Crazytown

UNREALITY THEATRE: YA, 야, JA!

Hello everyone. I hope our technical difficulties are over. I'm so over them. Thanks again to Crazytown for allowing me to spew my rhetoric all over the place. 

I have shameless self-promotion right now: 

Two of my plays, English Only and Ice Cream Sisters were recently chosen to be a part of Protest Plays, which is kinda self-explanatory. 

You can find English Only on here. And Ice Cream Sisters here.

Anyways, continuing with the theme of the unreal, I just wrote a play about syllables. 

syl·la·ble

ˈsiləb(ə)l/

noun

 

A unit of pronunciation having one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants, forming the whole or a part of a word; e.g., there are two syllables in water and three in inferno. 

 

The internet gods (Google) provided said definition. Now, there are many, many syllables to choose from. Anyways, I chose one that exists in multiple languages: ya.

 

In Korean it is written as 야 and can be used as an attention-getter like "hey." Ex) 야, 바보야! "Hey, stupid!" 

 

 

I don't know why he takes nearly 4 minutes to explain this. Nor do I know who his coke/meth supplier is.

 

Now this brings us to Dutch ja, pronounced the same as the others. This, as in many Germanic languages means "yes." Ex) Q: Ga je naar huis? Q: Are you going home? A: Ja, ik gaa. A: Yes, I'm going. See? Simple.  

 

 

I think the Dutch are using the opposite of cocaine/meth. And they're not nearly as popular.

 

For a more restricted and subtle ya, one must venture into Spanish. There it has several meanings, but for the play it means "already" or "now." Ex) Ya estoy aquí. = I'm already here. Needless to say, Spanish ya doesn't say much in the play. 

 

 

See? Jose can explain FOUR uses of "ya" in Spanish in the same amount of time it took Justin to explain "hey."

 

Now, Indonesian ya ventures in. It also means "yes." How imaginative. Ex) Ya, aku mengerti. Yes, I understand. I've given the Indonesian ya character the benefit of being a deity. Keeps things interesting.

 

 

 

If Victor can say "yes" in Indonesian, so can you.  

 

The idea was to have them fight - via a stressed-out translator. Let's see if that works. The play can be read here.

 

Tell me what you think. 

BRYAN STUBBLES is a playwright and sometime screenwriter as well as Crazytown's most eligible bachelor. His ten minute masterpiece Trump vs Kahlo is available here. His one-act play The Wicked Life of Patience Boston had a reading in West Virginia in December 2015 as well. The Noose had a performance at the Great Salt Lake Fringe last  summer. 

10 minute plays Hera and Juno Go Shooting and Rudi and Azalea Go Fishing were performed at Grass Valley, California's Nugget Fringe Theatre Festival in January. 

Brine Shrimp Gangsters will be published this year by Smith & Kraus. 

Please watch a short film he cowrote: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3irqcOG3Og

BRYAN STUBBLES www.newplayexchange.org/users/3855/bryan-stubbles
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SAINT PATTY'S DAY OF BAD CHOICES

My second favorite holiday is showing its weak points...
by Alex Syiek (Writer/Performer/Grog Drinker)

This past Friday, I noticed something strange. I think St. Patrick's Day might be the only holiday where the bars get progressively more empty as the day goes on. I mean, you can't blame people for rolling out of bed into their green beer and corned beef hash and cabbage. That slop is delicious. But for a person who happened to venture out into the city at 9 PM, the streets were surprisingly quiet for a Friday night in midtown.

On the other hand, the subways are basically the waiting room for extras on the Jerry Springer Show. So many private arguments are had between couples/best friends/total strangers, and most of them are peppered with unintelligible blather or missed left hooks.

Nevertheless, a great time was had by all (I hope), and a horrible Saturday morning on the bathroom floor was also had. In honor of bad choices and drunken memories, here's a traditional Irish bar shanty to slur along to this unfortunate Monday morning.

I'd say, maybe, 70% is for my grog.

It's another thrilling Thursday here at Crazytown!

Today, Jennifer talks about a brand new drug...

and Bryan shares some Unreality Theatre.

A NEW DRUG

Fully funded by the FDA.
By Jennifer Anderson (actor/singer/pharmaceutical rep)

Crazytown friends, I recently wrapped up an amazing class at the Magnet Theater called Video Creation Level 1. Led by director, writer, and producer Joe Whelski, I (along with 8 other awesome fledgling filmmakers) wrote, directed, shot, and produced our own scripts over the course of 2 months.

So today, I'd like to present my final, finished product: "NEW DRUG." Hope you enjoy it!

 

Special thanks to my actors Manu Menon, Rachael Shaffer, and Garrit Guadan. And additional special thanks to www.bensound.com for providing the soundtrack.

JENNIFER ANDERSON is an actor and singer living in Brooklyn. She needs a refill on her thoughts and prayers. www.jenniferjanderson.com
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UNREALITY THEATRE - DEATH OF A CHOCOLATE BAR ON GOOD FRIDAY

Hi everyone! Welcome to my guest blog. Today's post may be shorter than most. Though maybe not shorter than Don Most. recently I came to the grave realization that perhaps my plays are too realistic - well, some of them. I thought about the plays that have had real (not Fringe or Utah) success. 

First off, I received an email from a publisher asking specifically for non-realistic plays. He also complained that he received too many realistic ones. 

Back to success or not - these are the plays that have done well...

1. Brine Shrimp Gangsters. Level of realism: just below Gomer Pyle. 
2. Virginia Beach Incest Time Machine. Level of realism: Back to the Future meets Deliverance. 
3. Trump vs. Kahlo. Level of realism: Expressionism vs. Tweeterism. 

