Covid Christians

The man-made Coronavirus disaster in this country is much bigger than simply saying "Trump is trying to kill us." That's not analysis or anything constructive. It's a defeatist concluding statement.

The preventable and predictable response to coronavirus is based in this dangerous Evangelical self-help notion that bad things only happen to bad people and -if you are good- you will get God's favor. It is why working class and middle-class whites continue to vote against their own interests...b/c uniting with their own would be to acknowledge that they have failed as Christians or perhaps Evangelical Christianity has failed them: tithing isn't going to lift them from poverty in a capitalist system. It's the reason why they say 'pray away the gay' and good Christians fathers and mothers drive many children to suicide: because gayness is wrong and it must mean one is not trying hard enough in prayer. It's why evangelicals don't believe in global warming: natural disasters are a sign of God's disfavor, not science. It's why so many Evangelicals are rejecting vaccines, chemotherapy, wearing a mask, logic. And yes, even racism. Granted a lot of them are racists, but they simply don't believe in addressing systemic problems with government answers. Many have their own underlying bigotry but there's also an automatic trained reaction when they see a black person dying...'well, what did they do wrong? This just proves you must have been a thug.' It's the question they ask when they fall behind in the rat race, see their retirement shrinking, watch opportunities go away. And rich white people LOVE this answer. It's this trained belief of 'bad things happen to bad people' that prevents Evangelicals from rising up and becoming the most powerful political force for change in this country...because all you need is sunny optimism and faith.

This chart is a result of that delusion. And Trump is actually a proponent of this system. He was trained by some of the most successful self-help Chrisitian delusionials. His solution is perfectly logical at the start of this crisis: it's a hoax, not real, I'm going to under-prepare and continue to cheerlead by faith. Science, socialism, medicine, environmentalism, big government are all atheist signs of evil. That's why we had white mothers and fathers raving at Palm Beach city meeting about refusing to wear a mask. The big gov requirement strikes at the very core of their delusion. 

Jesus isn't an air filter. Jesus isn't a 'get-rich' financial planner, a doctor, nor a government leader. Jesus had no interests in these things or flattening the curve. He was a spiritual leader. Our responsibility as humans is two folds: to spiritual enlightenment AND to the reality of being in a material world. Using science, government, logic and all the tools if discernment is our responsibility...and it's the very thing rich and powerful ppl don't want you to use. 

The curve stays unflattened. The wave continues to rise. People stay stuck, sick, disempowered, angry at themselves, and dying from a false belief. 

I am Good. I am Great. I am a Problem Solver

Dad Memory: He went through a phase of listening to self-help tapes in the car. And these self-appointed gurus would drone on as I stared out the car window on the way to school. One day Dad pulled up to school and  announced that I should say this mantra...
I am good
I am great
I am a problem-solver.

Ummm...okay, dad. He locked the doors to the car so I couldn't get out. He was serious. I rolled my eyes and mumbled them. No...I had to say it like I meant it. Exasperated, I blurted it out in one long statement... IAMGOODIAMGREATIAMAPROBLEMSOLVER!

There! Are you happy? Dad unlocked the doors. I thought it was a one time thing but the next morning the routine repeated itself. And the next.

On some mornings, it was the only thing we said to each other before departing. We would ride in complete silence and then say together: "I am good. I am great. I am a problem solver."
 Exhale. Open door.

It was the magic password to get out of the car and go into the world. And then one day, I had to say it to myself...in the rearview mirror. You mean I have to look at myself saying these words?!? Ahhh! I didn't know why it was so unnerving to focus on myself and to say those three simple sentences. Some days I would only glance in the mirror out of the corner of my eyes...yeah yeah...I'm good, I'm great, problem-solver, got it.

When I thought I was going to fail my 6th grade math final because I couldn't remember a single thing taught over the year, I panicked. I was drenched in icy cold sweat. The teacher said I should go to the bathroom and wipe my armpits or figure something out.  When I got to bathroom mirror, I just kept saying those three sentences again and again. I breathed. Magically, all the information came back. I went from having a totally blank mind of terror, to suddenly remembering everything. I got an A.

In soap opera lab at Northwestern...I was directing my episode of "The Young & the Restless" (in honor of Mema) and the professor stopped everything to announce I had a major problem. They were not going to tell me what it was, but I had to figure it out and fix it before resuming my episode. They walked off the set. I stood there. Frozen. Then I whispered the mantra under my breath, huddled everyone in a circle and went down the shot list, where I had possibly called the wrong cue, found the point where I broke the 180 degree rule, re-blocked the very patient actors, confirmed a new shot list, and we were ready to roll again after a few minutes. My mood went from panic, to 'fuck it' I'll just be a comm studies major who doesn't have to deal with  production, to calm, to inspired.

This was over 30 years ago. I have no idea what self-help speaker this came from or what prompted my dad to start this routine. But on some days, this is my emergency key to get out of my fear, panic, imposter syndrome, anxiety, and catastrophe spiral. It's so simple. I guess that's why it works as a mantra.

I am good.
I am great.
I am a problem solver.

Does anyone else have any mantras given to you by your parents? Inspiring, funny, sarcastic?

Pen & Juice

With so much drama in the retrograde
mercury's getting kinda hard for me to fade
but I...
somehow/ someway,
keep comin' up w/ funky fine plays
like every single day!
May I...
kick a little something for the
A.D's
here's a light-hearted comedy for the
LORT-B's
2 in the morning, make LinkedIn friends
cause my director is gone!
I got some scripts on my google doc getting it on,
and rewriting ain't done till 3 in the morning
(3 in the morning?!?)
So whachhu gonna do?
I got a drawer full of race neutral scripts
and my writers of color do 2!
So turnt up on coffee
and old pages is on the floor.
But, for what?
"We don't love that scene no mo!"
So we gonna graph sub-plots to dis.
Mac up, Word down,
while your Final Draft bounce to dis.
-Pen and Juice (Writer's Delight)

Juneteenth and Mom Memory

Juneteenth! Okay, I'm going to be earnest. I started recording my mom's memories this month. The goal is one memory every day for a year...doesn't have to be in order, doesn't have to be about any particular theme, just whatever comes to mind. It's more like a memory haiku. The contents may be used for a play, tv, a movie, or just to keep this rich oral history going in a document. No set goals. I asked her what was the memory today....

"I taught at Drew Middle School (in Miami) for a year. I’m teaching science and I’m 4’11 and these junior high kids...they grow. And there was a fight in my class...two big boys. And I’m not going to get into the middle of a fight. So here I am the little teacher and it’s disturbing the other classes. So I don't know where I got this in my mind... I picked up a desk and threw it on top of them. And that startled them. They stopped. I didn't even know I could pick up one of those big desks, but I did. And that was my first year and last year teaching. Later on that year, a student came in and shot up the school. Shot a teacher and shot a student. He had a disagreement. It was the first type of school shooting that had ever happened.That was 1968. I got out of the school system. Another teacher said ‘go now before more shootings start.’ That was the first year I met your Dad who was working for a pharmaceutical company. He said ‘there’s a job fair downtown’ so I went and met FPL and Eastern Airlines.  FPL wanted me as a programmer but I didn’t know anything about the computers so they said ‘if you know math and science’ you’ll be able to catch on. 1968. So I started working at FPL."

