We return this June for our sixteenth season with three new plays and a graduate course in play development. Public readings are performed each weekend with a discussion following each Sunday matinee. Our work honors the history of the Provincetown Playhouse where the early plays of Eugene O’Neill, Susan Glaspell, and Edna St. Vincent Millay were first presented. However, this series changes focus by devoting its efforts to development of new works for children, youth and family audiences.
Auditions
Auditions for New Plays for Young Audiences will be held April 17th (EDUC 879) and April 19th (EDUC 779) with callbacks on April 20th (EDUC 303). All auditions will be held in the Education Building at 35 W. 4th Street, New York, NY. You will need a photo ID to get into the building. For the audition, please prepare a one minute monologue and bring a headshot or similar picture. You will need to know your schedule in June (we rehearse 6-10pm Sunday through Friday, readings are on Saturday afternoon and evening, and on Sunday in the afternoon) and any potential conflicts during that time. Sign up is done online.
2013 Plays and Playwrights
What We Lost along the Way by Corrine Esme Glanville; directed by Nan Smithner
Ages: middle school and high school
June 8th at 3pm and 7:30pm, June 9th at 3pm*
This family drama begins in 1939 London during the evacuation of over three million British children and centers on 15-year-old Serena Moffitt and her younger brother Joseph, who are sent from their working class suburb to the Devon countryside where they end up billeted with the Hargreaves, an upper class family with two sons who are close in age to the Moffitts. As mysteries are solved and fears are exposed, the young characters navigate their way through the intricate terrain of adolesence where they discover truths about friendship, family and love and find that even after great loss, the possibility of hope remains.
Corrine Esme Glanville is a Boston-based playwright and teacher who received her Master’s Degree in Theatre Education from Emerson College in 2012. What We Lost Along the Way, was her Master’s Project and has received the Betsy Carpenter Playwriting Prize, the Aurand Harris Memorial Competition Second Prize, and was a semi-finalist for the 2013 Write Now Competition. Originally from Chicago, where she was an actor and high school drama teacher, she has a BA in English from Lake Forest College and a M.Ed. from Loyola University in Secondary Education.
Mieke’s Journey by Carol Korty; directed by Jim DeVivo
Ages: high school
June 15th at 3pm and 7:30pm, June 16th at 3pm*
Mieke’s Journey explores the journey of an American teenager struggling with the loss created by her father’s death in Iraq. Visual and written images of the ancient Sumerian myth of the goddess Inanna and her journey into the netherworld are juxtaposed with modern day Mieke’s confrontation with her family and her high school team mates. Her focus on Inanna is a bitter sweet journey, one started with her Dad when he was first deployed in Iraq. Is it a betrayal or tribute to him to turn their research into a school project? Could it help her to heal?
Carol Korty has been writing plays and helping others write theirs for many years. Her published scripts are available through Dramatic Publishing, Players Press, and Playscripts, Inc., including a text for beginners, Writing Your Own Plays. She has directed many productions and regularly toured theater to schools. Now a Professor Emerita at Emerson College, she lives in downeast Maine and is active in the coastal town’s conservation commission, started its community theater, and promotes drama projects in the local school.
Shahrazad 1001 by Ramon Esquivel; directed by Deirdre Kelly Lavrakas
Ages: high school and college
June 22nd at 3pm and 7:30pm, June 23rd at 3pm*
When Malala Yousafzai was targeted in October for speaking out on girls’ education in Pakistan, it illuminated something about Shahrazad and One Thousand and One Nights. As the Royal Vizier’s daughter, she had unusual educational access. She tells King Shahryar stories drawn from an empire that spanned Asia and North Africa and into Western Europe. Education saved her. With lives at stake, Shahrazad would not have relied on improvisation night after night for three years. She would have researched and prepared by reading and, most importantly, listening to others share their stories. Shahrazad 1001 invites us to listen in.
Ramon Esquivel is a graduate of NYU’s Program in Educational Theatre. He is pleased to return to New Plays for Young Audiences, where he developed his play Nasty. His plays have been seen at the Kennedy Center, Indiana Repertory Theatre, Bloomington Playwrights Project, Central Washington University, Northwestern University, and Appalachian State University. Nasty and Luna are available through Dramatic Publishing. Ramon teaches at Lakeside School, and serves on the board of 826 Seattle.
*An audience discussion with the playwright and director follows each of the three Sunday matinees
Provincetown Playhouse
133 MacDougal Street
New York, NY
For tickets, contact NYU Ticket Central
Ticket Prices – $5/general, FREE for children and students including with valid NYU-ID
Online: www.nyu.edu/ticketcentral/calendar
By phone: 212.352.3101
In person: 566 LaGuardia Place (at Washington Square South)
For more information: email newplaysforyoungaudiences@gmail.com.
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Call for scripts
New Plays for Young Audiences seeks new unpublished and unproduced scripts for young audiences (ages 4-21) for our 17th season, June 2014.
Submission Guidelines:
Please include your name, the name of the play, and where we can contact you. We prefer receiving scripts via email, but will accept them by post. Also include in your submission your goals for the week of development – questions about the script you hope to answer, characters you want to further develop, story areas you want to look closer at, etc.
If you are submitting an adaptation, please include proof that the original author has agreed to you adapting their work.
Please note that we only accept previously unpublished and unproduced scripts. If your script has had a fully produced production, we cannot accept it. If you are uncertain if your script meets this requirement or believe there is cause for an exemption, feel free to contact us (dm635@nyu.edu or newplaysforyoungaudiences@gmail.com).
We welcome scripts of any cast size and length, but are generally limited to 10 actors due to the size of our stage. If your script requires more than 10 actors, please include doubling suggestions with your submission.
To submit your new previously unpublished and unproduced play for young audiences for consideration in our 2014 series, send your script by October 31, 2013, to Artistic Director, David Montgomery at dm635@nyu.edu or to
Dr. David Montgomery
Program in Educational Theatre
Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions
New York University
Pless Hall Annex, 82 Washington Square East, Suite 223
New York, NY, 10003