Village Playwrights Announced Upcoming Events

Join the Village Playwrights in its new location at St. John's Lutheran Church, 81 Christopher St. NYC. The Village Playwrights will meet the second and fourth Monday from 7 pm to 9 pm.

Everyone is welcome. $10 suggested donation. Time slots are available. If you would like to have your play read, email villageplaywrights@gmail.com.

February 24
30 minutes, GWEN BAER, BROWNSTONED

The first 30 minutes of a full-length, dark, satirical comedy about the white, affluent, hipster parents who surrounded the author in Brownstone Brooklyn.

Gwen Baer is a writer based in New York City. She has had productions of her work with Village Playwrights, The Barrow Street Theater, WOW, and The Midtown International Theater Festival. Gwen has won a number of writing competitions, including, The Broad Humor Festival, The Austin Film Festival, and was a top finalist at The Warner Brothers Television Writers Workshop. When Gwen isn't busy writing hilarious and profoundly brilliant plays, you can usually find her sky diving, bungee jumping, contemplating the meaning of existence, or unearthing flaws in Einstein's Theory Of Relativity. She also enjoys railing about the Kardashians, Spectrum, Mitch McConnell, and many, many other things.

30 minutes, GEORGE BISTRANSIN, "The Alternative"

Set in the future when parents know their child's sexual orientation before birth and can choose an alternative.

George Bistransin learned to write plays by translating and producing the comedies of the ancient Roman playwright T. M. Plautus. Among others, he produced The Menaechmi Twins, The Braggart Soldier and The Haunted House at Boston's 1400 seat vaudeville era Strand Theater. Since joining the Village Playwrights, he has had many short plays produced including "Stop Loss," "Marriage, the Gay Way," "Entrapment," "Insider Steal," "Dueling Drag Queens," "A.P. Sexology," "Sexual Harassment" and "Gaiety Valentine." His ten minute play "Gay Power!" was in Village Playwrights 2019 celebration of Gay Pride, Riot and Revolution. He lives in Dutchess County with 4 goats, 6 chickens, and countless ticks.

30 mins, James Scruggs, monologue from A Voluptuary Life

James Scruggs who identifies as gay is a writer, performer, producer and arts administrator who usually creates large scale topical, theatrical, multi-media work focused on inequity or gender politics. February 2020 he received a development grant to write SEVERE CLEAR; about his relationship to 9/11. He was commissioned and created a site specific work MELT ! exploring an extremely left-leaning dystopian future for The High Line, shown in May of 2018. He was awarded a 2016 New Jersey state grant NJSCA Fellowship for artistic excellence. In 2016 he was awarded a Doris Duke/Andrew Mellon MAP Grant to create A Voluptuary Life; a piece about a black man of a certain age striving to find kindred folk on the historic continuum. He received another MAP Grant in 2015 and in 2016, a Creative Capital Grant, to create 3/Fifths, a piece exploring race and racism. It was a NY Times "One of 4 Must See Shows in May" and got "4 stars in Timeout NY". He's a consultant and Fieldwork facilitator for The Field, and a Program Facilitator for Creative Capital. James Scruggs has a BFA in Film from School of Visual Arts. www.jamesscruggs.com.

Time available
March 9 --

40 minutes, JOHNNY CULVER

Johnny Culver is the managing director of New York's Equity Library Theater, which presents a semi-annual festival of new short works by American writers, as well as rare plays and screenplays, in association with the New York Public Library. He has directed students of HB Studios, AADA and Circle in the Square Theater School. His plays have been performed in New York, Texas and Philadelphia. He has directed over fifty plays in the tri state area. www.equitylibrarytheater.info.

40 minutes, LARRY RINKEL, "Appreciations"

Larry Rinkel came to playwriting after teaching college English and then working as a technical writer, a career from which he is now retired. A lifelong devotee of art, theatre, film, and classical music, he has had work produced all over the United States, and his full-length "A Kreutzer Sonata," about a talented Jewish piano student, was awarded Best Play at the Secret Theatre's 2017 UNFringed Festival and will be seen again on Long Island later this year. His short play "Brian's Poems" has been performed numerous times in New York City, and made semifinals at Secret Theatre's last one-act festival. Other produced plays include adaptations from Chaucer and Dante, several LGBT romantic comedies, and a few 1-minute plays.

Time available
March 23, 90 minutes , AL SCHNUPP, inclusIVitY - the Ivy Bettini Story

Written in rhyme, as a series of poems/episodes, the play is a tribute to artist and activist Ms. Bottini, who co-founded the NYC Chapter of NOW. After coming out as a lesbian, Ivy was expelled from the organization by Betty Friedan. Ivy toured the country with a one-woman show, fought California Prop 6 (An effort to remove gay teachers form the classroom) and California Prop 64 (An effort to require all HIV+ individuals to be registered). She is full of sass, fire and humor. The play was produced in Central California and at the Emerald Theatre in Memphis.
Al Schnupp is a produced and published playwright. An art series by Mr. Schnupp resides permanently at the world-famous Actors Theatre of Louisville.

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