Category Archives: competition

Calling All Playwrights! Announcing the Triangle Bake-Off!

31 Tuesday Mar 2020

Posted by in competition, Tamara Kissane

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ANNOUNCEMENT:

In collaboration with Tamara Kissane, the 2020 Piedmont Laureate, and local theatre artist Hayden Tyler Moses, Women’s Theatre Festival (WTF) proudly announces the Triangle Bake-Off Competition.

This spirited playwrighting competition is open to North Carolina residents of all ages and experience levels. 

The Bake-Off will begin at 7:00 am on Friday, April 3 when WTF releases the list of “secret ingredients” that each script must include. Submissions must be received by 7:00 pm on Sunday, April 5 to be considered. See below for additional timeline and info.

The ingredients, all of the submissions guidelines, and the submissions can be found on the WTF website: https://www.womenstheatrefestival.com/triangle-bake-off-2020

Competitors will elect to compete in one of five divisions: 

● Youth (anyone under high school age) 

● High School (any current high school student) 

● College (anyone currently enrolled at an institution of higher learning) 

● First-Timer (anyone who is NOT a student and has NEVER written a play) 

● Practitioner (anyone who is a practicing writer or artist) 

Submissions will be read and scored by a team of adjudicators who will select 3-5 finalists per division. Those finalists will receive a reading of their drafts through the WTF Virtual Plays Club. Audiences will then get the chance to vote for their favorites. The play in each division that receives the most votes will receive a professional staged reading during WTF’s Occupy The Stage staged reading festival in November of this year.

Throughout the next six months, Piedmont Laureate Tamara Kissane will offer the playwrights coaching and feedback as they prepare their final drafts for performance. 

For more information, email info@womenstheatrefestival.com and stay tuned across their website and social media platforms. 

RULES & GUIDELINES: 

1. All playwrights must be North Carolina residents 

2. Playwrights may identify as any gender. 

3. Playwrights may submit a maximum of 15 pages* 

4. Playwrights must follow formatting guidelines** 

5. Playwrights must use all of the 4 ingredients in their “recipes” 

6. Plays should be written for 4 actors to perform. If your script includes more than 4 characters, please include doubling instructions. 

7. Submissions must be received via the submission form on the WTF website by 7:00 pm on 04/05/2020. 

*The spirit of the Bake-Off is not finished or perfect scripts, but an interesting and exciting  START. You may submit a draft that is fewer than 15 formatted pages. 

**Formatting guidelines may be relaxed for very young (ie 5-10 years old) playwrights. 

RESOURCES & FURTHER INFO: 

● Visit the WTF website for full info on formatting guidelines and to learn more about the history of Bake-Offs. 

● Each submission will be read and scored by 3 adjudicators chosen because of their expertise in that particular division. Submissions will be read “blind,” meaning that the adjudicators will not see the name or other identifying information of the playwright so that they may be as impartial as possible. 

● Adjudicators are NOT eligible to submit for any division in the competition. 

● A Facebook Event will be created for each Virtual Performance via WTF’s Facebook Page. All of the virtual performances will be live-streamed via Twitch.TV/wtheatrefestivalnc and will be available for viewing on our website for voters who miss the live event. 

● Listeners will be asked to make a small donation (suggested $5).

● The play from each division that receives the most votes will have a professionally produced staged reading during Occupy The Stage 2020. These playwrights will also receive a small honorarium.

Unlike most WTF sponsored events, male-identifying playwrights will receive equal consideration and will have their plays featured during a new section of Occupy called “The Ally Hour.” 

Is Writing Revolutionary?

12 Wednesday Dec 2018

Posted by in Alchemy of writing, art, Attention, comparison, competition, confidence, continuing, creating, creativity, Process, Uncategorized

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Art is a difficult thing to believe in these days. Even though I insist on writing, I often wonder, given the state of the world and particularly the country I live in, am I just hiding behind my art? Am I, as artists have so often been accused of being, simply egotistical, self-serving, and shallow for wanting to continue what I started when I was in fourth grade?

Of course, in all that time since fourth garde there were years that I didn’t write. There were years in which I berated myself for not having “discipline.” Also years in which I stabbed at writing something, and looked at my work and thought that it wasn’t “real writing.” It is as difficult now as it was then to believe that my art, that what I create, matters.

And that’s the thing, isn’t it? Art always has be clawed out of some sort of life. The intensity of the world may change but the messages don’t, or they haven’t changed in my life time anyway.

A few of the messages I have received during the span of my writing life:

Don’t quit your day job.
Read Proust, Faulkner, Nabokov, etc.etc.etc.
Read The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic, etc.etc.etc.
Get an MFA                                                                                                                                     Teach in a college
Travel
Have a platform
Have a brand
Have something important to say
And so on.

