musical theatre writers' resource center NEWSLETTER

UPCOMING CONTEST DEADLINES

• Harvard University Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellowships (September 13)
  https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/radcliffe-fellowship/become-a-fellow
• Harold Morton Landon Translation Award (September 15)
  https://www.poets.org/academy-american-poets/prizes/harold-morton-landon-translation-award
• Alfred Hodder Fellowship Princeton University (September 15)
  http://arts.princeton.edu/fellowships/hodder-fellowship/
• Left Coast Chamber Ensemble Composition Award (September 15)
  http://www.leftcoastensemble.org/intersection/
• John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (September 16)
  https://www.gf.org/how-to-apply/
• Princeton Fellowships in the Creative and Performing Arts (September 20)
  http://arts.princeton.edu/fellowships/
• Charles M. Getchell Award, SETC (September 30)
  http://www.setc.org/getchell-new-play-contest
• Clauder Competition for New England Playwrights (September 30)
  https://www.portlandstage.org/script-submissions/
• George Bennett Fellowship (September 30)
  https://www.exeter.edu/about-us/career-opportunities/fellowships/writer-residence-george-bennett-fellowship
• City Theatre National Award for Short Playwriting Contest (September 30)
  https://www.citytheatre.com/for-submissions

*** Visit the RESOURCE CENTER to see the full listings ***

SAMPLE PUBLIC DOMAIN IDEAS

EXCERPT:

Tildy was a good waitress, and the men tolerated her. They who sat at her tables spoke to her briefly with quotations from the bill of fare; and then raised their voices in honeyed and otherwise-flavoured accents, eloquently addressed to the fair Aileen. They writhed in their chairs to gaze around and over the impending form of Tildy, that Aileen’s pulchritude might season and make ambrosia of their bacon and eggs.

And Tildy was content to be the unwooed drudge if Aileen could receive the flattery and the homage. The blunt nose was loyal to the short Grecian. She was Aileen’s friend; and she was glad to see her rule hearts and wean the attention of men from smoking pot-pie and lemon meringue. But deep below our freckles and hay-coloured hair the unhandsomest of us dream of a prince or a princess, not vicarious, but coming to us alone.

There was a morning when Aileen tripped in to work with a slightly bruised eye; and Tildy’s solicitude was almost enough to heal any optic.

“Fresh guy,” explained Aileen, “last night as I was going home at Twenty-third and Sixth. Sashayed up, so he did, and made a break. I turned him down, cold, and he made a sneak; but followed me down to Eighteenth, and tried his hot air again. Gee! but I slapped him a good one, side of the face. Then he give me that eye. Does it look real awful, Til? I should hate that Mr. Nicholson should see it when he comes in for his tea and toast at ten.”

Tildy listened to the adventure with breathless admiration. No man had ever tried to follow her. She was safe abroad at any hour of the twenty-four. What bliss it must have been to have had a man follow one and black one’s eye for love!

EXCERPT:

A Dying Man who had been shot was requested by officers of the law to make a statement, and be quick about it.

“You were assaulted without provocation, of course,” said the District Attorney, preparing to set down the answer.

COMMENTS:

Sardonic. Cynical. Fun.

EXCERPT:

My five years’ old daughter Mini cannot live without chattering. I really believe that in all her life she has not wasted a minute in silence. Her mother is often vexed at this, and would stop her prattle, but I would not. To see Mini quiet is unnatural, and I cannot bear it long. And so my own talk with her is always lively.

One morning, for instance, when I was in the midst of the seventeenth chapter of my new novel, my little Mini stole into the room, and putting her hand into mine, said: “Father! Ramdayal the door-keeper calls a crow a krow! He doesn’t know anything, does he?”

Before I could explain to her the differences of language in this world, she was embarked on the full tide of another subject. “What do you think, Father? Bhola says there is an elephant in the clouds, blowing water out of his trunk, and that is why it rains!”

And then, darting off anew, while I sat still making ready some reply to this last saying: “Father! what relation is Mother to you?”

With a grave face I contrived to say: “Go and play with Bhola, Mini! I am busy!”

EXCERPT:

“I never intend to dance with Mr. Ellenborough again, so please don’t urge me, Aunt Pen;” and Debby knit her brows with a somewhat irate expression.

“My love, you astonish me! He is a most agreeable and accomplished young man,–spent three years in Paris, moves in the first circles, and is considered an ornament to fashionable society.

“What can be your objection, Dora?” cried Mrs. Carroll, looking as alarmed as if her niece had suddenly announced her belief in the Koran.

“One of his accomplishments consists in drinking champagne till he is not a ‘desirable partner’ for any young lady with a prejudice in favor of decency. His moving in ‘circles’ is just what I complain of; and if he is an ornament, I prefer my society undecorated. Aunt Pen, I cannot make the nice distinctions you would have me, and a sot in broadcloth is as odious as one in rags. Forgive me, but I cannot dance with that silver-labelled decanter again.”

COMMENTS:

Debby prefers the poorer, honest fella to the rich but amoral social climber. It’s a romance such as you’d expect from Louisa May Alcott; earnest and straightforward. Not enough plot to fill more than a short one act, but a sturdy enough dilemma to adapt into a charming period piece.

EXCERPT:

Madame de X. to Madame de L.

ETRETAT, Friday. My Dear Aunt:

I am coming to see you without anyone knowing it. I shall be at Les Fresnes on the 2d of September, the day before the hunting season opens, as I do not want to miss it, so that I may tease these gentlemen. You are too good, aunt, and you will allow them, as you usually do when there are no strange guests, to come to table, under pretext of fatigue, without dressing or shaving for the occasion.

They are delighted, of course, when I am not present. But I shall be there and will hold a review, like a general, at dinner time; and, if I find a single one of them at all careless in dress, no matter how little, I mean to send them down to the kitchen with the servants.

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