of the saga of the play-stealing cop begins, as the plagiarizing producer of plays by Canadian writer David Belke and others is suspended from his job. Most curious to me: why did he steal just Canadian plays? Because they're so good? Because he thought they're so obscure nobody would ever notice? (I speak as a Canadian playwright.)

By the way, as proprietor of the online play publisher ProPlay, I sometimes talk with playwrights who don't want to publish on the web because they think their plays will get stolen. Note, though, that the play-stealing cop got his copies of the plays from a traditional publisher, and in print form. Occasional larceny, alas, is one of the hazards a playwright faces, and always has. Thankfully, thanks to technology, it's increasingly likely that thieves will get caught. And it's arguable that publishing online makes it far too hazardous to steal a play -- somebody, eventually, is going to notice.

Arguable? Hell, it's a fact. By the way, I'm pleased to say that we'll soon be adding some of David Belke's plays to ProPlay. Given the cop's widely-publicized experience, I have a feeling when people want to produce David's plays, they're going to arrange the rights first.

Labels: David Belke, plagiarism, playwrights, playwriting, ProPlay, theatre

 

Not "Streetcar," but not bad either

From The Telegraph (London): Phillip Hensher's otherwise sympathetic review of The Notebooks of Tennessee Williams" perpetuates the fallacy that Williams wrote nothing decent after Night of the Iguana. Closer to the truth is that he didn't write another Streetcar Named Desire (or, for that matter, Night of the Iguana) after 1959, but he did pen a number of over-looked and fine plays. I particularly like two from very late in his career -- Vieux Carre and A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur. Had they been the work of anybody else, they would have been recognized as talented little gems. The tragedy of Williams' career, of course, was that, after his early successes, good would never be good enough.

Labels: Phillip Hensher, playwrights, playwriting, Tennessee Williams, theatre

 

Play banned for satirizing burka-wearers

From the BBC: The Pakistani government bans a play about the wearing of burkas. The problem appears to be not so much that it satirizes wearing the garment, as it satirizes women who do -- and then go about attacking music and video stores and brothels with batons.

Labels: burkas, Pakistan, playwrights, playwriting, theatre

 

The meaning of Richard McBeef

From the National Post (Canada): Here's my take on the plays of the Virginia Tech killer, and dark and violent writing in general.

Labels: Cho Seung-Hui, playwrights, playwriting, theatre, Virginia Tech

 

Pulitzers for drama falling down Rabbit Hole?

From The Los Angeles Times: Last year the big controversy around the Pulitzer Prize for Drama was that the journalists in charge, who make the final decision as to who'll get the little trophy, chose to ignore the theatre jury's finalists and award no prize at all. This year the controversy is that the journos chose to overrule the jury's choices and give the award to David Lindsay-Abaire's Rabbit Hole. In the Los Angeles Times, Mike Boehm reviews the erratic recent history of the prize, and how the meddlings of its board threaten to diminish its stature.

Labels: drama, playwrights, playwriting, Pulitzer, theatre