musical theatre writers' resource center NEWSLETTER

UPCOMING CONTEST DEADLINES

• Sewanee Writers’ Conference (July 30)
  http://www.sewaneewriters.org/conference/
• Jewish Ensemble Theatre Festival of New Plays (July 31)
  https://www.jettheatre.org/play-submissions
• ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop in Los Angeles (July 31)
  https://www.ascapfoundation.org/mtworkshops
• Theatre Three One-Act Play Festival (July 31)
  https://theatrethree.com/oaf.html
• BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop (August 1)
  https://www.bmi.com/theatre_workshop/application_requirements
• Rhinebeck Writers Retreat Summer Residencies (August 1)
  https://www.rhinebeckwriters.org
• PEN Center USA Literary Awards (August 1)
  https://pen.org/literary-awards/awards/
• Children’s Theatre Foundation Aurand Harris Fellowship (August 2)
  https://www.childrenstheatrefoundation.org/page-13/page-15/
• National Black Theatre Festival (August 2)
  https://ncblackrep.org/work-with-us/#script_submission
• National Endowment for the Humanities Division of Public Programs/Humanities Projects in Media (August 14)
  https://www.neh.gov/grants/public/media-projects-development-grants

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

SAMPLE PUBLIC DOMAIN IDEAS

EXCERPT:

Once on a time there was a widower, who had a son and a daughter by his first marriage. Both were good children, and loved each other dearly. Some time after the man married a widow, who had a daughter by her first husband, and she was both ugly and bad, like her mother. So from the day the new wife came into the house there was no peace for her stepchildren in any corner; and at last the lad thought he’d best go out into the world, and try to earn his own bread. And when he had wandered a while he came to a king’s palace, and got a place under the coachman, and quick and willing he was, and the horses he looked after were so sleek and clean that their coats shone again.

EXCERPT:

“Oh! horror!–she has no heart!” On hearing this frightful announcement, the King and Queen gave a cry of despair, and entreated the Fairies to find some remedy for such an unheard-of misfortune. Thereupon the eldest Fairy consulted her Book of Magic, which she always carried about with her, hung to her girdle by a thick silver chain, and there she found out at once that it was Gorgonzola who had stolen the Princess’s heart, and also discovered what the wicked old Fairy had done with it.

EXCERPT:

Everything Jar was a long way from finished and the unsatisfied ache of the creative artist made heavy Mrs. Pawket’s breast. She surveyed the ceramic, half-erupt with a medley of buttons, screws, safety-pins, hooks, knobs, all covered with their transforming gilt, and tried to imagine how it would seem to have it completed. Then the ultimate anxiety beset her–when completed, should the Everything be bestowed upon the minister’s family or–this a recent and daring inspiration–should it be conferred upon Willum’s wife, the mistress of the proposed vanilla? Mrs. Pawket was fairly tortured by uncertainty. She shook the sleeping Mr. Pawket by the shoulder.

“Say, look at the Everything. I just now put on that last screw. Ain’t it handsome?”

As he blinked at the fantastic jar gleaming with golden excrescences, a deep sense of beauty thrilled Mr. Pawket.

“Hey, Maw,” he chuckled. “That’s the best yet. My! ain’t it pritty? It beats that lamp-shade ye made out er the tinfoil. Now the question is, who ye goin’ to give it to?”

“It’s fer the vanilla,” returned Mrs. Pawket, calmly.

EXCERPT:

There were seven of us on a drag, four women and three men; one of the latter sat on the box seat beside the coachman. We were ascending, at a snail’s pace, the winding road up the steep cliff along the coast.

Setting out from Etretat at break of day in order to visit the ruins of Tancarville, we were still half asleep, benumbed by the fresh air of the morning. The women especially, who were little accustomed to these early excursions, half opened and closed their eyes every moment, nodding their heads or yawning, quite insensible to the beauties of the dawn.

It was autumn. On both sides of the road stretched the bare fields, yellowed by the stubble of wheat and oats which covered the soil like a beard that had been badly shaved. The moist earth seemed to steam. Larks were singing high up in the air, while other birds piped in the bushes.

EXCERPT:

How is it that the sunlight gives us such joy? Why does this radiance when it falls on the earth fill us with the joy of living? The whole sky is blue, the fields are green, the houses all white, and our enchanted eyes drink in those bright colors which bring delight to our souls. And then there springs up in our hearts a desire to dance, to run, to sing, a happy lightness of thought, a sort of enlarged tenderness; we feel a longing to embrace the sun.

The blind, as they sit in the doorways, impassive in their eternal darkness, remain as calm as ever in the midst of this fresh gaiety, and, not understanding what is taking place around them, they continually check their dogs as they attempt to play.

*** Visit the PUBLIC DOMAIN IDEAS to see the complete stories ***