NOTE: my mom was the first black computer programmer at FPL. These were back in the days when computers took up an entire floor and had to be run with giant punch cards. She had no prior experience in working with computers. She worked at FPL for 40 years as a computer programmer creating systems that served millions of people and setting the standard for other black women in the company for several generations.
That is my 'get free' Juneteenth story. Thank you, Mom.

Black Squares: the Neoliberal Infantilization of Blackness

There is an underground secret being held by a lot of black artists at this time.  A secret that we dare not speak in public. We would be hounded, castigated, thought of as coon and sellouts. I receive these calls late at night, I get texts, DMs, messages sent on Instagram. It's usually a black artist I know who has no one else they can share these thoughts with and no way for it to be air on social media without a backlash. The secret is intersectional, complex, and composing various thoughts that goes something like this...

-first off, they fucking hate the social media protest of black square profile. They hate the silence and obtuse symbolism of Instagram activism. It's virtue signaling co-opted by Amazon and Starbucks. It's Nancy Pelosi kente cloth cosplay. Yet, it was mostly unquestioned in media and corporations, which is scary. It is a sign of an unthinking, herd reaction from people not seeking change, but seeking a false equivalence of equality through superficial gestures of 'likeness.' It is the flexibility of amoral capitalism and thirsty individual clout chasers who adopt the fashions of the time, while maintaining its core problematic nature.

-while well-intentioned, a lot of the neoliberal work on race feels infantilizing toward black people. The idea that blackness has to plead and beg whiteness to live, to breathe, to be acknowledge. That idea many strong black outliers find to be deeply insulting to their independence.

- there are actually a lot of black thinkers and artists who are independent minded. They became like that through training and survival. They are deeply suspicious of both right- and left-wing media pushes and activists trying to galvanize them in any way. Some of them have carved out a very difficult existence by avoiding the waves of public opinion, avoided speaking on diversity panels at white institutions, hosting workshops. These independent black thinkers are very wary of becoming 'professionally black' and 'performative black' for white liberals. Yet, in a time of crisis this is what black artists and thinkers are often called on to become...a free, unpaid, full-time race counselor to white people and then a spoken-word rage artists.

- many independent black thinkers were educated at white institutions that gave them small or large portions of black art. This was the art handed down by white professors to the class and a little wink toward the young black artists as if to say 'don't worry, soul brother! I got you.' And usually the black thinker was left an uneasy feeling, as if he was being listened to without consulting. A lot of times these black pieces meant to signify blackness in America were written under times of crisis and upheaval. Some of the work is good and nuanced. Many of the art is not. Not because the black ancestors were bad artists. But because they were trying to address a crisis in a direct way. Their mortal souls were in danger, fire was in the street, sirens were ringing out in the neighborhood...and it's very hard to be nuanced and layered while surrounded by war. But the truth of their protest spoke to the moment and became famous. The truth of all good protest art speaks to the moment. The problem is that -outside of that moment and time- the art feels dated, thin, screechy, and preachy. This is true for most protests art, regardless of color. The problem is that black art in white institutions is almost solely defined by protest art from the 60s and 70s. The education received is that to be a black artist is to protest and here is the narrow avenue of expression to protest. But the same is not true for white artists. No one would ever say that Clifford Odets left-wing socialist plays represent white protest art. And furthermore, most of Odets plays are terrible. With the exception of "Waiting for Lefty" his work has fallen out of favor because it strikes a hollow strident tone in protesting class inequalities. It spoke to the moment but has not aged well. Meanwhile Arthur Miller and Paddy Chayefsky were one generation removed from Odets and were able to take his politics, sit with calmer heads and slightly more detachment, and produce classic pieces of art that are still studied today. "All My Sons" and "Network" rest on the back of Odets voice and politics, but it built on it so that the politics didn't overwhelm the craft and tastes of the individual.

- if you are raised on bad protests art and told that your blackness is in direct proportion to the extent you support and want to continue this genre...then you hesitate. Is your white professor gaslighting you? Are they intentionally sabotaging your future by getting you to commit to a form that feels dated, hollow, and thin? Do they not see your complexity? Or are they trying to say your complexity is too...complex to be black? It will not get validated and rewarded. Will one have 'perform a version of blackness' for white audiences to eat? And isn't that just another form of racism...neoliberal racism...infantilizing racism that forces us all to become the children of Richard Wright's "Native Son?"

- James Baldwin wrote a famous essay "Notes on a Native Son" in which he blasted Wright for making this very kind of protest art filled with cheap caricatures that made white liberals feel guilty. The gist was that it wasn't art...it was a pamphlet. Some people said Baldwin was just jealous. Other people made in personal...what right does a gay black artist have to tell Wright about blackness? And the swordsman pary from the other side: what bearing does Wright have to publish from the luxuries of Paris with his white wife a piece written to inflame people with such claptrap...with such cheap racial maneuvering...with a viewpoint that Wright doesn't even believe because how could he marry a white woman and hold these thoughts about her race? How could the author move to the artistic epicenter of whiteness and craft "Native Son." Well he was performing for white audiences and they loved it.

- 75 years later most high school students have to read either "Black Boy" or "Native Son." It is the requisite black art novel you get in high school. Almost no one outside of lit majors still read Baldwin's criticism. And yet, the criticism seems more valid that the original art. The criticism seems to offer more nuance, tone, and tastes then this portrait of a murdering/raping hulking black man whose literal name is Bigger. It's as if Wright was giving his character a name to remind himself of the man thrust of story...bigger crimes, bigger hopelessness, bigger archetypes, bigger and more operatic tragedy.

- As Ayana Mathis wrote in the NYTimes.... “Native Son” sold an astonishing 215,000 copies within three weeks of publication. Thus, a great many people received a swift and unsparing education in the conditions in which blacks lived in ghettos all over America. Of course, black people already knew about all of that, so it is safe to conclude that Wright’s intended audience was white. And, in any case, I don’t imagine many black people would have embraced such a grotesque portrait of themselves. Bigger Thomas is a rapist and a murderer motivated only by fear, hate and a slew of animal impulses. He is the black ape gone berserk that reigned supreme in the white racial imagination. Other black characters in the novel don’t fare much better — they are petty criminals or mammies or have been so ground under the heel of oppression as to be without agency or even intelligence. Wright’s is a bleak and ungenerous depiction of black life.

