Call for Readers and Actors

We're looking for READERS and ACTORS for the upcoming young playwrights festivals at Playwrights Theatre of NJ. Please contact us if you are interested via the following online survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2014FestivalParticipation

Any questions? Send an email to njypf@ptnj.org.

Thanks!

2 Months to Go!

There are two months left before the submission deadlines for the 2014 NJ Young Playwrights Festival! How's your script going?

Throwback to 1992

Our Throwback Thursday picture... a few days later. This one is from the NJ Young Playwrights Festival in 1992.

From L to R: John Pietrowski, Artistic Director for PTNJ; Bethany (Schultz) Larsen; Joel R. Johnson; Dailyn Rodriguez; Jasmine (Suwa) Slowik; Jim Peskin, 1992 Festival Producer.

Get going!

Originally posted on the blog: July 17, 2012.

You may not be a wrestling fan, but the phrase is probably familiar to you: “Let’s get ready to rumbllllllllllllllllle!” Today we’re just a little under six months until the submission deadline for the 2014 New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival and its time to get writing. Specific dates and details about the 31st anniversary installment of the Festival will be posted in the coming months, but for now the best thing to do if you’re thinking about submitting a play is to get started!

There may be some of you who have an idea and are ready to dive right in, but there are others of you who may be struggling to get started. Maybe you have a lot of ideas and don’t know which to choose. Or maybe the opposite is true and you just can’t think of a thing. These are common blocks that affect every writer at some point in time. The important thing when you are struggling is to pick something and start writing. You don’t necessarily need to start with the play itself – just put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and let the ideas flow.

No matter where you are with an idea it may help to jot down a few ideas in a list, or an outline, or a synopsis. What are you interested in? What ideas come to mind when you think about a story? What kinds of plays do you like to see – OR – what kinds of stories do you like to read? Do you have an idea for a plot, or a character? (or both?) What do you want to say about the world, or to the world? What is important to you? Whatever you have in mind, wherever your brain takes you, get those ideas down on paper and see what happens. Before long you may find that you are developing an idea for a play that you feel passionate about – something that moves you deeply.

Over the next few months, I will share some ideas for writing your play from beginning to end. I hope that some of these suggestions will be helpful to you as you write, but please know that not everything that is mentioned here may work for you. There is more than one way to write a play and it is important that you figure out what works for you and what works for the story that you want to tell. I encourage you to share your ideas and your progress by commenting on the posts as we go. I can also be reached at njypf@ptnj.org if you have any comments that you don’t want to share publicly, or to answer any questions that you might have.

I look forward to getting started with you and to seeing the finished pieces in January.

Happy writing!

NJ Emerging Women Playwrights Project

Recently, Playwrights Theatre of NJ launched the NJ Emerging Women Playwrights Project "to provide meaningful support" to playwrights through a long-term commitment that emphasizes the needs of the individual writers in the development of their work. The pilot season was staged in 2011-2012 with Lia Romeo, Carrie Louise Nutt, Dominique Cieri, and Dania Ramos as the playwrights-in-residence. For the current season, PTNJ will develop new works by EM Lewis, Claire Porter, and Yasmine Rana.

For general information about the NJ Emerging Women Playwrights Project visit the website at this link.

For regular updates about the program, visit the new blog at this link.

Revolutionary Plays

We've just recently updated the guidelines for the 2014 New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival with information about a new division for this year: Revolutionary Plays!

For the 2014 season of the New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival (NJYPF), Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey (PTNJ) will commemorate the 350th anniversary of the founding of the state of New Jersey with a special submission category called “Revolutionary Plays”. 

The Revolutionary Plays category will be open to NJ students grades 4-12. Script submission and formatting guidelines are the same as the general categories of the NJYPF, with the exception that the subject matter relates to specific people, places, and events from New Jersey’s role in the American Revolution. For the purpose of this project, we will consider the Revolutionary period to be from 1765 to 1787. 

Submissions to the Revolutionary Plays must be inspired by New Jersey’s Revolutionary War history. While we are interested in unique takes on historical plays, historical drama is certainly encouraged, but not required, for submission. 

