Rave Reviews for "AIN'T MISBEHAVIN' " Don't Miss It. Use your half-price discount code and get your tickets now! (Harlem)

Through November 23 only.

Don't wait to the last week, it will surely be sold out, only 125 seats in the theater.

We are looking forward to welcoming you at the 

Faison Firehouse

6 HANCOCK PLACE

(124th Street between Morningside & St. Nicholas Avenues)

Your half price discount code is: harlem

Get your tickets here.

Call for 10-minute plays (Deadline: 12/1)

InspiraTO 10th Play Festival Deadline: Dec. 1st

  1. This year's creative challenge: The urban jungle. Your play must speak to the urban landscape: The drama must address living, working or growing up in the in the city. It can show the consequences of living in the urban landscape or relationships that develop because of it. Please note: Mentioning a street or section of a city is not enough if it doesn't effect the drama or if it doesn't address the issue of what it means to live in an urban environment. If we feel that this play can just as well take place in the country or small town we won't accept it. Use your imagination: be bold, be witty, be creative, and challenge us. The story can be a comedy, a drama, a parody, absurd or anything in between. The big city environment offers a living and breathing entity that we love to hate or hate to love: harmonious, dynamic, complex, antagonistic, ever-changing, growing and dying, offering endless pleasures for some and never-ending suffering for others. A safe heaven? Or a battlefield? The story is yours. 

 2. The play must be a ten-minute play. The contest is open to anyone without geographic or age restrictions. You must submit online. Please fill out the submission form and submit your play by Dec.1, 2014 . There are no fees. Once you submit you will be taken to a page confirming that we have received your submission. You may only submit one play. The cover page should have the title of the play, the playwright's name and the list of characters. The pages should be numbered. The format should be easy to read. We accept previously produced plays (but not plays that have produced in InspiraTO before). The playwright must own the rights to the play up to June 8, 2015 (i.e. the script cannot be owned by a publisher). Any style is acceptable except musicals. We are particularly interested in scripts that aren't afraid to make bold choices: quality writing backed by imaginative staging. Only those playwrights whose plays have been selected will be notified by January 15, 2015. The plays will be selected by a committee from the Toronto theatre community. If selected, your play will be performed in Toronto, Canada from May 28 - June 6, 2015. Between ten to eighteen ten-minute plays will be selected and performed. 1st Prize: $500 CDN. Should your play be selected for inclusion in the festival, you are giving the non-exclusive right to Theatre InspiraTO to produce and perform the play in the 10th Annual InspiraTO Festival in Toronto (Canada's largest ten-minute play festival), in the May/June 2015. The InspiraTO Festival will find the cast, crew and market your play. Authors retain copyright and full ownership of their plays.

3. Tips on writing. The submission must be a play. A ten-minute play is distinct from a sketch, or a skit; it is a compact play, with a beginning, middle and an end. You need a character facing obstacles in pursuit of some specific goal. You need rising action, conflict, and a climactic moment and your play must tell a complete story.

DC Copeland's JITTERBUG! now has National CORE Arts Standards HS/College teaching aids

DC Copeland's Jitterbug! the dancical now has National CORE Arts Standards HS/College teaching aids. "Jitterbug! in the Classroom" is an extensive Educator's Manual and Student Questionnaire for DANCE, THEATRE, and LITERATURE. All the items are free and can be found here.  

AAPEX Favorites Petronia Paley and Nathan James nominated for 2014 AUDELCO Awards

Petronia Paley

Nathan James

AAPEX favorite proactive multihypenates Petronia Paley and Nathan James have been honored for their work on stage for the 2013-2014 theatre season with AUDELCO Awards. The 42nd annual event nominated Petronia Paley in the Lead Actress category for her role in William Shakespeare's Coriolanus: The African Warrior. Nathan James is nominated for Best Supporting Actor in Cheryl L Davis' Maid's Door. Ms. Davis is also nominated for Playwright. 

Call for Screenwriter to Adapt African American Story

We are looking for completed feature-length scripts that were adapted from novels to evaluate as writing samples in a potential writer-for-hire opportunity. This will be for a period (1940s) African American story; therefore, we need a writer who is good at researching so the dialogue and other period elements will be accurate. When pitching, please mention whether you're a produced or optioned writer in the personal message space. Budget has yet to be determined. WGA and Non-WGA writers may submit. Our credits include "A Talent for Trouble."

Buck 50 Productions.

TO SUBMIT:
1. Please go to www.InkTippro.com/leads
2. Enter your email address (you will be signing up for InkTip's newsletter - FREE!)
3. Copy/Paste this code: n7xjyh1my8
4. You will be submitting a logline and synopsis only.
 IMPORTANT: Please ONLY submit your work if it fits what the lead is looking for EXACTLY.

Call for Co-Writer for African American Football Screenplay

CO-WRITER FOR AFRICAN-AMERICAN FOOTBALL SCREENPLAY 

Seeking a co-writer to help work on voice and motivations of African-American characters and family in rural south. Writer should be familiar with the world of athletics - particularly football. I've completed a few drafts of the screenplay and at the suggestion of several close, established producers and directors (and my manager), it was suggested that taking on a co-writer would take this project up a notch to where it needs to be. Project will be pitched upon completion of notes and subsequent drafts. I look forward to hearing from you and seeing some of your work and personal history. Please submit a resume and writing samples. No full scripts.

Please note, if you wait five days, you can get submission info for free. Can't wait? Then you will have to sign up for a fee here a the International Screenwriters Association.