Wright knew this, of course — his characters were purposely exaggerated, in part to elicit a white audience’s sympathy and to shock it into racial awareness and political action. But where does that leave his black subjects? Let us consider some other works published in roughly the same era: Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” Jean Toomer’s “Cane,” Ann Petry’s “The Street.” Like Bigger Thomas, the protagonists in these books are black, suffering under segregation and, for the most part, poor. Unlike Bigger Thomas, they are robust and nuanced characters — not caricatures endlessly acting out the pathologies of race. Much of the black literature of the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s, explicitly or implicitly, was concerned with race in America. How could it have been otherwise? For better or worse, many of the characters in the literature of that period were representational to some extent — black people in the real world were the correlative to black characters on the page. And this is significant, because when black writers affirmed their black subjects’ full humanity, the scope of their novels included the expectation that the real world would change radically so that it too could affirm and acknowledge that humanity. I am led to wonder, then, about a character like Bigger Thomas. What future, what vision is reflected in such a miserable and incompletely realized creature?

- What many black artists and thinkers are confiding with each other in private is that we fear the next wave...the pandering black art that will be created after this moment. We worry about the silencing of complex artists of color by both gatekeepers who are white, brown, and black. We worry that future generations will read the art and artists that represents this moment and find us cheap and hollow and pleading toward white gatekeepers.

- So what does it matter? We are talking about the survival of black voices and souls. What does it matter if the art isn't as complex, if the novels are pleading urgently. Our political movement IS pleading urgently and rightfully for life. How can art compare to such an urgent cry? If Black Lives Matter, then all of them do...the nuanced ones, the biracial ones, the ones who are right-wing, left-wing, the sarcastic ones, the cynical black voices that stand askance the political correctness and feel castrated, the black voices who don't want a white liberal pet or to be treated like a baby needing protecting. The full scope and dimensions of black voices matters, not just the ones performing blackness for white media.

- The final shame in this moment is that no one is uniting the two key elements to the entire game. It is race AND class. White socialist artists like Odets made the same mistake but they emphasized the brotherhood of all classes, while failing to address the deep-seated racism amongst many of his poor characters which would prevent them from uniting with black and brown workers. Conversely, BlackLivesMatter art makes the fight about race when deconstructing capitalism is key to fighting inequalities in race. Black Lives Matters but it will matter even more so with universal healthcare. It will matter even more so with universal income, abolishing prisons, abolishing bail. It will matter even more by defunding the police, but not as punishment. It will matter because in defunding the police you are sapping the primary punitive weapon used against black, brown, and lower class people and then taking those resources and putting them into the community. You are taking energy away from the fear police instill in disempowered groups, which is the fear of unjust punishment by the government for both small and large offenses. They know the system of punishment is unfair because they see millionaire pedophiles walk away from our courts with a slap on the wrist while black people end up in jail for year because they can't afford bail before their trial. Due to lack of economic opportunities, many innocent black people lose their jobs while just waiting for the chance to see a judge. Many poor white people will also rot in jail waiting for trial simply because they are living paycheck-to-paycheck and can't afford bail.

Coronavirus is killing a large swath of black people because the virus is playing on capitalist inequalities. Black people -on average- have poorer healthcare, less insurance, and less security. This not an accident. The labor pool of capitalism depends upon cheap and desperate class willing to put their bodies in harm's way. Disproportionately these bodies are people of color. But there are also many many older Americans and white people are dying because they have to go work at the meat processing plant or the Amazon shipping facility. Capitalism feeds on the vulnerable. And then racism makes sure that the white and black co-workers suffering in factories never fully talk to each other. So the system continues, the unions weaken, the fear is stoked. Race and capitalism go hand-in-hand, but liberalism seems to think it can address the problems as separate things.

The very concept of race was created by white settlers entering into the 'New World.' They needed a divisive tool to implement harsh, colonial capitalism with free labor. For added complexity, colonial added a third element to the mix: White Christianity. So faith in God, race, and capitalism is the lethal triangle.

Black thinkers and artists of alternative minds creep around the edges racial upheaval. They see the changes needed, support fighting racism but are also scared of losing their independence. They are worried about performing blackness for whiteness. They worry about blanket statements, racial caricatures, and mediocrities. And they don't want to pandered, infantilized, castrated, and turned into helpless victims. But more than that...they are scared of losing their freedom and individuality. They are scared of that most American concept of pursuing their own happiness and setting forth their own unique voice. It's difficult to do that when all people want is a performance of what they think all black people must be feeling. They don't want to speak on your diversity panel, listen to white liberals on instagram crying about their privilege, or placate corporate America with a black square on a social media profile. 

Geography of Racism

While white ppl are gobbling up books about race and making them NYTimes best sellers, I would also like to add blk ppl are different not only class, but by geography b/c the land influenced the kind of racism we faced. Slavery is often thought of this monolith. But most of the states did not have slavery and the states that did have it employed different systems that ranged from the oppressive industrial cotton farms of Mississippi to semi-independent enslaved ppl on South Carolina islands who were left to their own devices, to shipyard enslaved ppl in Baltimore that were more blacksmiths and tradesmen living in cities. My mom grew up in the hills of Winsboro, South Carolina. Hill regions weren't conducive to big farm slavery systems so she grew up around a region that was historically...mostly poor white and black people who lived in a symbiotic relationship; not b/c white ppl were more enlightened or nicer in Winsboro...but b/c their form of racism wasn't steeped in the horrors of industrial farming and massive slave quarters. The land wasn't rich enough for that kind fo farming. Yes, there was racism but it was more layered b/c the farming system was a collective of medium and small-sized owners. Sharecroppers had more negotiating power as oppose to big wealthy landowners. A black person from Baltimore could have a family who were all skilled, educated workers for centuries b/c that was the kind of work done.

Some times I talk to a blk person from the deep South and they look at me like I'm 'off.' I grew up in Miami...which didn't really have a slavery system b/c the land was swamp until the 1950s. And then I grew up in a culture that wasn't binary -black and white- but that had 10 different race and ethnic groups flowing together. I am less likely to think of society in terms of black and white, and more likely to see it as black, Jamaican, Caribbean, Cuban, Venezuelan, white ppl from NYC, white ppl from Northern Florida, Mexicans, Jamaican Chinese, Peruvian Japanese, French. My blackness and my relationship to others isn't better than a someone from Alabama...it's just different and formed by the literal geography of my birthplace.

Personally I struggle with binary stories of just white and black. Not because they're unimportant. It's hard for me focus on them. The world I grew up in usually involved dozens of small ethnic groups shifting under white patriarchy... struggling, backstabbing, running ahead, falling back.

You wouldn't look at a white person who works on Wall Street and comes from Boston Brahmin family in the same way as a white person from Kentucky who came from slave owners. Well the same is true for black people...a brother from Watts is different from someone in Harlem is different from beach dude in Myrtle Beach. Each one is authentically black. We are more than the most extreme version of white oppression.

Decade of Theatre Blasphemers 2010-2020

Now that theatre is in a cryogenically frozen state for the next 6-12 months, I've been thinking a lot about the plays I've seen over the last 10 yrs that have just caused 'buzz.' I feel like there should be a social media award for plays that has just generated the most conversation, the most tweets, the most arguments. Usually these are works that posit uncomfortable, controversial, never seen before idea. The award can be called the 'buzzies' or the 'blasphemers' for plays that upset the apple cart and given out every decade to allow for reflection. This does not necessarily mean that these are THE BEST plays (although many of them are outstanding) it just means these are the plays that have kept theatre in the cultural conversation...which is really tough to do. I think my nominations for the decade are....

