Announcing WLPG Shorts (Cleveland): Unexpected Connections

WLPG Shorts (Cleveland): Unexpected Connections is a collaborative project between Write Local. Play Global. and Theater for Young Audiences/USA toward the creation of original 1,000 word plays from emerging playwrights on the theme of "Culture Clash: Unexpected Collisions and Connections".  The selected plays will be presented as readings on May 9, 2013 in Cleveland, Ohio, at the One Theatre World conference, held in conjunction with the Cleveland International Children's Festival.

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WLPG Featured Playwrights - Willy Conley (USA), Mercy Mirembe Ntangaare, (Uganda) and Karin Serres (France)

From time to time we like to feature some of our member playwrights.  We've recently managed to gather short interviews with three very exciting writers, all of whom write for both young audiences and adults.

And at the end of their interviews, each has posed a question for other practitioners.  We encourage everyone to join in the conversation!

Click on the name of the playwright to read the interviews:

US Playwright Willy Conley

Ugandan Playwright Mercy Mirembe Ntangaare

French Playwright Karin Serres

'The Creation of a National New Works in Translation Network' by Adam Versenyi

A provocation. A proposal. And a plea.

The provocation: What would happen if we were to think of new translations of plays, both classical and contemporary, into English the same way that we think of new plays written in English? Talk to theater practitioners throughout Latin American and Europe and they will frequently tell you how deeply their own practice was affected by the theatrical translations that they have seen and read. Talk to audience members in those regions and they will tell you how much their notions of what the theater is has been formed by work in translation.

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"Censorship and Self-Censorship.../De la censure et de l’autocensure.." by Suzanne LeBeau

I began to write for young audiences thirty years ago because I wasn’t happy with the plays for these audiences that I was performing in. I had fallen in love with an « unformatted » audience. I wanted to offer children the best theatre: accessible, democratic, contemporary, new. But new compared to what? There was no repertoire to point the way, few models to reject or contest. So I developed a culture of questioning. The questions came from the relationship with the audiences (children) – and from outside – adults’ opinions about our work and their comments about childhood and its relationship with life, art, and theatre.

The first question with which I “bothered” myself remains just as current forty years later: who knows and can decide what is best for a child?

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American Alliance for Theater and Education 2012 Distinguished Play Awards

On August 10, at its national conference in Lexington, Kentucky, the American Alliance for Theater and Education announced its 2012 Distinguished Play Awards:  Write Local Play Global congratulates all of the recipients:

Category A: (for middle and secondary audiences)
Teaching Disco Square Dancing to our Elders: A Class Presentation by Larissa FastHorse

Category B: primarly for Pre-K and Elementary school audiences
Balloonacy by Barry Kornhauser
Pirates! by Charles Way

Category C: (Adaptations, Upper Elementary)
A Boy Called Lizard, book by James J. Mellon, Music and Lyrics by James J. Mellon and Scott DeTurk, based on the novel Lizard by Dennis Covington

Category D: (Adaptations, Lower Elementary)
Eggs by Y York, based on the novel by Jerry Spinelli

'The Global Play Project: Shifting Perspectives of International TYA at a US University' by Jenny Anne Koppera

The journey to create the Global Play Project (GPP) began after I returned inspired and rejuvenated artistically from my experience as an intern at the ASSITEJ World Congress and Festival in May 2011.  I was bubbling over with ideas and new friends from across the world, and my goal was to bring this feeling and energy back to Michigan.

At ASSITEJ, I had the opportunity to work on the international playwright slams held in both Copenhagen, Denmark and Malmoe, Sweden, the two host cities.  These slams, which introduced me to 20+ international plays, along with some in-depth conversations with a few playwrights really sparked my interest in international work.   My interest piqued, I was then quite eager to foster dialogue around international TYA and create some cross-cultural relationships.

I proposed the Global Play Project to the Drama and Applied Theatre for Young Audiences Graduate Program at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, and it was then paired with a graduate level course entitled, “The Playwright and The Young Audience,” taught by faculty member Patricia Zimmer.  This class/project interface allowed ten graduate students to partner with me in a variety of roles such as directors, actors and designers to move this Global Play Project from dream to reality!

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Happy Birthday to 'Wiley and the Hairy Man' (rebooted)

A new life for a US TYA classic!

The 40th birthday of Suzan Zeder's play Wiley and the Hairy Man will be celebrated this October in fine style with a brand new production at StageOne in Louisville, Kentucky.  Wiley will be revitalized and reborn as a musical based in bluegrass and American roots music.  Suzan has been working with a Louisville legend, jazz composer and performer, Harry Pickens, for the past six months on this and she says "it is very exciting to give new life to the play that literally launched me into writing for young audiences."

More information on StageOne's website.

LAB007: in search of recent plays

LABOO7 is a professional network dedicated to multilingual theatre experiences for young audiences.

It is based on both a deep knowledge of the international contemporary repertoire for youth
and the powerful richness of the sound and song of languages on stage.  Born in Europe in 2007, it's now opening worldwide, also acting as a go-between for all the contemporary forms of playwriting for children and teenagers.

To increase our knowledge of the contemporary playwriting for the youth, LABOO7 reading committee is looking forward to receiving and reading recent plays (written since 2000), especially plays coming from Spain, Greece, Portugal, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Malta, the Czech Republic, Slovaka and Slovenia. They can be aimed to small children, children and teenagers.

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Winners of the Polish TYA play competition announced!

The Jury of the Twenty-Third Theatre for Children and Young People Play Competition (Paweł Aigner, Piotr Cieplak, Tadeusz Pajdała, Waldemar Raźniak and Zbigniew Rudziński) has met and made its decisions.

The three major awards were given to
-Snow (Śnieży) by Robert Jarosz
-Malwinka in the Kingdom of Birds (Malwinka w ptasim królestwie) by Agnieszka Wiktorowska-Chmielewska
-Me as…?  (Ja, jako…) by Stach Szulist

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Looking ahead to New Visions/New Voices 2014

It's not too early to save the dates now for New Visions/New Voices 2014, which will take place in May, 2014, just before the ASSITEJ Congress and Festival in Warsaw.  The creative teams will arrive May 11, 2014, and the conference portion will be May 16-18, 2014.
 
The specific guidelines for participation will be issued in April, 2013, and applications will be due in August 2014.  As with this year, the Kennedy Center will be looking for US and international projects and international playwright observers.   For 'The Translation Project', Kennedy Center will be looking a play that has had a successful production in one language, but not yet in English, a play that will resonate in English-speaking countries.

See you in 2014!

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