Playwrights should research their subject and, if possible, conduct on-site research at an historic Revolutionary area site in New Jersey and/or to speak with an interpreter or historian. The website of The Crossroads of the American Revolution (http://www.RevolutionaryNJ.org) will be a helpful tool in discovering historic sites in the various regions of the state. You also may find information through the National, State, and County Parks websites. 

We recommend visiting sites that host interpretive and encourage you to check with area libraries for artifacts with local significance that they might have in their collections.   

Submission and Selection Process Scripts should be submitted online via the NJYPF website (http://www.njypf.org) by the January deadline. Script readers from PTNJ will adjudicate the Revolutionary Plays for artistic merit in accordance with the general procedure for the contest. Select scripts will get a second look by additional readers from the theatre and historical communities who may determine the winners.   

Performances Winning plays will be given staged-readings during the annual NJ Young Playwrights Festival in spring 2014. Additional plans to stage readings of plays at historical sites are also possible, given the subject matter or setting of the winning plays.   

The winning playwrights in the Revolutionary Plays division will each receive a $100 Savings Bond, and the students’ schools will receive a $50 Gift Card towards the purchase of books for their school library.

Junior HS and Elementary plays due today

Arrived this morning to find that we've received half the number of scripts that were submitted to us last year, which is very exciting! Please keep them coming in...

A reminder that today is the deadline for play submissions from students in grades 4-9. Scripts must be received by 11:59 pm in order to be eligible for this year's contest. See the website for the two-step submission process: http://www.njypf.org/

High school plays due today

Today is the deadline for play submissions from students in grades 10-12. Scripts must be received by 11:59 pm in order to be eligible for this year's contest. See the website for the two-step submission process: http://www.njypf.org/

(Students in grades 4-9 you have until 11:59 pm tomorrow!)

One day more!

One day more until the first submission deadline for the NJ Young Playwrights Festival (grades 10-12 only; those of you in grades 4-9 have until Tuesday).

A little inspiration from the Les Mis 10th Anniversary cast in concert at Royal Albert Hall in London.

http://youtu.be/jPsy5ChXGHI

Happy 2013

Happy New Year, everyone!

Don't forget, the submission deadline for the 2013 NJ Young Playwrights Festival is in two weeks!

January 14 for High School submissions (grades 10-12) and January 15 for Junior HS (grades 7-9) and Elementary submissions (grades 4-6). Visit the website at http://www.njypf.org for information or to submit your script.

Sharing for revision

(portions of this post were originally published on January 8, 2009)

I hope you’ve had a great holiday filled with inspiration for your play. Some scripts have already started to come in to the office and I look forward to being inundated with them over the next two weeks. There is just a little over a week until your plays need to be submitted for entry into the 2013 NJ Young Playwrights Contest. This means that you still have some time for last minute revisions and tweaking before January 14 and 15th. Be sure to follow the guidelines for submission on the NJYPF webpage at http://www.njypf.org.

Perhaps this weekend you can get together with a group of friends or family who’s opinion you trust and have an informal reading of the play. This doesn’t need to be a formal presentation, or a fully acted reading (though it can if you want it to be). Often a reading like this works best when everyone is hanging around the living room on couches or chairs. An informal reading will provide you with the opportunity to hear the play outside of your head and see how actors or your intended audience might respond to the piece.

I know that receiving critique on something that you’ve written can be uncomfortable to bear. This is why it is important to keep the event informal and only include people whose opinions you trust. It is also helpful to inform your group that the goal of the reading is for you to hear it out loud and potentially strengthen some areas. You may want to provide your readers with a list of questions you have, or certain sections of the play that you are unsure about. Ask the group to tell you what they liked FIRST, and then get into suggestions, questions, or ideas.

IMPORTANT! - Always remember that YOU are the playwright! Everyone who reads or sees your play will respond to it differently; will have his or her own opinion about how your story should be told. It is important that you listen to what people have to say, but in the end, this is your play and you have the final say in how it is written. Just remember that the goal of writing a play is to communicate an idea to the largest audience possible. The reactions of your reading group may give you an idea of what a larger audience does and does not get from your play. If they are missing something that you want the audience to get, you may want to see where you might be able to make revisions to get that point across.

Rewriting is tough, especially after you've put so much into completing that first draft. But it is well worth the trouble. Have fun!

Happy writing!

So, what are you saying?

