PlayFest submission deadline is coming up

Just a reminder that the deadline is fast approaching for this fall’s PlayFest 2.0 at Orlando Shakespeare Theater. It’s a new, shortened version of the new-play festival, and here, once again, are the submission guidelines:

PlayFest 2.0 looking for submissions

A new, shortened version of Orlando Shakespeare Theater’s PlayFest — scheduled for Nov. 3-6 of this year — is seeking submissions. Here are the guidelines:

Local writer needs audience and actors for new-play reading

Here’s a request from local playwright Carol Rose Offutt:

I would like to invite theater enthusiasts to participate in a reading of my play, Distant Runway Lights, a military romance set in the 1940s.

Mad Cow to present staged reading of ‘Women of Lockerbie’

 

Deborah Brevoort

Some of you may know playwright Deborah Brevoort, who has conducted play-writing workshops here and whose play The Blue-Sky Boys, about the engineers responsible for the first Apollo moon landing, was done at PlayFest a while back.

 

Orlando Shakes announces PlayFest schedule, Mark Brown talk

Mark Brown

Playwright Mark Brown, whose comedies Around the World in 80 Days and The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge have been Orlando Shakespeare Theater hits, will take part in PlayFest’s keynote event, a conversation between him and Orlando Shakes artistic director Jim Helsinger, on April 8.

The theater has announced the entire PlayFest schedule, and here it is, followed by some info on Mark and good PlayFest stuff:

More about PlayFest’s plays

Patrick Flick, head of new-play development at Orlando Shakespeare Theater, has sent over descriptions of the plays slated for April’s PlayFest. Here you go:

PlayFest titles announced

As auditions continue today for Orlando Shakespeare Theater’s PlayFest, I was curious about the names of the scripts we’ll be hearing. So here’s a rundown on what’s coming to PlayFest this April:

Theater auditions: PlayFest at Orlando Shakes

Here’s the audition notice for PlayFest:

Winter Park Institute to stage “animated magazine”

Lots going on at the Winter Park Institute beginning Sunday, when former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins, Wall Street Journal theater critic Terry Teachout, former U.S. senator Mel Martinez and others will gather to re-create the Animated Magazine, a feature at Rollins from years long gone by.

In the days of Rollins College president Hamilton Holt, contributors read from their writings in front of an audience; the format began in 1927 and ran, in various guides, through the 1960s. Now the Institute is reviving the tradition as part of its mission to engage Rollins and the surrounding community.

The facts, ma’am:

Coming up this week (and next):

Your weekly dose of what’s happening in Orlando-area theater:

• Macbeth, Mad Cow Theatre
• Children of Eden, Breakthrough Theatre
• Waiting for Godot, Relevant Theatrics Theatre Company
• Fuddy Meers, Wanzie Presents
• Jacqueline Jones, Winter Park Playhouse Spotlight Cabaret Series
• Summer Shorts 2010: Summer Love, Playwrights’ Round Table
• The Staff Room, John Baker
• Good Seed Bad Seed, Project Genesis
• The Nightingale, Patchwork Productions
• The Wizard of Oz, Titusville Playhouse
• Bedlam in Cabin B, Lake Wales Little Theatre

and extended:

• Manuscript, I.D.10-t Productions

Details here:

Opening this weekend

Back in town, and here’s your regular edition of Opening This Week:

• Glory Days, Orlando Young Artists’ Project
• Seasons, Elaine Pechachek and Katie Hammond
• The Pirates of Penzance, Moonlight Players
• “Love Songs” and “Summer Suite,” Yow Dance

And here’s the long form:

Opening this week

Lots going on this week, including the Tony Awards on CBS Sunday night. Here’s a look at what’s happening closer to home:

Southern Winds to read ‘The Clean House’

Sarah Ruhl’s play The Clean House — about a Brazilian maid who would rather tell jokes than clean house — won lots of acclaim off-Broadway three years ago, and it’s gone on to be produced in regional theaters across the country. Now Southern Winds Theatre is doing a reading of the play June 25 and 26 at Stardust Video.

Orlando Shakes changes 2010-2011 schedule

Cymbeline is out and The Turn of the Screw is in for Orlando Shakespeare Theater’s 2010-2011 season. I suspect budget constraints led the theater to put off Cymbeline until the 2011-2012 season: It has the couple of dozen characters common to Shakespeare, and The Turn of the Screw (assuming this is Jeffrey Hatcher’s adaptation) has a cast of two. (Mad Cow produced that adaptation in 1998-99.)

Opening this week:

Here’s a big batch of shows opening this weekend:

‘My Fair Lady,’ Orlando Philharmonic and Mad Cow

Opening this week

This week the big-deal event in Orlando theater is the Orlando Cabaret Festival, opening Friday night with New York singer K.T. Sullivan and a bunch of Orlandoans, including Kevin Kelly performing the songs of Maltby and Shire, the It-Was-A-Very-Good-Year singers and Cabaret House Party, the best open-mike night around.

But there’s other stuff going on, too, so read on:

Opening this week

Here’s a roundup of what’s starting up this week in Orlando and area theater:

Opening this weekend (and soon thereafter)

Now that PlayFest is over there’s lots else going on, and here’s a look:

• Torch Song Trilogy, Breakthrough
• Comic Potential, Seminole State
• The Odd Couple, Osceola Center for the Arts
• Spring Awakening, Queer Quills
• Project Spotlight, UCF
• The Boys Next Door, Theatre Winter Haven
• Yow Dance
• The Elves and the Shoemaker, Patchwork Productions
• Ramona Quimby, Orlando Rep
• Wiley and the Hairy Man, Storybook Theater
• Beauty and the Beast national tour, Daytona Beach
• Jack and the Beanstalk, Pinocchio’s

And here are specifics:

From PlayFest: Reina Hardy on ‘Glassheart’

Here’s a brief Q&A with playwright Reina Hardy on her play Glassheart, a modern-day take on Beauty and the Beast with some very unforeseen consequences. A little biographical info follows.

PlayFest keeps on keeping on through Sunday

PlayFest continues at Orlando Shakespeare Theater through the weekend, with one reading and one full performance tonight and multiple things to do Friday and over the weekend.

I’ve seen many of these and have been thrilled by a few. Here’s a rundown, along with info on where to go and how to get tickets: