The Playwright's Forum

NEWSLETTER

April 2013 - 23.2

SUMMER 2013 REGISTRATION:
FORUM 1 & FORUM 2

FORUM 2. Forum 2 members must register with the application form on this page to continue or re-activate for the next 4-month session. The fee is $120. Do try to include full or half payment as indicated.

FORUM 1. To insure your place in the upcoming Forum 1 session, please fill out and mail the application form on this page. Current members please notify us by May 10th. Do try to include full or half payment as indicated. If you have any problem with that pre-payment, don’t hesitate to call Ernie at 301-816-0569. The fee is $120. Forum 1 will include four groups of 8 members, in 6 bi-weekly meetings. Our faculty includes, for the Spring, Ernie Joselovitz and Allison Pruitt.

We’re again offering a 12-Week One-on-One E-Mail Option: email evaluations and related one-on-one exchanges, and maybe a reading when useful, and the occasional get-together. For those looking for a viable alternative to the group experience, due to geography, a busy schedule, or preference.

Tuesdays. Bethesda Elementary School. 6:30-9:00pm. May 28th to August 6th. Joselovitz.
Wednesdays. St. Mary’s Armenian Church. 7:00-9:30pm. May 29th to August 7th. Pruitt.
Thursdays. Cleveland Park Library, DC. 10:00am-12:30pm. . May 23rd to August 15th. Joselovitz.
One-on-One E-Mail Option. Joselovitz.

How to Register: our Registrar Allison Pruitt will confirm your place in one of our groups. For any enquiries, please call Ernie at 301-816-0569 or Allison at 703-448-0209, or email pforum7@yahoo.com . 1. Current members who wish to continue are given priority. Please register by May 10th . 2. Members who discontinued at the last session will be offered the first chance to fill vacancies. 3. Associate members and then all others will be welcomed into the Forum’s remaining openings.

THE FORUM - SUMMER 2013 REGISTRATION

Please register ________________________________________
for the upcoming session of
___ Forum 1
___ Forum 2
___ I was last a member of the Summer 2013_________ Session.
I am an Associate Member ____

My preference is for the group at ________________on _______-day.

I prefer the one-on-one email option _____.

I’ve enclosed a pre-payment of _____$120 _____ $60

Telephone ________________________________

E-mail ______________________________

Address
______________________________________
______________________________________

___ Yes, include a Playwrights Forum Handbook, our new 6th Edition, for $7.50!

Send check and hard-copy of form to: PF, P O Box 5322, Rockville, MD 20848.

PLAYWRIGHTS FORUM HANDBOOK!
Sixth Edition

The Learning Environment. Your guide to getting the most from the full range of Playwrights Forum activities.

The Craft. The PF methodology, along with expert advice and handy tips from “How do I start?” to third-draft woes.

The Market. The “how-to” from letters of inquiry to surfing the up-to-the-minute guides to today’s playmarketing.

_____YES! I want my copy of PLAYWRIGHTS FORUM HANDBOOK 6. I’ve enclosed $7.50, which includes mailing costs. Send it to:

Name ________________________________________

Street Address (if new member)
______________________________________
______________________________________

Make check to Playwrights Forum. Mail to: Playwrights Forum, P.O. Box 5322, Rockville, MD 20848.

READINGS SCHEDULE

Public:

April 9 - End Papers by Barry Weinberg. Directed by Catherine Aselford. 7 p.m. Tuesday. St. John's Episcopal Church/Parish Hall, Chevy Chase.

April 15 - Chekhov One-Act Plays by James Beller, Jr. Directed by Gillian Drake. 7 p.m. Monday. Iona Senior Services Center, D.C.

May 13 - Closed Casket by Patricia Wolf. Directed by Patricia Connelly. 7 p.m. Monday. Iona Senior Services Center, D.C.

May 21 - Eleanor Roosevelt by Mary Lee McIntyre. Directed by Mary Suib. 7 p.m. Tuesday. St. John’s Episcopal Church, Norwood Parish/Parish Hall.

In-House:

April 29 - Workshop Reading Series #1. Scenes from plays by John Tycko, Lisa Sherman and Patricia Fitzgerald. Directed by Catherine O’Connor. 7 p.m. Monday. Lawton Recreation Center, Chevy Chase.

June 3 - Truth On Ice by Paula Stone. Directed by Brian Mac Ian. 7 p.m. Monday. Lawton Recreation Center, Chevy Chase.

Frequent addresses for meetings and readings:

St. Mary's Armenian Apostolic Church, 4125 Fessenden St NW, Washington, DC 20016.

St. John's Episcopal Church, 6701 Wisconsin Avenue, Chevy Chase, MD 20815.