(Originally published on December 23, 2008)

Everything that is created is made for a particular purpose. When an author writes, he or she does so for a certain audience. When you write a paper for class, the audience is your teacher. When you write an email to a friend, the friend is your audience. When you are writing your play, you are writing for a particular group. Do you know who that audience is? Do you know what your play is saying to them and what they might take away from the story?

THEME
The theme of a play is the message that the audience is left with after the story. Remember our friend, Penny from a few weeks ago? Well, let's suppose that she decides to steal the money to get her mother a present and she gets caught. The theme, or message to the audience, of that story might simply be "Don't steal." What would the message be if Penny doesn't get caught?

What is the theme if Penny decides for herself that stealing is wrong and as a result, isn't able to get a present for her mother? The theme might then come from how Mom reacts to Penny's decision. Let's say that Penny's mother doesn't mind that Penny didn't get a present, but is happy that her daughter made the right decision. There might be two themes there. First, the audience learns that stealing is wrong; a second message might be "it's the thought that counts." What are some others themes that you can get from this story?

Take a look at your play. Do you know what the theme is? When the play is over, how will the audience understand that this is the theme? Is there a moment where the theme is revealed, like when Penny learns a lesson?

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE
Knowing who the audience of a play is will help a playwright select a theme and determine how it is presented to that audience. Obviously, this does not mean that a playwright will personally know everyone in the audience for their play. What it does mean is that when writing a play, a playwright has an intended audience. Who that intended audience might be can change how a play is presented.

Again, taking Penny as our example, the way that the theme is presented to an audience of 8-year-olds will be much different than how the theme is presented to adults.

A playwright should also consider how well informed an audience might be about a particular setting in the play, or references that the characters make to certain regions, pop culture, and other things. For example, there are things that are specific to life in New Jersey that people from other parts of the country may not understand. I recently spoke with one young playwright who was writing a play that takes place at the beach. There were some terms in the play that people who don't live near a beach may not know, which could lead to confusion about what is going on. To help avoid this kind of confusion, find some friends or family members who may not be familiar with your play, or these specifics, and ask them to read the play. You can use their feedback to find creative ways to include more details in your story without making it too unnatural to the dialogue. It is difficult to do, but definitely worth the try. But the results are very exciting!

Happy writing!

Congratulations Madison Young Playwrights!

Today wraps the Madison Young Playwrights Program for two of the five participating schools. (The others will conclude in early January as they make up classes lost to Hurricane Sandy.) We celebrate another successful year of playwriting in the Madison Schools with some pictures from our archives. Enjoy!

Teaching artist Arthur Wilson leads the young playwrights from Torey J. Sabatini School during a residency in the late 1990's. Arthur began our "Advice to young playwrights" a few months ago (linked here).

A teaching artist with the playwriting group at Central Avenue School during the 1993-1994 season.

"Silence is golden."

You’ve probably heard the phrase above before. The saying has ancient roots and can mean different things depending on the context in which it is spoken. Often I hear it used with the meaning that being silent is better than speaking. That may or may not be true under certain circumstances and is an interesting idea to consider when writing your play.

Each character in your play should speak with a unique voice. That means individual speech patterns, favorite phrases, and things like that. They way in which a character talks can say a lot about that character’s emotions, thoughts, ideas, and relationships with others. What might it mean when a character speaks in longer sentences? What about shorter – perhaps one word – phrases? What about one who takes a lot of pauses as opposed to a character who speaks quickly and without much stopping… or thinking? These qualities of speech help to form individual personalities for each of your characters, but also provide actors and directors with a number of cues about how to portray the people of your play, as well as the tone of the scene, etc.

I am drawn to characters who don’t say much. By this I mean those who don’t speak a lot in the play (don’t have many lines), or who answer in short sentences. To me, when a character doesn’t speak it means that he or she is thinking and that those thoughts may or may not always come out for the audience to hear. Much like the unopened door, the unspoken line can be quite powerful and bring the audience into the play.

As you go through a draft of your play and you find sections where there may be a lot of talking, or that are in need of some intrigue and excitement, see how silence might influence it.

Happy writing!

Building... suspense!

“There is nothing more frightening than a closed door.”