Now compare this to masterpieces like "You Can Cry When You're Dead" By the way, I lost a friend yesterday because of that play. her review turned into an argument (yes, I know it takes two to argue, so I stopped...she didn't). Sigh. 

On one level, the reality of a poor Korean woman having potential fathers of her child from three countries was probably nil. Yet it gets rejected all the time. Meanwhile, brine shrimp with squirt guns gets published. 

Even the poster art was realistic. 

So this suggests that perhaps I should go in the "un-real" direction. Well, I already have. I wrote something called Death of a Chocolate Bar on Good Friday. Guess what it's about? 

Can chocolate bars get depressed? Of course they can. Can their have horrid, torrid affairs with clingy ice cubes. 

Did you know "ice cube" in Indonesian is "ice stone"? 

Above: "Ice Stone." 

So, without further ado, here is a tragedy about a chocolate bar and ice cube melting....

No actual ice cubes or chocolate bars were melted in the writing of this play.

BRYAN STUBBLES is a playwright and sometime screenwriter as well as Crazytown's most eligible bachelor. His ten minute masterpiece Trump vs Kahlo is available here. His one-act play The Wicked Life of Patience Boston had a reading in West Virginia in December 2015 as well. The Noose had a performance at the Great Salt Lake Fringe last  summer. 

10 minute plays Hera and Juno Go Shooting and Rudi and Azalea Go Fishing were performed at Grass Valley, California's Nugget Fringe Theatre Festival in January. 

Brine Shrimp Gangsters will be published this year by Smith & Kraus. 

Please watch a short film he cowrote: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3irqcOG3Og

BRYAN STUBBLES www.newplayexchange.org/users/3855/bryan-stubbles
EMAIL HIM |  FACEBOOK | TWITTER | OTHER POSTS BY THIS AUTHOR

 

 

This Wednesday, as we celebrate all the ladies:

Alisha reminds us of how we can celebrate today.

Joanna loves the new additon to downtown Manhattan.

GIRL VS. BULL

Representation matters.
By Joanna Syiek (Director/Producer/Blogger)

Right ahead of International Women's Day, an asset manager, State Street Global Advisors, installed a statue of a defiant girl on Wall Street, seemingly facing off with the iconic bull. The move was meant to bring attention to the lack of women leaders on the boards of top companies. The new girl serves as a beautiful statement reminding women to be courageous and for those that may have not have been saving a space for them at the table to start setting an additional place or 10.  

JOANNA SYIEK has a penchant for original theatre work, clean graphic design, and really good Indian food. She directs around the City of Angels and writes about nourishing creativity, Broadway favorites, and talent obsessions over on her blogging home. www.thoughtsontheatre.wordpress.com

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A DAY WITHOUT A WOMAN

By Alisha Giampola (writer/performer)

Today is International Women's Day, and a lot of women around the country are participating in a "strike" organized by those who also organized the recent Women's Marches, in support of income equality and also resistance of the current administration's agendas that so disproportionately affect women. Some schools are even closing because of how many educators requested the day off, which is awesome. The school I work for sent an email to us encouraging those who were still teaching today to wear red in solidarity. I encourage my fellow artists to participate in any way you can. For many of us writers, freelancers, performers, actually striking today will be impossible. But we can wear red, call our representatives in congress letting them know how the current administration negatively affects women and women's issues, and demonstrate our economic power by choosing not to spend money today. If half of the population becomes marginalized, especially the half that represent the lion's share of jobs in caregiving and education, everyone loses- the next generation most of all. You can support women's voices in the media and the arts- may I recommend a great article written by my dear old friend Rhana Natour, a journalist for PBS, who yesterday wrote this super interesting article about the divisions in our country?

Even though I can't fully strike today, I can wear my red and my awesome new "Nevertheless She Resisted" shirt, and stand with all you awesome ladies (and lovely feminist guy allies, of course), and refrain from a regular full-length blog post. See you all next Wednesday, same time same place, and Happy International Women's Day to all! 

Solidarity, sisters!

ALISHA GIAMPOLA is an NYC based actor/teacher/writer and strong female character.
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SCREAMING IMELDA

Traveling the world for the greatest of Imelda Staunton does not disappointment.
By Owen Panettieri (playwright, lyricist)

I am a proud Imelda Staunton groupie. She is the best. If you've never seen her on stage, you must. At any opportunity and at any cost. Imelda Staunton is everything.  Imelda first came to my attention as an actress of incredible talent in the 2004 feature film Vera Drake for which she was nominated for and Oscar as Best Actress (she lost to Hlilary Swank in Million Dollar Baby!). If you are not familiar film, you are forgiven. It's one of those British films that you know is REALLY good because it made approximately ZERO dollars in the US and still support was so strong in the industry to nominate her for an Oscar.  Most people know her from her star turn as Dolores Umbridge in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in 2007 and Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 1 in 2010. She brings to life one of the series' greatest villains. But her acting career in film TV and theater goes back decades. Exploring her theater work and accolades you get a better sense of her incredible range as a performer.

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You may be surprised to learn that Imelda is an accomplished musical theater performance who has appeared in many shows on the West End, and who has won three of her four Olivier Awards in the Best Actress category - as The Baker's Wife in Into The Woods, Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd and Mama Rose in Gypsy. She's earned 11 Olivier nominations throughout her career. I saw her performance in 2015 in Gypsy and it melted my brain. What makes her such an incredible performer is her understanding of dynamics. She can go big. She can go small. But what sets her apart from other actors is her ability to navigate everything in between. She can give you fortissimo, but she can also give you mezzo forte. She paints with all the colors. She breathes so much life and fresh perspective into these iconic characters. Even if you've been a fan of a show for years, Imelda Staunton will show you things about them that you never realized you were missing.