1. Slave Play - I have never gotten more text, dms, voicemails, and unprompted one-on-one conversations asking for my opinion about a piece.

2. An Octaroon - should've been Broadway bound just based on the theatricality and audacity. The walls literally came down.

3. A Strange Loop - one of the few plays many ppl in black theatre went back and saw 2 and 3 times. And probably going to Broadway.

4. Bootycandy - older white ppl walking out in droves. The work was too gay, too black, too loud. And most of my peers loved that it was something never seen before.

5. The Flick - not a 'loud play' but a play that almost refused to be one or fit in the container of what was appropriate for off-broadway.

Now it should be noted that 4 out of the 5 Buzzies or Blasphemers are by queer black playwrights. Hmmm...that's interesting. Wonder why? 4 of the 5 also dealt with sexuality and race in explicit ways. 3 out of the 5 started at Playwrights Horizon, one began at NYTW, and one started at Soho Rep. These are the plays that caused the most conversation and debate in the last 10 yrs among white, blk, and brown theatre ppl in my circle. The Flick and Bootycandy probably had the most 'I want to talk to your manager' emails from old and outraged subscribers. They also had the most walkouts which-in some way- added to their cache.

Runner Ups

- Hamilton - once again, this isn't about quality or even awards. This is about debate, conversation. I really liked Hamilton but it didn't make ppl run up to me and ask 'what did you think?' It did make ppl ask if I was fortunate enough to catch it (I was) and it what capacity.

- John - old ppl REALLY didn't like this play. I overheard one old subscriber loudly grousing at a diner table about how it was the worst thing he's ever seen...which made me go out and buy it immediately. And I loved it. I could understand why the old heads were frustrated by the complete unwillingness of Annie Baker to do the 'theatre tricks' ppl expect.

- The Skittles Play - just for sheer audacity, surreal humor, and absurdity, this deserves a place. It was a cultural event if you were able to make one of the 2 performances on Super Bowl Sunday.
I wonder what are other ppl's Blasphemers of the 2010-2020 decade? What are the ones that made ppl reach out to you and ask for your opinion? Once again, this does not mean you had to have liked the play or hated the play. This is just about works that triggered conversation, debate, and reflection.

Additions (by friends)
Fairview - the ending definitely upset the apple cart on race and how ppl are seen and not seen.

Heroes of the Fourth Turning - so many angry old subscribers. So many! Personally I loved this play and it reminded me how I almost never see a portrayal of republican Christians on stage that isn’t a parody ridiculing them.

Defund the Police/Refund the People

Defunding the police is not about getting rid of police. It is about using the over-funded resources of metropolitan police forces to create new services and opportunities within communities. It is about reducing crime by taking proactive steps to create jobs and connections among people rather than just instilling the pervasive fear of merciless justice for any offense or suspicion.

Defunding the police is about making space for more conflict negotiators, healthcare workers, therapists...all things cops with little training are expected to do on a daily basis. It is about demilitarizing black and brown neighborhoods where checkpoints, random strip searches, stop n' frisk, profiling, 'broken window' policies, a racially discriminate policing/arresting/prosecution/imprisonment system have terrorized people for generations and created a school-to-prison pipeline, a street-to-prison pipeline, a vagrancy-to-prison pipeline, and various avenues for low level non-violent offenders to find themselves in the worst possible situation with the harshest punishment.

There are black men and women in prison for failing to show up to court, not having their dog registered, having a mental health crisis in public...and they are in prison for years. Willie Simmons is an army vet in an Alabama prison for life...for robbing someone of $9. In Connecticut there is a black man in prison for 250 years...for a non-violent robbery. He was arrested when he was a teenager and the rest of his life will be spent in prison.

 Breonna Taylor was killed in her bed by a SWAT TEAM...and the cop didn't even have the right house or suspect. The suspect they were looking for was already in jail so it was a 100% mistake where SWAT invaded someone's house and killed them in their sleep. No one is arrested for literally killing an unarmed, innocent, sleeping black woman in her own bed. Atatiana Jefferson was shot and killed in her house for leaving her own door open...by an amped up cop making a house call and shooting into a window. Two weeks ago, a black man in NJ was killed because his car broke down on the highway. A NJ state trooper put Maurice Gordon in the backseat of his cruiser while waiting for a tow truck, wouldn't let him out, detained him without reason, and then shot him.  He is dead because his car broke down in a militarized nation that looks for reasons to detain, arrest, jail, shot blk ppl for having a bad day for any reasons and -often- no reason. You could be walking down the street, jogging, sleeping in your bed, walking through your house, dealing with car issues and be totally innocent unarmed and minding your business...and end up dead b/c we have created this false narrative of 'the streets are a battleground' and 'we are at war'...against blk bodies.

I heard a lot of confusing information about what 'defunding the police' means. I am learning more, going to meetings, seeing what can be done. Let me know if there are any other principles beliefs about 'defunding the police.' I know I didn't cover everything. But it's one way to start...

And then...bail reform, undoing mandatory sentence from all those awful crime bills, getting rid of military equipment for cops...and more. And more... 

Social Justice Work Happens Off Facebook

This past week I haven't been on FB as much b/c I've gotten into a lot out of unprompted one-on-one conversations with black and brown artists like Stacey Rose, Michael R. Jackson, James Anthony Tyler, Michel Hausmann, and many others. The dialogues were personal, complex and a key reminder: I get so much more depth and reality from actual conversations than from surfing the scroll.

In 2014 I was engaged in fellowships at BAX and National Black Theatre and talking with other black artists. When Chiron Armand said he had been 'policed out of his body' by bible and flag...that became a key theme for me. I returned to it in my work and also a meditation. What does it mean to be 'policed out of our bodies' by flag and bible? But that revelation only happened because I had an actual dialogue with Chiron. And I was having a dialogue because I actually knew him for years. I was not just popping into his life to get ideas for my work and then vanishing.

The unsexy, un-Twitter work is important and it happens in private, off-the-record, among friends. Post, tweet, blog, yes...but also reach out to your circle. And if you're a white artists who doesn't talk to black artists...reach out to YOUR circle...whatever that looks like.  Just don't pop into the DM's of a black artist to 'surf black' and then leave. If you're not down for the cause, admit it to yourself, and do better with YOURSELF first. Make honest inroads and establish connections with black people outside of trauma and horror. If you want to just surf...go to Youtube. It's great and there are tons of great speakers you can listen to for free, surfbort until it's time for brunch, and then go back to your avocado toast. Your distant black 'acquaintance in the arts' is not your free TED TALK speaker. 

But blk artists...keep talking. This is more than a 'check in' call. This is a continuous, necessary, fluid, complex community. The real work starts with honest dialogue, peer review, and personal reflection...off social media.

Social Justice Warm-Ups

Warm-ups are necessary before a marathon. But stretching is not the actual race. Playing the scales is a warm-up for a concert pianist, but it is not the actual performance. Self-care calls are a good warm-up for social activism. But it's not the actual fight for social justice.

