musical theatre writers' resource center NEWSLETTER

UPCOMING CONTEST DEADLINES

• Theatre Conspiracy (December 6)
  https://artinlee.org/newplaycontest/
• New Musical Initiative (December 9)
  https://ttf.sdsu.edu/about_ttf/centers_institutes/new-musical-initiative
• The Miranda Family ‘Voces Latinx’ National Playwriting Competition (December 13)
  http://repertorio.nyc/#/opportunities
• The Great American Song Contest (December 13)
  http://www.greatamericansong.com/rules.php
• Playwrights’ Center McKnight Advancement Grants (December 13)
  https://pwcenter.org/programs/mcknight-fellowships-in-playwriting
• Wichita Sate University New Play competition (December 13)
  https://www.wichita.edu/academics/fine_arts/spa/3_THEATRE/Playwright_Contest.php
• George R. Kernodle Playwriting Contest (December 16)
  http://fulbright.uark.edu/departments/theatre/callboard/kernodle-new-play-award.php
• National Alliance for Musical Theatre (NAMT) (December 20)
  https://namt.org/festivalsconcerts/festival-submission-process/
• NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship (December 23)
  https://www.nyfa.org/awards-grants/artist-fellowships/
• Page 73 Productions (December 23)
  https://www.page73.org/programs

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

SAMPLE PUBLIC DOMAIN IDEAS

EXCERPT:

JIMMY. You are an unscrupulous wretch. If these are the manners of Heaven, I am glad it is so far away, and means of communication so difficult. A few more of you would corrupt the morals of five continents. You are utterly depraved–Here! what are you doing?

THE ANGEL. I am taking off my robes, so as to put on my new clothes.

JIMMY. Spare the common decencies at least. Go in the other room.

THE ANGEL. Certainly, if that is the custom here. With the clothes over his arm, he goes into the bedroom.

JIMMY. (sternly, to Annabelle) And now tell me, what do you mean by this?

ANNABELLE. (simply)–We are in love.

JIMMY. Do you mean to say you would throw me over for that fellow?

ANNABELLE. Why not?

JIMMY. What good is he? All he can do is sing hymns. In three months he’ll be a tramp.

ANNABELLE. I don’t care. And he won’t be a tramp. I’ll look after him.

JIMMY. (sneeringly) The maternal instinct! Well, take care of him if you like. But of course you know that in six weeks he’ll fall in love with somebody else?

ANNABELLE. No he won’t. I’m sure that I am the only girl in the world to him.

JIMMY. Of course you’re the only girl in the world to him–now. You’re the only one he’s ever seen. But wait till he sees the others! Six weeks? On second thought I make it three days. Immortal love! (He laughs.)

ANNABELLE. What difference does it make? You don’t understand. Whether it lasts a day or a year, while it lasts it will be immortal. The Angel enters, dressed in Jimmy’s old clothes, and carrying his wings in his hands. He seems exhilarated.

THE ANGEL. How do I look?

EXCERPT:

Gripe. Why don’t you go? Here, take more money, and fetch what you will; take here, half-a-crown.

Mrs. Joyn. What will half-a-crown do?

Gripe. Take a crown then, an angel, a piece;[43]–begone!

Mrs. Joyn. A treat only will not serve my turn; I must buy the poor wretch there some toys.

Gripe. What toys? what? speak quickly.

Mrs. Joyn. Pendants, necklaces, fans, ribbons, points, laces, stockings, gloves–

Gripe. Hold, hold! before it comes to a gown.

Mrs. Joyn. Well remembered, sir; indeed she wants a gown, for she has but that one to her back. For your own sake you should give her a new gown, for variety of dresses rouses desire, and makes an old mistress seem every day a new one.

Gripe. For that reason she shall have no new gown; for I am naturally constant, and as I am still the same, I love she should be still the same. But here, take half a piece for the other things.

Mrs. Joyn. Half a piece!–

Gripe. Prithee, begone!–take t’other piece then–two pieces–three pieces–five! here, ’tis all I have.

Mrs. Joyn. I must have the broad-seal ring too, or l stir not.

Gripe. Insatiable woman! will you have that too! Prithee spare me that, ’twas my grandfather’s.

EXCERPT:

Marguerite de Therelles was dying. Although she was-only fifty-six years old she looked at least seventy-five. She gasped for breath, her face whiter than the sheets, and had spasms of violent shivering, with her face convulsed and her eyes haggard as though she saw a frightful vision.

Her elder sister, Suzanne, six years older than herself, was sobbing on her knees beside the bed. A small table close to the dying woman’s couch bore, on a white cloth, two lighted candles, for the priest was expected at any moment to administer extreme unction and the last communion.

EXCERPT:

MRS. PATRICK

This is the Outside. Sand. [Picking some of it up in her hand and letting it fall on the beach grass.] Sand that covers–hills of sand that move and cover.

ALLIE MAYO

Woods. Woods to hold the moving hills from Provincetown. Provincetown–where they turn when boats can’t live at sea. Did you ever see the sails come round here when the sky is dark? A line of them–swift to the harbor–where their children live. Go back! [Pointing.] Back to your edge of the woods that’s the edge of the dunes.

MRS. PATRICK

The edge of life. Where life trails off to dwarfed things not worth a name.

[Suddenly sits down in the doorway.

ALLIE MAYO

Not worth a name. And–meeting the Outside!

[Big with the sense of the wonder of life.

MRS. PATRICK

[Lifting sand and letting it drift through her hand.] They’re what the sand will let them be. They take strange shapes like shapes of blown sand.

EXCERPT:

When birds were men, and men were birds, Pivi and Kabo lived in an island far away, called New Claledonia. Pivi was a cheery little bird that chirps at sunset; Kabo was an ugly black fowl that croaks in the darkness. One day Pivi and Kabo thought that they would make slings, and practice slinging, as the people of the island still do. So they went to a banyan tree, and stripped the bark to make strings for their slings, and next they repaired to the river bank to find stones. Kabo stood on the bank of the river, and Pivi went into the water. The game was for Kabo to sling at Pivi, and for Pivi to dodge the stones, if he could. For some time he dodged them cleverly, but at last a stone from Kabo’s sling hit poor Pivi on the leg and broke it. Down went Pivi into the stream, and floated along it, till he floated into a big hollow bamboo, which a woman used for washing her sweet potatoes.

‘What is that in my bamboo?’ said the woman. And she blew in at one end, and blew little Pivi out at the other, like a pea from a pea-shooter.

‘Oh!’ cried the woman, ‘what a state you are in! What have you been doing?’

‘It was Kabo who broke my leg at the slinging game,’ said Pivi.

COMMENTS:

Strange little story; might make an interesting short dance piece, but probably not a musical.

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