I have two things pinned on the wall above my desk. One is a piece of paper that says, “Rise up and figure it out for yourself.” The other is a button that says, “Writing is Revolutionary.”

The “Rise Up” quote reminds me that no matter what sort of difficulty I am tangling with in my prose, I will have to figure it out for myself. No one hands you answers when you’re an artist.

And the button, “Writing is Revolutionary,” reminds me that to carve out any sort of creative life is an act of rebellion. To insist on time to create, to insist on quiet and spaciousness, to clear psychic space for art are all acts that go against the grain. They are revolutionary, no matter what audience the art reaches or doesn’t reach.

If an artist reaches some sort of national recognition for her work, her stubborn insistence on creating time and space for herself is often labeled as brilliance. But don’t expect it while working alone in your studio. In fact, don’t expect it at all. Or even yearn for it. To do so will surely throw you off the rails of the track you must doggedly stay on. Most artists are simply dogged.

Art, in the end, publicly appreciated or not, is a gamble. Art is a crap shoot. Art is betting on the horse with the lame leg ridden by the 300 pound jockey. There’s not a chance of winning, but still, isn’t that jockey, that limping horse beautiful? Don’t they stand out? Did anything stop them from being in the race?

Reading Books in the Age of Madness

02 Tuesday Oct 2018

Posted by in art, Attention, competition, frustration, Reading, Uncategorized, Writer's journey

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A few years ago, I sat on a public bench, waiting for a friend and reading a book. A woman interrupted me. (Please note: Do not interrupt a person reading a book!) The woman wanted to know what I was reading. I showed her the cover, and then the woman said she couldn’t read anymore. She used to read. She used to read a lot, but now she can’t. She can’t concentrate. Things have become so unstable lately, so volatile that she can’t concentrate on reading.

“Read,” I told her. “Go read a book. You’ll thank me later.”

After she left I muttered under my breath, “You think it’s hard to read in this environment? You should try writing.”

I know a lot of writers. We plug along. We ride the waves of self doubt and the waves of cultural madness. We have no choice. Being a writer, or an artist, requires a little unplugging. So we unplug. And then we plug back in. And our blood pressure goes through the roof and we unplug again. We write. It’s incredibly selfish of us. It’s incredibly hopeless. And it’s incredibly depressing as we watch the celebrity-titled books fly off the shelves while ours, and those of many authors I know, linger and gather dust.

You want to help the world be less crazy? Support the arts. Support a writer. Buy a book that does not have a flashy familiar face on the cover. And be seen reading it. And then buy another.

 

 

Holding Space for Yourself

16 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by in comparison, competition, creating, creativity, emotional safety, Process, prompt writing, ritual, safety, slowing down, Writer's journey

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In teaching, one of the things I try to do is hold space. In my private prompts classes, we close our eyes and take some deep breaths and get quiet, letting the workweek fall away, the effort that went into getting the kids off the school, the traffic we drove through to reach our destination, all the little niggling energy that we carry with us to the next place. My studio, where I teach my private classes, has, over time, taken on a lot of creative energy from my work there, and the work of others. The space supports our creative endeavors, and the work of holding space is made easier by this concentrated energy. But the energy in my public classes is also concentrated, and held collectively.

The class I teach regularly, for free and open to the public is called Prompt Writing. I teach it in a book store, and here I have a different ritual for opening the space. I ask each person to say their name, and give one or two sentences about their writing practice, and in this way we settle into each other.

I then introduce myself and tell the class what we’re going to do, I give the prompt and we write. There are rules for responding to others’ writing when it’s read out loud, and they are rules I believe in, so I try to enforce them gently, but firmly, and consistently. I do not waver from these rules.

The rules are meant to create a safe space for writers. It’s important. This is what is meant by holding space. Holding space is holding safe space, and there are lots of different ways to do it, and lots of different ways to not do it, or to undo it.

Competition is anti-safe-space holding. Overly critical thinking and analyses also. Hierarchy. Self-promotion. Comparison. Trying to fix something for someone, be it their writing or their life. Sometimes asking digging, probing questions can make a person feel challenged and defended instead of heard.

Recently I have been thinking about how powerful this is, and how I might try the same techniques for myself. In other words, when I am feeling low and anxious, perhaps I could recognize that I need something that’s not being provided and try to provide it. I might try to hold space for myself.

I don’t think it would be any different than holding space for others. The first step would be to get quiet, and the second step would be to create a safe environment for myself. One without competition, without over-thinking, without hierarchy, without self-promotion, without comparison, without trying to fix it, without digging at myself. In fact, when I need to hold space for myself, it’s always because I have let these things in. It’s natural that they should creep in. We live in a world of low thoughts. The trick is to see it, and to say no to it, and to open the space for yourself again.