Now we need to do warm-ups. You can't roll out of bed, jump into house slippers, and run the NY Marathon, just like you can't roll out of bed, plop down on a cushion and expect to have a good meditation. But once we complete our warm-ups, we have to actually DO the thing.
I think the problem is that we are taught things in a half-ass way. It's our country, our education system. We learn things in broken, backward, and incomplete ways from kindergarten through college.  We rush through to the end. Most of us aren't taught any warm-ups or preliminaries and so we either hurt ourselves or nothing happens and we think 'this doesn't work.' Then we go out and discourage others. The other half of us are only taught the preliminary practice. So we stretch by the side of the road and think we're in the race.

I went to grad school for playwriting and our teachers made us write for the entire first semester...moments. We objected. We wanted to write glorious plays, epics, trilogies. But our teacher made us learn how to explore our voices and then write a dramatic beat. And then write a monologue, and then write a scene, and then a series of scenes, and then we had to put those scenes up as short plays. And guess what? The plays sucked...they were lumpy lopsided first pancakes burnt at the bottom and undercooked. And so we had to go back and do it again. And again. And then we wrote 30 minute plays. We didn't get to even attempt to write a full-length play until our second year. We learned fundamentals. At any point, if we didn't complete the assignment, we had to go back and do it again.

Social justice warriors...you did the warm-ups. You made some calls, maybe you posted a black square on your social media yesterday. You showed consternation and empathy for others. Maybe you even made a sign and walked with others. That's good. But that is just a warm-up. The marathon is ahead of us and it takes place in the form of elections, letter writing, organized gatherings, planning. The civil rights movement of the 60s wasn't a series of marches or concerned phone calls to black people to see how they were feeling after a bus boycott. The marches were the tip of an iceberg. It was an actual collection of millions.

Some of y'all did some really good warm-ups during the Ferguson uprising in 2014. You put on your social justice exercise clothes, did some mental stretches of empathy, watched past experts share their experience..and then you went and had a cheeseburger. Today, we have another chance to run the race. So stretch, show empathy, post black squares of whatever you need to feel good about yourself. And then get a trainer or a teacher (this doesn't mean your black friend.) Commit to a workout regime so that you can run the race. Make it small and realistic. It's better to do something small consistently than to do grand gestures every 4 years.
And yes...keep stretching. But remember...stretching isn't the goal of a marathon. It's a warm-up.

Get Back To Work

I just saw a commercial that began with the 'now more than ever' and 'during these difficult times' schtick. I thought it was going to be an ad for car insurance or beer or Viagra...but that was not the case. As the music swelled and a montage of hardy-looking folks unfolded the selling point was how... we all needed to get back to work! Plot twist!!

Yes, it was a commercial for work, or rather it was a paid ad to remind you lazy, good-for-nothing freeloaders who have been hiding out from a global pandemic that killed 100,000 citizens and is still going on in the middle of civil unrest...that the best medicine is to get back out there.

I want to know how the marketing meeting for this ad went down...a bunch of suits sitting in a conference room and then their boss storms in and says 'Americans need to be reminded of their most basic dignity...life, liberty, free speech? No, they gotta go flip those burgers, bitch! It's been almost a month and 40 million lazy Americans decided to become unemployed. So we gotta motivate them with some powerful images and voiceover speech.

Look, Americans love to work...or they have bought into the idea that they should love work because it makes them a virtuous Christian soul. Americans eat their lunch at their desk, Americans stay late b/c they don't want to be thought of as lazy, they come to work sick and spread diseases because they can't afford to take a break, pop out babies and have the shortest maternity leave before they run back to the assembly line, buy their own supplies for their classrooms so that they don't let students down. The avg American really believe they can work themselves to wealth. Despite all the evidence, the avg American thinks 'if I just work hard enough, I will overcome.' We work harder, not smarter. Americans forsake their family, health and happiness to work. I know people who have worked themselves to death.

The only thing American workers don't get...are the benefits of their labor. Last in pension, last in healthcare, last in unemployment, last in childcare support. How does a ruling class overwork, underpay, and continue to get the lower class to keep driving, keep pushing, keep working despite the need for reform?
It's simple: they used race. They told the white working class person to fear the black guy taking their jobs. They told the black guy that they're lazy and need to work twice as hard. And then they told both of them that the Mexicans are coming to takeover everything. They rotted out the Northern and Rust Belt unions by getting low-information, high school educated white factory workers to fight against expanding unions. Shareholders increase their wealth exponentially by sitting at home on their butt, but they push the main point...the whip has to be cracked, the illusion of the lazy worker has to be maintained to get them to work themselves to death. 

The Unreal Irrelevancy of American Theatre

I've never looked to American theatre for relevance, political significance, or reality. I write plays b/c I enjoy the craft and exploring my voice. I write about black love, black hate, blacklivesmatter, police brutality, black respectability, insurrection, rebellion, black apocalypse, and other things. For the most part, the plays go directly into my desk drawer after getting a round of polite passes.  The only play I've had done of any significance is OBAMA-OLOGY and that's b/c it went from a Juilliard workshop and then directly to London where it received a great production at Finborough Theatre. The British stamp of approval gave it some mileage back home, but it's a play about black life, police brutality, the election, transformation...i.e. I knew that I was writing it for my soul b/c American theatre doesn't care about that. American theatre is interested in black storytelling that is about SLAVERY and maybe a sprinkling of civil rights era stories. Period. That's what gets done. That's what hits the sweet spot for white liberals: slavery and maybe MLK. Maybe a tortured black woman. Maybe. Even better if you can incorporate some combination of the 3.

The reason why A STRANGE LOOP was such a revelation to see is b/c it was DONE. It work written from the black queer heart that a major institution actually produced (and a true thank you to Playwrights Horizons.) It was the unicorn that leaped through a million pitfalls, passes, white liberal allies, and climbed the Mount Olympus of development. And it satiated black and white audiences without compromise.

I've been writing plays for two decades and 99% of my stuff sits in the desk drawer. I've been writing tv for 5 yrs and had episodes about BLM, voting rights, LGBTQ struggles for POC, and black love. Millions of people watched those stories and I got paid hundreds of thousands of dollars...and healthcare and job stability and promotion and a sense of relevance in the culture.

I deeply appreciate New Dramatists and the O'Neill. I love Seattle Public Theatre and Miami New Drama b/c they are institutions that have women and POC in charge. But other than that...it's crickets. I loved developing my BLM play "Running on Fire" at Juilliard and O'Neil Center before being told that it wasn't relevant to American theatre in 2016. Okay.  I went back to work on THIS IS US and then THE GOOD FIGHT. The joy of the work was internal and not dependent upon the American theatre. I love the theatre community but it holds little value to me. It's a place to sharpen my knife.