Richard E Waits MAMA ROSE at Dixon Place October 24th (NYC)

Richard E Waits photo by Russ Weatherford

DIXON PLACE

Ellie Covan, Founder/Artistic Director 

Katy Einerson, Director of Programming 

Presents The World-Premiere Presentation 

Special Equity Showcase Production of

MAMA ROSE

(we are a product of our people) 

A Solo Performance Art/Experimental Play
With Music about ROSE WAITS
A Woman From Buffalo Who Could Have Ruled The World
If They Had Let Her

 Book, Music and Lyrics by Richard E. Waits
 Directed by Paul Stancato
 Designed by Clint Ramos
 Creative Consultation by Sheryl Lee Ralph
Penny Arcade

 World Premiere of
"MAMA ROSE" 
(we are a product of our people)

October 24 @ Dixon Place NYC

Please note that the Dixon Place Lounge is open before and after the show and drinks may be brought into the theater. Proceeds directly support Dixon Place artists and mission.

You can help raise funds for this project and learn more by
clicking here.

$12.00 Advanced Tickets can be purchased here.

Owa is gone...

Owa Jackson

A force to be reckoned with has left the theatre. Absurdist* playwright and critic Owa Jackson passed on without fanfare or a standing-O without our knowledge. He deserved better. And he's going to get it on Saturday, October 18th as we celebrate Owa's life starting at 2pm at La MaMa, 74A East 4th Street. 

I met Owa, winner of the 2011 NAACP Theatrical Playwrights Award, at the 2nd reading of my dancical Jitterbug! at the Tada! Theater in Manhattan. He was sitting behind me and laughing out loud in all the right spots which I took as a good sign. But I didn't discover it was him until after the reading when he introduced himself to me. But I knew of him through his avant garde playwriting and criticism we were happy to publish on this website. He was very supportive of my writing and I will never forget his effort to show up that cold, cold night for my play. I stayed in touch since then on a more personal basis. Following his last procedure in order to win his fight against cancer, I emailed to see how he was doing and he said he was getting better. Follow up emails were not answered and I and Jaz Dorsey, his friend and founder of AAPEX, began to worry. Jaz made inquiries and that's how we discovered the bad news. 

I will miss him but I will never forget him because he's one of those kinda guys who leave a lasting, smile inducing impression. If any reader of this blog feels the same way and would like to post something about Owa on our comments section, please do. 

For those who would like to "read Owa," please click his name in the "Labels" section below. It will bring up years of his persona, his mind, and his writing on AAPEX. 

DC Copeland

*Owa's choice of words instead of African American which he felt were interchangeable... given the circumstances of living in a white world. Be sure to click "Owafest" in the Labels section to read his thoughts on the subject.

###

Owa was one of the first writers to join The African American Playwrights Exchange in 2007 and one of the first playwrights in the mix to offer up one of his plays, FUNNYLINGUS, for a reading (at the LGBT Center in NYC) The play was a startling look at the conflict between the theatre and the church. It's a play that I love dearly.

Another of Owa's plays, the title of which I forget, was running at one point when I was in NYC. It was about the Holy family - God, Mary, Joseph and Jesus - and again was highly irreverent. 

I read a few more of his wonderfully absurdist plays over the past seven years and talked with him endlessly about the strange world of the American theatre as it was viewed through his perspective and counted him one of my great friends.

Owa made a tremendous contribution to the American dramaturgy - the question is, what happens with his plays and other writings now?

Jaz Dorsey

###

So sorry to learn of Owa's passing; he was one of the several playwrights who collaborated with students in a popular course I developed at Ohio State's Lawrence and Lee Institute many years ago, and I always enjoyed our conversations. 

Alan Woods

Diversity and Inclusion in the Arts Are Not Enough

Shawn C. Harris

Posted Sep 3 2014 by Shawn C. Harris in Crossroads and Intersections, The Marbury Project 

If you’re reading this, I’m going to assume three things about you. 

 *You care about women and people of color being involved in theatre. It bothers you when a show, season or organization is too male and too white. It doesn’t reflect the world you live in. It doesn’t reflect a world you want to live in. 

 *You need to hear from the people most impacted by how race and gender work in theatre. 

 *You want the truth, not what they think you want to hear because they don’t want to piss you off and lose an opportunity, a working relationship, or a friend or loved one. You are motivated to do something with the insight you gain. When we talk about race and gender in theatre, the words “diversity” and “inclusion” are not far from people’s lips and keyboards. In other words, the not-really-hidden question of where all the women and people of color are and how to bring more into the fold.

I know people are sincere and mean well, but there’s one big problem with “diversity” and “inclusion.” 

Put simply: it’s not enough.

To read more, please click here.

Benja Kay Thomas stars in BOOTYCANDY at Playwrights Horizons (NYC)

Phillip James Brannon, Jessica Francis Dukes, Benja Kay Thomas, and Lance Coadie Williams

From Broadway World:

BOOTYCANDY, a new play written and directed by Robert O'Hara, is being presented in its New York premiere at Playwrights Horizons' Mainstage Theater (416 West 42nd Street) as the opening production of the company's 2014/2015 Season. Opening Night is Wednesday, September 10, 2014. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below! The cast features Phillip James Brannon, three-time Helen Hayes Award nominee Jessica Frances Dukes, Jesse Pennington, Audelco Award winner Benja Kay Thomas and Lance Coadie Williams. Sutter (Mr. Brannon) is on an outrageous odyssey through his childhood home, his church, dive bars, motel rooms and even nursing homes. A kaleidoscope of sketches that interconnect to portray growing up gay and black, Robert O'Hara's subversive, uproarious satire crashes headlong into the murky terrain of pain and pleasure and... Bootycandy. The production features scenic and costume design by Clint Ramos, lighting design by two-time Tony Award nominee Japhy Weideman, sound design by Lindsay Jones, projection design by Aaron Rhyne and hair and make-up design by Dave Bova. Production Stage Manager is Marisa Levy.