Imagine that you are watching a play or a movie in which a character approaches a closed door, but has no idea what he or she is going to find behind it. Maybe this is Alice in Wonderland and Alice is facing the small door through which the White Rabbit just disappeared. She is curious to follow the rabbit, but uncertain what is going to happen on the other side. What should she do? What is going to happen on the other side? Alice doesn’t know and, if we as an audience are invested in the story, we share in that moment with her because it is familiar to us. We have all been in a position where we are faced with something that is unknown. In that moment we might think: What do I do? What will happen when I do that? We may feel any number of emotions at that point – anxiety, adventure, fear, excitement, or maybe all of those at once! Creating that tension for a character can create a sense of suspense within the audience. That draws them in and leaves them wanting to know more. This is called “suspense”.

At the heart of suspense is the idea put forth in the quote above: when a character is faced with something that is unknown, the audience’s imagination will create a scenario that makes the situation personally suspenseful to them. That is probably why the quote above is often attributed to Alfred Hitchcock, a filmmaker who created some of the iconic horror and suspense movies of the 1950s and 60s. (However, it is not clear that Hitchcock is actually the speaker of this phrase giving the phrase its own unknown quality!) Radio plays have also used this idea to trigger an audience’s imagination. This was important because the audience could only hear the story and had to “see” it in their minds. The audience for your play will be able to both hear and see the action, but using suspense and the idea of the unknown can be useful to keeping them (and in some ways, your characters) invested in the story.

This is related to the idea of “raising the stakes”, which was talked about in a previous post (linked here). When you raise the stakes for a character, you are challenging him or her in the quest to get what they need/want. As I discussed before that might including doing things that a character doesn’t think is possible, but it might also mean having to face something, or someone, whom they are not sure about. That leads me to another thought about silence…

… which I will share in the next post!

And now I have you thinking: What is he going to say about silence? You don’t know, or maybe you might now. Either way, your imagination is running and the thoughts are flying. The suspense is building, but you’ll just need to tune in again next time to find out…

Until then, happy writing!

Madison Young Playwrights Program begins today!

At 3:00 today, our 27th annual Madison Young Playwrights Program began with the group of students at the Madison Junior School. The elementary schools followed beginning their programs at 3:15. The start of a new young playwrights' season is is an exciting time of year for all of us at Playwrights Theatre. We look forward to all of the creative work that will be generated over the next three months!

http://www.ptnj.org/pages/madison-young-playwrights-festival

Making characters into people

(portions of this post were originally published on November 11, 2008)

Characters should function in the world of your play as a real person, or being, inside that world. They have certain ways of moving, thinking, and interaction with other people or beings, just as we all do in “reality.” Giving a character a name is a simple way to begin fleshing them out.

A few years ago, I led a playwriting workshop for teachers at the NJEA Convention in Atlantic City. Each of the participants completed a Self-Questionnaire similar to the one in the previous blog post. After that, I asked everyone to take their own name and recreate themselves as a new character by changing at least their last name… some changed both. (I learned this activity during a workshop run by Young Playwrights, Inc., an organization that runs an excellent national contest for young playwrights. I would encourage you to submit your play there, too - http://www.youngplaywrights.org/.) If you are stuck for a character idea, or a character name at least, this is a simple way to get started. Some of the names the Atlantic City group came up with were:

Jean Mercedes
Nicole Moodie
Fran Active
Fresca Visions
Calliope Sky

These names give a sense of something specific about the character. It could be a characteristic, a favorite color, an environment, and on and on... Do you have an idea of what some of these characters might be like? How old are each of these characters? What do they do for fun? Do they work? What kind of work might they do? What does each character want in life?

Another way to get deeper into a character is to use a Character Biography Sheet. In his book The Playwrights Process, Buzz McLaughlin provides samples of mini-form and long-form biographies. At Playwrights Theatre, we use an adaptation of his Mini-form biography that asks a playwright to consider the character's dreams, secrets, fears, and conflicts. These are all great places that might spark an interesting story idea.

I’ve often found that when I can envision my character I have an easier time writing for him or her. Then I write a description, or even a short (very short) story, to place that person in a location and to get a sense of how they move, think, and interact with others. This doesn’t need to be something that becomes part of the play, but just something that I can use to get a clearer sense of who the story is about and how they function. Once that is set, its time to give them something to want and a problem to face. More about that in a few days.

Happy writing!