Shooting the Arrow

I've had the police called on me for the felony of sitting in public, walking, exercising, being in a museum, trying to find my car in a parking lot. 99% of the time the cops come up to me with a look on their face like 'yeah...I gotta check out this bullshit.' I stay in a state of equanimity. I also know that my lighter skin tone makes people think I'm Latino some times, I don't have an 'aggressive' hairstyle of militancy (sarcastic here). I code-switch with ease, and I have the markings of 'de-escalation.' Most of the times the cops are visibly uncomfortable by the end of the exchange...perhaps the creeping suspicion that they are apart of something troubling. I say some encouraging words to them...not for my sake...but on behalf of the next black person they are confronting. I say something seemingly innocuous that may hit them later in the day when they have to approach a black woman or man who is sitting on a park bench and rightfully annoyed. I leave them with a time capsule thought for later and the next black person.

It's called 'pempa' in Tibetan...you shoot the arrow of consciousness forward to a different time and place. Technically, you're supposed to do it in death when you want to shoot your consciousness forward, but you can try it throughout the day in little actions. You wake up and shoot a thought forward to 4pm when you have a meeting or have to be somewhere uncomfortable. Blk ppl have been doing pempa in America for hundreds of years. We hollow ourselves out in a moment of threat and shoot our consciousness forward...we think of how we want to survive an interaction to see our kids, or imagine going home with a funny story of some uptight white woman calling the cops on us for sitting, we imagine walking in the door and saying 'baby, you won't believe what happened to me today...'  The forward-thinking actions do have power b/c -in that future- the police can't get to you. In that pempa the white lady or man who called the cops is just a petty racist in the rearview mirror. And by shooting forward, we can numb ourselves to the present moment. You've seen that look in black ppl's eyes confronting an exasperating situation and suddenly their eyes go dead and their tone gets flat...they are not there any more. They  have gone into the past or future...where the present indignity/threat/conflict can not harm them.

In trauma, we mostly go to the past...we shoot our arrow to a previous incident, or catastroph-ize by recalling other bad endings in societal consciousness. The mind readily draws on past stories to inform or enflame a current situation. But in 'pempa' you move forward. You keep moving through the flames. You fling the mind and the thoughts toward joy. And if you are in a present joy but anticipating.a future hardship, you use that peaceful platform to shoot a conscience arrow toward that future ordeal.

As a black person I'm shooting arrows of consciousness all the time. I'm careful not to go back. Only forward. And I try to shoot the arrow not only for me, but the next generation, for the cops, for even the perpetrator. 

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GET WHAT YOU WANT: June 2020

1. LUXEMBOURG ARTS PRIZE
Deadline: June 2nd
website: https://www.luxembourgartprize.com/en/call-for-submissions-en/

The Luxembourg Art Prize aims to reveal and promote talented artists who have yet to establish a profile on the contemporary international scene. Its function is to discover artists, and it is open to any artist, amateur or professional, with no limits on age, nationality or place of residence. The Prize is aimed at artists working in one or more of the following media: drawing, printing, installation, painting, performance, photography, digital art, sculpture, sound art, video, mixed media, decorative art (textiles and material, glass, wood, metal, ceramics, mosaic, paper or other techniques).

The winner of the Prize receives an award of €50'000 (about US$56,500 GBP42,500 CHF56,000 CA$75,000 JPY6,300,000) paid into their bank account within a few days of the ceremony. The finalist artists will be included in a group exhibition in the gallery. The Luxembourg Art Prize is a unique opportunity to enter the international professional art circuit and to have your work seen by major private and institutional art collectors. You will have the chance to be supported and personally advised by Hervé Lancelin.

Unlike other prizes or art salons, the Luxembourg Art Prize is designed by a leading not-for-profit organisation to boost your career by exhibiting your work in a private exhibition space of museum quality and giving you a high level of visibility.

All the costs associated with travel to and accommodation in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg for the finalist artists and one other person of their choice will be paid in full by the organisation in 2019. This includes transport for the works of art, air and train tickets and full-board accommodation in a four-star hotel.

The organisation will arrange return travel for the finalist artists and their companions by train or air. It will send travel documents to the finalist artists and their companions within the ten days before the opening of the finalist artists’ group exhibition.

The organisation will also book hotel rooms on the basis of dual occupancy (each artist with their companion).


2. STUDIOS OF KEY WEST RESIDENCY
Deadline: June 8th
Website: https://tskw.org/residency-about/

The Studios offers a residency program for emerging and established artists and writers designed to encourage creative, intellectual and personal growth. The program grants nearly 35 artists each year the time and space to imagine new artistic work, engage in valuable dialogue and explore island connections.

The Studios’ residency program is community-based and built upon the hope that visiting artists will take inspiration from Key West’s rich artistic past and present, and will engage with — and be inspired by — the remarkable people and culture that surrounds them.

Key West’s official motto, “One Human Family” reflects our commitment to living together as caring, sharing neighbors dedicated to making our home as close to paradise as we can. To that end, we encourage artists of all races, nationalities, gender identities, sexual orientations, and abilities to apply.

Residencies are almost a full month, and run from the 16th of the month through the 14th of the next. There is a $40 application fee.


3. JEREMY O. HARRIS and BUSHWICK STARR FINANCIAL AID
Deadline: June 15th
Website: https://www.thebushwickstarr.org/pet-project-grant?fbclid=IwAR3-VF_2Z0lPD06hw60laahmaGl9DCJR1I4HnnBofRqhOdRWzYdn5ySdRbo%27

This grant will distribute 152 unrestricted cash awards of $500 each directly to US-based playwrights, of any employment and/or immigration status. To us, a practicing playwright is a person who generates live performance in a theatrical setting through the creation of text and action. Playwrights in need at any stage of their practice or career are encouraged to apply. Grantees will be chosen through a random lottery after submissions have closed.

TO APPLY: Playwrights are asked to submit a piece of writing to demonstrate eligibility for this grant, which is designated for playwrights. Shorter plays and texts are acceptable as long it constitutes and translates into an evening of performance. We ask for page numbers denoting an excerpt that you would like us to read. Although the grant process is not merit-based we are always interested in familiarizing ourselves with as many artists as possible, and will attempt to look at all writing that is submitted during summer 2020.

Awards will be granted by random lottery. Application will open on Friday, May 29 2020 at 3pm Eastern time and remain open until we receive 1500 submissions. We will then randomly select 152 recipients from the pool of 1500 applicants (10% of the applicant pool). Submissions will be viewed and administered by The Bushwick Starr curatorial staff to confirm eligibility.

Grants will be issued in cash by electronic fund transfer or check, we aim to make payments no later than Monday, June 15 2020.

You do not need to demonstrate need, skill, or merit to be eligible for funding. However, we hope you will weigh your level of need when considering whether to apply. If your experience of need is not urgent or acute, please consider stepping back and letting those who could most benefit from our limited resources access them first. If you know someone who is eligible and would benefit, please consider inviting them to apply.


4. CENTER THEATRE GROUP 2021 SHERWOOD THEATRE AWARD
Deadline: June 17th
Website: https://www.centertheatregroup.org/programs/artists/sherwood-award/

Center Theatre Group’s $10,000 Dorothy & Richard E. Sherwood Award is given annually to support innovative and adventurous theatre artists working in Los Angeles. The deadline for the initial application is June 17, 2020, at 12:00pm. Selected candidates will be invited to submit full applications. Notification will be sent to all applicants regarding the full application process by late July.