Iona Senior Services Center, 4125 Albemarle Street NW, Washington, DC 20016.

Round House Theatre's Education Center. 925 Wayne Avenue, Silver Spring, MD 20910.

Twinbrook Recreation Center. 12920 Twinbrook Parkway, Rockville, MD 20851.

MetroStage. 1201 North Royal Street, Alexandria, VA 22314.

Centro Nia. 1420 Columbia Rd., NW, Washington DC 20009.

Lawton Community Recreation Center. 4301 Willow Lane, Chevy Chase, MD 20815.

FORUM 2 SCHEDULE

May 1 - Round Table Discussion
May 15 - Round Table Discussion
May 29 - Round Table Discussion
June 12 - Round Table Discussion
June 26 - Round Table Discussion
July 10 - Round Table Discussion
July 24 - Round Table Discussion
August 7 - Round Table Discussion

*All meetings at 6:30 p.m., St. Mary’s Armenian Church, Washington, DC.

WORTH NOTING

Forum 1's Paul Handy will have his play about Martin Luther King, Let Freedom Ring, presented at the National Association of Women Judges convention, at Howard University’s School of Law, on the evening of April 9. Playing roles will be Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, ex-Mayor Marion Barry, along with judges Josey-Herring, Williams, Brown, Ruiz, Rhodes, Hargadon, Martin, Tilleson and Alves. FREE.

Home Grown Festival at Theatre J.
* The Return to Latin by Allyson Currin. Monday, April 15, 7:30 p.m. Goldman Theater. “A play for women in their fifties as those women really are... smart, sexy and powerful”
* A Grand Design by D.W. Gregory. Monday, June 10, 7:30 p.m. Goldman Theater. “Inspired in part by the D.C.sniper shootings a decade ago... a dark comedy.”
* Backstage by Ernie Joselovitz. Friday, April 19, 2:00 p.m. Bernstein Library. Directed by Jerry Whidden. “A song-full backstage look at a young woman’s journey from Yiddish theatre to The Follies”

Anna Freud at the Hotel Regina by Forum 1's Myron Hafetz will have a staged reading directed by Gillian Drake at the Austrian Embassy on May 30. The reading will be part of a three night series entitled "We Must Never Forget." The play is about Anna Freud visiting Vienna in 1971 for the dedication of her father's house and possibly confronting her 1938 Gestapo interrogator.

ARENA STAGE’s 2013/14 KOGOD CRADLE SERIES. Proposals from playwrights, ensembles and theater companies due by May 17, 2013. Part of the American Voices New Play Institute. The Kogod Cradle Series supports the exploration and development of new and emerging work in the theater’s intimate 200-seat Arlene and Robert Kogod Cradle. The application is available at arenastage.org/artistic-development/new-play-institute/the-cradle-series/index.shtml. Focusing on the development of new plays and devised work by artists from throughout Greater Washington and around the country, this series of readings and workshops invites artists and audiences to explore the development process, and allows artists and audiences to participate. Applicants should propose exciting new work that has a sense of inquiry in form and process including works in progress, workshop productions and open rehearsals. This work may come from companies, ensembles or individual artists. Arena Stage will provide access to space in the Mead Center with no rental fee, with some technical support, a listing of the production on the Arena Stage website and necessary staff support to reserve tickets and manage attendance of the public presentations.

The Second National Conference of the Dramatists Guild of America
August 22- 25, 2013. Chicago’s Hilton Hotel. The League of Chicago Theatres and the Dramatists Guild of America will invite members of the Dramatists Guild conference to join Chicago area theatres for a Meet and Greet during our second national conference. The event is designed so that playwrights, composers, lyricists and librettists from across the country can have an opportunity to speak with the artistic and literary staff of Chicago area theatres about their mission, the kind of new work they are interested in, what kind of submissions they take, etc. The format will be a “fair” type, with each theatre having a table on which they can display materials. Dramatists will have the opportunity to talk directly to the representatives of these theatres about their work, but should not bring their scripts, CDs or DVDs. This is modeled after a similar event successfully held twice before for local Chicago members. Signing up for the event will happen simultaneously with registering for the conference (beginning April 1). Participants will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis. Further info: www.dramaguild.com

The American Backstage Company is now open in Alexandria. We are here to meet the needs of the performing arts community in Northern Virginia, the District of Columbia and Maryland. Many of you know that DC's only theatrical bookstore and costume rental store Backstage Inc closed at the end of 2012. The good news is that Backstage's longtime manager and theatre professional Rip Claassen was able to purchase Backstage's inventory and has now opened The American Backstage Company in Alexandria. The new store is at 5380 Eisenhower Avenue in Alexandria, just inside the Beltway and a very short walk from the Van Dorn Metro on the Blue Line. 703-212-8982. Hours: Monday-Saturday 9:30 am to 7:00 pm, Sundays noon to 5:00 pm.