2013 Script submission deadlines announced

The script submission deadlines for the 2013 New Jersey Young Playwrights Festivals have been announced!

January 14 - plays for the High School division (grades 10-12)
January 15 - plays for the Junior HS (grades 7-9) and Elementary (grades 4-6) divisions

The preferred method of submission is by email. Please see the website for information about how to submit your script - http://www.ptnj.org/pages/nj-young-playwrights

We look forward to receiving your play in January!

Let's get ready to rumble... er... write!

You may not be a wrestling fan, but the phrase is probably familiar to you: “Let’s get ready to rumbllllllllllllllllle!” Today we’re just a little under six months until the submission deadline for the 2013 New Jersey Young Playwrights Festival and its time to get writing. Specific dates and details about the 30th anniversary installment of the Festival will be posted in the coming months, but for now the best thing to do if you’re thinking about submitting a play is to get started!

There may be some of you who have an idea and are ready to dive right in, but there are others of you who may be struggling to get started. Maybe you have a lot of ideas and don’t know which to choose. Or maybe the opposite is true and you just can’t think of a thing. These are common blocks that affect every writer at some point in time. The important thing when you are struggling is to pick something and start writing. You don’t necessarily need to start with the play itself – just put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard and let the ideas flow.

No matter where you are with an idea it may help to jot down a few ideas in a list, or an outline, or a synopsis. What are you interested in? What ideas come to mind when you think about a story? What kinds of plays do you like to see – OR – what kinds of stories do you like to read? Do you have an idea for a plot, or a character? (or both?) What do you want to say about the world, or to the world? What is important to you? Whatever you have in mind, wherever your brain takes you, get those ideas down on paper and see what happens. Before long you may find that you are developing an idea for a play that you feel passionate about – something that moves you deeply.

Over the next few months, I will share some ideas for writing your play from beginning to end. I hope that some of these suggestions will be helpful to you as you write, but please know that not everything that is mentioned here may work for you. There is more than one way to write a play and it is important that you figure out what works for you and what works for the story that you want to tell. With this in mind, I’ve asked a number of the playwrights, directors, actors, and other theatre folks who work with Playwrights Theatre of NJ and the NJ Young Playwrights Festival to share some of their thoughts about plays with you. I’m collecting their ideas now and will post them to the blog along with writing tips and ideas. I encourage you to share your ideas and your progress by commenting on the posts as we go. I can also be reached at njypf@ptnj.org if you have any comments that you don’t want to share publicly, or to answer any questions that you might have.

I look forward to getting started with you and to seeing the finished pieces in January.

Happy writing!

5 Questions with Alina Sodano

Our third high school playwright is...

Alina Sodano
Bergen County Academies, Hackensack

Alina's play - Disneyland - takes place in the Disney Outlet Store in Paramus, an enchanting place that brings together two souls in need of a little magic.

1. What inspired you to write Disneyland?

I took a trip to the Disney store to buy my friend a present and I overheard two people having a job interview. The interviewer asked the interviewee who their favorite Disney character was, and the young man hesitantly responded, “Simba.” I was shocked to hear that question being asked at an interview and I thought his hesitant response was quite funny. This interview inspired me to write a Disney themed play and parts of the interview are found as dialogue in Disneyland!

2. You mentioned in your bio you enjoy taking science courses and playwriting. Do you think this makes you both left and right brained?

I think so! I like thinking both creatively and analytically.

3. Have you been to Disneyland or Disney World? If both, do you prefer one over the other? If only one, do you plan to visit the other?

I have been to Disney World in Florida before but I would love to visit Disneyland in California as well. From what I’ve heard, each theme park has a slightly different feel to it, so it would be interesting to explore both places.

4. What is your favorite book and why?

My favorite book is The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. I read it as a young girl and the book's message continues to resonate with me.

5. If you could tour with any band or singer, who would that be?

I would choose to go on tour with my new favorite band called Fun.

Disneyland will be presented with the three other winners of the High School Division of the NJ Young Playwrights Festival on Tuesday, May 22 at 7:00 p.m. Junior HS and Elementary plays will be presented on Monday, May 21. Both performances will take place at 7:00 p.m. in the University Center Little Theatre, Kean University. Tickets are free, but reservations are highly suggested (njypf@ptnj.org)