Full applications, along with letters of recommendation and work sample material will be due no later than August 14, 2020, at 12:00pm.

The Sherwood Awardee will receive $10,000 and two finalists will receive $2,000 each.

Competitive candidates will demonstrate the following qualities:

-Innovative—introducing new ideas; original and creative in thinking
-Pushing boundaries—extending frontiers, experimenting, challenging the theatrical norm, finding new forms of artistic expression
-Exceptional talent—the ability to capture the attention of the audience through pure skill and craft, a natural ability or aptitude in the selected field, translating passion and dedication into works of art, etc.
-Effective communication—theatre artists who can passionately and effectively communicate their point of view and distinct artistic voice.


5. THE CIVILIANS R&D
Deadline: June 22nd
Website: http://thecivilians.org/upcoming/apply-to-the-2019-20-civilians-rd-group/

The Civilians’ R&D Group provides writers, directors, composers, and other generative artists with a space to develop their investigative theater projects. The creative process may include research, interviews, engaging with specific communities, or other experimental methods of inquiry.

The group meets about 12 times on a regular basis for nine months to share methodologies and resulting work, facilitated by the R&D Program Director. At meetings, group members participate in supporting the development of each other’s projects, therefore regular attendance is critical and should be considered when applying.

At the end of the season, each project will be given a brief rehearsal process to address development goals culminating in a work-in-progress presentation.

In an effort to prioritize keeping our communities safe during this global health emergency, we remain flexible with shifting circumstances. We therefore anticipate the 2020-2021 R&D Group may meet remotely until safety and circumstances allow us to do otherwise.

Applications are due by June 22, 2020, at 11:59PM EST


6. WAVE FARM RADIO ARTIST FELLOWSHIP
Deadline: June 26th
Website: https://wavefarm.org/radio/wgxc/calendar/1mvwgp

Wave Farm is delighted to announce a second year of the Radio Artist Fellowship, a nine-month, part-time engagement for a radio artist and scholar living and working in the United States. The Wave Farm Radio Artist Fellow will work closely with Wave Farm’s Executive Director, Galen Joseph-Hunter, and Artistic Director, Tom Roe. The Fellowship will also include communication with Mentors: Anna Friz, Joan Schuman, and Gregory Whitehead.

Radio artists explore broadcast radio space through a richly polyphonous mix of practices, including poetic resuscitations of conventional radio drama, documentary, interview and news formats; found and field sound compositions reframed by broadcast; performative inhabitations/embodiments of radio’s inherent qualities, such as entropy, anonymity and interference; playful celebrations/subversions of the complex relationship between senders and receivers, and the potential feedback loops between hosts and layers of audience, from in-studio to listeners at home to callers-in; use of radio space to bridge widely dispersed voices (be they living or dead), subjects, environments and communities, or to migrate through them in ways that would not be possible in real time and space; electroacoustic compositions with sounds primarily derived from gathering, generating and remixing radiophonic sources.

The Fellowship will combine remote work with three on-site visits to Wave Farm’s research library and radio studios.* Located in New York’s Upper Hudson Valley, Wave Farm is a nonprofit arts organization driven by experimentation with broadcast media and the airwaves. A pioneer of the Transmission Arts genre, Wave Farm programs provide access to transmission technologies and support artists and organizations that engage with media as an art form. Wave Farm’s WGXC 90.7-FM: Radio for Open Ears is a full-power, creative community radio station in New York’s Upper Hudson Valley. The WGXC program schedule features original content by over one-hundred volunteer programmers, and commits significant daytime listening hours to radio art and experimental sound.

*Details of the Wave Farm visit schedule will be determined in collaboration with the selected artist, with consideration given to any ongoing travel restrictions related to COVID-19.


7. HEADLANDS CENTER FOR ARTIST RESIDENCY
Deadline: June 26th
Website: http://www.headlands.org/program/air/

The Artist in Residence (AIR) program awards fully sponsored residencies to approximately 50 local, national, and international artists each year. Residencies of four to ten weeks include studio space, chef-prepared meals, comfortable housing, and travel and living expense reimbursements. AIRs become part of a dynamic community of artists participating in Headlands’ other programs, allowing for exchange and collaborative relationships to develop within the artist community on campus. Artists selected for this program are at all stages in their careers and work in all media, including drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, film, video, new media, installation, fiction and nonfiction writing, poetry, dance, music, interdisciplinary, social practice, and architecture.

Goals:
-To support and invest in individuals at the cutting edge of their fields, whose work will impact the cultural landscape at large. To provide these artists with the support and opportunity to take their work to the next level and to explore and experiment
-To bring artists and thinkers into a dynamic community of local, national, and international artists: a professional network of creative practitioners and thinkers
-To encourage artists to explore their ideas and work within the context of the Marin Headlands, a part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area
-To bring an international community of artists to the Bay Area and create opportunities for engagement and cross-cultural exchange with local artists and audiences
Please note: Due to the uncertainties created by COVID-19 and its impact on our 2020 and 2021 residency seasons, your application for a 2021 residency may be held for consideration for 2022 instead. If that proves necessary, you will be notified and will have the opportunity to update your application.


8. MAXIM MAZURDA NEW DIGITAL PLAY CONTEST
Deadline: June 30th
Website: http://alleyway.com/playwrights/

Original plays or musicals written specifically for a tech platform such as Zoom. As theatres face the challenge of moving programming online, please consider the following:

Creativity. We are not looking for plays that could just as easily be performed on stage. We want you to truly embrace the digital/virtual platform. How can you engage with an audience through this distant reality? How can you make this mediated form immediate?

Technology. We are only at the beginning stages of understanding all the incredible opportunities technology can afford us. Which platform will work best for your play? How will it be done? What “magic” can you employ to use technology to help tell your story in the most successful way? Is it Zoom? Skype? FaceTime? An app? Something else? Is it live? Live to tape? Filmed previously and heavily edited? The winning plays will be specific and creative in this approach, as emphasis should be placed equally on the story and the form.

Audience. Who is this for? Is it interactive? Passive? Zoom fatigue is real. How long can your production honestly ask an audience to sit at their screen? 10 minutes? 60? 90? Be realistic in your attempts at engaging your target audience.

Finalists will be notified by early Fall 2020 and the winning play will receive its premiere production via Alleyway online during the 2020/21 season and will be awarded a royalty/prize of $250.


9. PROJECT Y: ZOOM CALL PLAYS
Deadline: June 30th
Website: http://www.projectytheatre.org/2020/04/zoom-plays/

On March 14th, 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic started to take hold of all of our best laid artistic plans, we realized the moment asked us to be nimble.  So we put out a national call for Zoom Plays: monologues, scenes, and plays written to be performed on the Zoom platform.

Within weeks, over a hundred submissions had arrived from all around the world.  Some were plays previously written that the playwright thought would work well for this platform.  Many others are written by playwrights who are answering the call and writing a new play for this prompt.  The submissions continue to this day. 