KVELLING pronounced exactly as it's spelled. Yiddish: to gush, to swell. Here is where you will find tidbits about Forum members and Associate members. Good things that have happened to our colleagues inside and outside the Playwrights Forum neighborhood. Send it all <sheilah.kleiman3@verizon.net>.

Kristy Simmons (Forum 1) will be writing a video-performance piece using live and recorded actors for the doris-mae gallery in June.

Evren Ercan, a Turkish actress who has started her own theater troupe, is working towards producing Marilyn Millstone's The Sculptress in the 2013-2014 season in both Istanbul—where she is based—and New York City; all the performances would be in Turkish.

Mark Kristula, formerly Forum 1, has his article entitled "My Most Unforgettable Ultramarathon (And What I Learned From It): 2012 American River 50" published in the current March/April edition of Marathon & Beyond.

Paula Stone's 10-minute plays—Freshly Squeezed and That Takes the Cake—were re-broadcast on Spokane Radio Theatre, Spokane, WA, in March 2013.

Paul Handy's (Forum 1) Carry a Big Stick, about Teddy Roosevelt and the dirty politics behind the Panama Canal, will be performed in the Capital Fringe Festival, July 11-28, 2013. Produced by the Bull Moose Theatre, and directed by Catherine Aselford.

Thanks to revisions following readings directed by Nick Olcott (2009, Forum-sponsored) and Jerry Whiddon (2011), Bill Triplett's Paperweight was a semi-finalist for the 2012 National Playwrights Conference at the O'Neill Center.

John Morogiella's Engaging Shaw was produced at West End Players Guild in St. Louis. It will be published by Samuel French later this year. His Civilizing Lusby received two readings, one at Abingdon Theatre Company in Manhattan and the other in Baltimore as part of the Dramatists Guild Baltimore Footlights.

Harry Bagdasian's and Ernie Joselovitz's Journey To The World's Edge - A Folk Tale in The Irish Tradition enjoyed four productions in Texas as well as productions in Canada and 6 other states.

Nicole Burton (Forum 2) wrote a chapter for a newly published anthology about British adopted people, Chosen—Living with Adoption. She also published an essay about adoption and spirituality in Echoes, the newsletter of the Center for Children and Theology.

Allyson Currin's play Benched is going up as part of a double-header at Pinky Swear Productions in April and May. WSC Avant Bard's world premiere production of her play Caesar and Dada will be June-July at the Callan at Catholic University. The Arts Club of Washington and First Draft are doing an evening of her work on April 23rd. Last but not least, First Draft will do a staged reading of her other new play The Sooner Child on April 23rd (The Arts Club) and May 14th (Theatre on the Run).

Jennie Berman Eng's (Forum 2) play A Letter to the Draft Board won the Vittum prize for 10 minute play.

Associate member Catherine O'Connor's Joan and Jihadreceived a reading in the Beltway Drama Series. Her Family Matters and Table Talk were read by Playwrights Collaborative.

FROM THE FORUM HANDBOOK...

Guideline to our readings: For the playwright -

Your script must be accepted by one of two available directors to whom it may be offered.

The purpose of either the in-house or public reading is the further development of your script. Be prepared to respond with further writing as a result of your script's reading.

In-house readings are usually at an early stage of development, the discussion afterwards shared with director and actors as well as invited colleagues, focused on the next step in your play's development. These are most often in a non-theatre site to emphasize this is not a showcase, it's a workplace. Public readings are usually at a later stage of development, the discussion with a more general audience focused on fine-tuning.

Arrange for a sufficient number of readable copies of the script to be forwarded to the director at least two weeks in advance of the reading date. If possible, facilitate the distribution of scripts to the actors.

You may attend rehearsals, if and as arranged with the director. All communications at rehearsals are through the director. (If, for example, you feel something is being misinterpreted to the detriment of the play, talk privately to the director during a rehearsal break.)

Allow the actors and director to interpret your script. Do not expect every line to be read exactly as you imagined it in your own mind when you wrote it. That will not happen.

The reading can be recorded by the Forum tape recorder, at your request.

At the public readings you may choose, with your dramaturg: (1) audience discussion, including director and actors; (2) discussion with director, actors, dramaturg and colleagues only. This discussion will begin with a consideration of what works in your play, followed by an identification of suggestions for its improvement. You may choose to ask specific questions of the audience and colleagues. The participants will not be allowed to suggest specific solutions to those problems identified, that is, how to rewrite your script.

Make an effort to at tend the readings of other Forum playwright. It's important to support your colleagues and also give the actors an audience to play before.