Playwrights were encouraged to make context central to the prompt; there must to be a realistic need for this to be a Zoom call. Teenagers talking late at night.  A couple separated by borders.  Classmates trying to Zoom for a class project.  Lovers making plans to elope.

These new works are now organized, and through this website are now available for anyone, nationally or internationally, who seeks to use this for educational reasons: teachers, theatre companies, colleges, high schools, coaches, community organizations, academic institutions, etc.  Please note:  each of these playwrights have granted the rights for educational purposes only.   If you want to do something more with the play, you must contact the playwright for appropriate permission.

We have categorized them by the following criteria to help you find one that you like:

2 person plays
Under 15 minutes in running time
Over 15 minutes in running time
Monologues
FRED EBB AWARD
Deadline: June 30th
Website: http://fredebbfoundation.org/fred-ebb-award/eligibility/

Each applicant must be a composer/lyricist or composer/lyricist team wishing to create work for the musical theatre, and must not yet have achieved significant commercial success. 

Application Materials:

1.  A digital recording containing up to four songs from one or more musical theatre pieces, with typewritten lyrics and a description of the dramatic context for each song.

o MP3, ZIP, and M4A files are preferred, but Dropbox files are acceptable as well. Dropbox files should not have time limits.

2.  A completed application form.

• All applications will be coded as they arrive. Because all submissions will be reviewed blind, please do not place name(s) of writer(s) on the electronic files, lyric sheets, or description of dramatic context. Names should only appear on the Application Form. 

• Only musical theatre work will be considered.

• Please do not submit recordings that include any audience sound.

• The applicant(s) must have written all the songs included in the submission. For example, a composer cannot submit one song with her own lyrics, and a second song with lyrics by another writer.

• No individual may appear on more than one application. You cannot apply as an individual and again as part of a team, or as part of more than one songwriting team.

Submission Deadline and Award:

Applications will be accepted from June 1-30, 2020. Please email applications to: fredebbfound@gmail.com. The winner will be selected in November 2020 and will receive $60,000. 


10. WOODWARD INTERNATIONAL PLAY COMPETITION
Deadline: July 1st
Website: https://cola.unh.edu/theatre-dance/opportunities/cultural-stages

The University of New Hampshire is now accepting submissions for the Woodward International Playwriting Prize. The Woodward Prize is part of Cultural Stages: The Woodward International Drama and Dance Initiative and is given once every four years. The aim of this program is to broaden and deepen the understanding of international cultures through a competition for plays addressing relevant themes. Plays submitted for this competition should have a primary focus on cultures from countries other than the US. The winning play will be given a fully produced production as part of the University of New Hampshire's 2021-22 Department of Theatre and Dance main stage season. The winning Playwright will receive a cash prize of $5,000, plus expenses to travel to the University of New Hampshire and stay for the one week of performances. Finalists will be posted on the University of New Hampshire Department of Theatre and Dance website in October 2020. The winning play will be announced by February 1, 2021. A first and second runner up will also be named at that time. Pending funding, readings of the first and second runner up will be presented with travel and expenses provided to the playwrights to attend the readings.


11.LANESBORO ARTIST RESIDENCY
Deadline: July 31st
Website: https://lanesboroarts.org/artist-residency-program/residency-program-guidelines/

The Lanesboro Artist Residency Program offers two or four week residencies to emerging artists driven to explore ways in which their work can be applied to the community and how Lanesboro’s rural community can inform their work.

The Lanesboro Artist Residency Program, located in Lanesboro, MN (pop. 754), is supported by the Jerome Foundation and aims to provide an immersive, meaningful experience for emerging artists from Minnesota and the five boroughs of New York City. The program is unique in that it provides an entire rural community and its myriad assets as a catalytic vehicle for engagement and artistic experimentation, with staff working with each resident to create a fully-customized residency experience.

Lanesboro Arts’ goal is to be flexible and accommodating to artists, allowing them access to local resources needed for conceptualizing and realizing their place-based work. Lanesboro Arts recognizes “place-based work” as work that is specifically inspired by and designed for the place in which the work takes place; it can be a new project, or an interpretation of the artist’s current work tailored to engage the community of Lanesboro. The residency program was designed to align with and amplify Lanesboro Arts’ vision for communities–especially rural communities–to embrace artists as economic drivers, culture bearers, community builders, and problem solvers.

Artists must be legal residents of Minnesota or one of the five boroughs of New York City to be eligible to apply. To be considered, eligible artists must submit their application through the online webform on Lanesboro Arts website. Complete program details are below. Please contact Kara Maloney at 507-467-2446 or kara@lanesboroarts.org with any questions.


12. CROSSROADS DIVERSE VOICE PLAYWRITING INITIATIVE
Deadline: August 15th
Website: https://finearts.illinoisstate.edu/crossroads-project/

The 2021 Diverse Voices Playwriting Initiative welcomes submissions for full-length, unproduced plays by playwrights of color in accordance with the mission statement of the Crossroads Project (see below). A diverse panel of judges comprising of faculty, staff, and students will select one playwright as the winner of the contest.

The winning playwright will receive:

An invitation to Illinois State University in Bloomington-Normal, IL for a one-week new play development workshop, culminating in a public staged reading. The playwright may also be invited to offer guest lectures and colloquia. The Crossroads Project will cover costs for travel, housing, and meals during the workshop.
An honorarium of $500 for the workshop.
To be eligible to win the contest, a playwright must be available for a one-week workshop in late March 2021 (exact dates TBD). Due to funding limitations, the Crossroads Project can only cover costs for travel within the United States.

The deadline for submissions is August 15, 2020, 11:59 p.m. (central daylight time). There is no entry fee. We only accept electronic submissions in PDF format. Because our staff and resources are limited, we can only consider the first 100 submissions.

Please include in your submission:

A sample from your play up to 15 pages. This does not have to be the first 15 pages of the play.
A playwright’s statement (max. 250 words) describing your inspiration for writing the play, as well as how you believe a workshop in a university setting will further your development process.
A synopsis of the play (max. 250 words).
A character list with short descriptions for each character (age, ethnicity, gender, occupation, family relationships, etc.)
Please follow these guidelines when submitting your play:

A playwright may only submit one play per contest. The writer of the play must submit their own work.
Plays that have been previously fully produced or published are ineligible for the contest. Plays that have previously had workshops or staged readings are eligible.
Submissions must be the original work of the playwright, which may include adaptations of fictional or factual material. Translations of other playwrights’ work are not accepted.
The submitting playwright must either be the owner and controller of the copyright or provide written proof that they have acquired the legal right to use copyrighted material in their work.
Submissions must be full-length plays.
Musicals are not accepted. However, plays with limited music requirements are accepted.
The primary language of the play must be English.
There are no other restrictions in subject matter or style.
The Crossroads Project reserves the right to accept or reject any submitted play for any reason.
To submit your play, use the play submission form . Please try the link first to check if the contest is still open.

We will contact semi-finalists by the end of October 2020 and ask them to submit the full play.

The winning playwright will be notified by mid-January 2021.