Play Suggestions

Plays and other dramatic works
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RecordingPerson
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Post by RecordingPerson »

ChuckW wrote:
ToddHW wrote:There must be a lot of gems in early Broadway for us to mine. Great choices. Do them all (eventually)!

Thanks, Todd
Would there be some sort of insurrection if I launched all five at the same time? :-P
Not that it's a major reason to not do the plays, but none of these plays are out of copyright in the UK and some other territories. Hence, if all of these were launched at once, that would be a fair chunk of active work that a number of people would be excluded from. If this was all happening at once, then quite a bit of the focus of the group may be diverted into works that some people are unable to join in on.
ChuckW
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Post by ChuckW »

RecordingPerson wrote:
ChuckW wrote:
ToddHW wrote:There must be a lot of gems in early Broadway for us to mine. Great choices. Do them all (eventually)!

Thanks, Todd
Would there be some sort of insurrection if I launched all five at the same time? :-P
Not that it's a major reason to not do the plays, but none of these plays are out of copyright in the UK and some other territories. Hence, if all of these were launched at once, that would be a fair chunk of active work that a number of people would be excluded from. If this was all happening at once, then quite a bit of the focus of the group may be diverted into works that some people are unable to join in on.
Well, aside from Back to Methuselah and Liliom, most of the plays should apply for the Rule of the Shorter Term, since all of the authors are American. So European volunteers could, hypothetically, read for them.

Also: I was joking. No way would I consider doing five dramatic projects at once! Two or three is my maximum!

However, I can definitely see your point... and am actually trying to track down other plays that might be more inclusive for all LV volunteers. For instance, I just found out some public domain translations of Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson's social realist dramas. Those should be good for everyone! I'm actually looking into doing either The Editor or Bankrupt, but will have to read through both before making any big decisions.
PROJECTS
Current Solo:Septimius Felton (Hawthorne's final novel)
Help Needed: Strange Interlude (O'Neill's Freudian melodrama - roles available!)
Carolin
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Post by Carolin »

ChuckW wrote:Well, aside from Back to Methuselah and Liliom, most of the plays should apply for the Rule of the Shorter Term, since all of the authors are American. So European volunteers could, hypothetically, read for them.
This is a can of worms i wish we could stay away from. This exception is a huge legal mess and pretty much impossible for us to apply correctly (trust me, i have a degree in copyright law). We cannot advise on the applicability of exceptions in individual cases, so readers in europe who pay attention to the year of death of an author should stick to that and be on the safe side.

Thanks!
Carolin
ChuckW
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Post by ChuckW »

So I was searching through Archive.org and HathiTrust for potential projects and stumbled upon a couple of books that might be of interest: two translated collection of Japanese noh plays. Both come with plenty of annotations and preliminary notes to provide historical context and whatnot, but the bulk of these collections is dedicated to presenting the plays themselves. Each play is fairly short; these books could easily be treated like one of our one act collection (kinda like Todd's Dickens project). Anyway, here are the books.

No Plays of Japan, translated by Arthur Waley (1889-1966)

Noh, Or, Accomplishment: A Study of the Classical Stage of Japan, translated by Ernest Fenollosa (1853-1908)

The Waley collection is highly regarded, but comes with one minor problem: the author's death date prevents most of our European volunteers from helping out. And considering the sheer number of plays in that collection... this might make the project difficult to helm. For this reason, the Fenollosa collection might be a more appealing choice... but again there's a catch. Ezra Pound is credited as the literary executor... and he died in the early 70s! So even thought he probably did doodley squat to translate and edit these plays (aside from lending some instant name recognition), his "credit" might make this book's copyright status somewhat difficult to determine.

I don't know about you, but I find this whole process of picking through the death dates of authors and translators somewhat wearying. :hmm:

Anyway, I thought I'd mention these in case anyone's interested. They both look really cool and would be worthwhile projects.

Meanwhile, I'm still poking around for another project. Still unsure about Back to Methuselah, as I've considered that it might be a better idea to wait three years for that particular project to become PD in Europe. Ugh... so frustrating.
PROJECTS
Current Solo:Septimius Felton (Hawthorne's final novel)
Help Needed: Strange Interlude (O'Neill's Freudian melodrama - roles available!)
ChuckW
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Post by ChuckW »

Here are some more recommendations (or, if you poke and prod at me enough, stuff I'll do myself eventually):

Bertram: A Tragedy in Five Acts by Charles Maturin: I was somewhat shocked that we have so little Maturin in the catalogue, particularly this one. This is prime gothic melodrama, with a truly sinister Byronic antihero at its helm. Lord Byron himself attended a showing of this at an early age and was apparently quite taken with it. I came very close to doing this myself, but another gothic melodrama caught my eye... (*wink wink*)

The Vampire, or The Bride of the Isles, by James Planché: Another gothic melodrama, which either originated or helped codify the trope of the vampire as a suave, noble, and sophisticated gentleman. In addition to inspiring none other than Bram Stoker, this was also another favorite of... you guessed it... Lord Byron. This is actually fairly short (a prologue and two acts), so... um... it probably wouldn't be a huge burden to put together.

And now... on to launch my own project!
PROJECTS
Current Solo:Septimius Felton (Hawthorne's final novel)
Help Needed: Strange Interlude (O'Neill's Freudian melodrama - roles available!)
ToddHW
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Post by ToddHW »

I have launched Moliere's Impromptu, and also will be launching his Misanthrope in a few days.

Then as my other plays end I have another Dumas (Belle-Ville), Farquhar (Love and a Bottle), and Pinero (Dandy Dick) selected and prep'd. I couldn't find another Barrie not in our catalog that I liked, so instead I'll be launching "The Devil is an Ass" by Ben Jonson.

Thanks, Todd
ToddHW
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Post by ToddHW »

And, since Moliere's Impromptu had so many readers jump on claims Saturday, I launched his The Misanthrope today.

Thanks, Todd
ToddHW
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Post by ToddHW »

Now that Quality Street is cataloged, I have launched The Devil is an Ass.

Thanks, Todd
RobMarland
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Post by RobMarland »

Hi all,

Now that my most recent BC, The Family of Love, is in the catalogue, I am casting around for another city comedy.

I have got my heart set on Cupid's Whirligig (wiki), which is about a jealous knight who suspects his wife of cheating on him. He comes up the excellent plan of proving that any of her future offspring are not his own by 'gelding' himself. Cue lots of rude Jacobean one-liners.

Only problem is, I can't find a PD text. Frustratingly, the internet is awash with non-usable versions.

There is a PD version on EEBO-TCP1, but it appears to be the product of poor OCR: there are many words missing (and, at one point, two whole pages). I don't want to give in and use this version, because the play will be incomplete.

There is a version on Google Books, which of course is not PD [edit: at least, I assume so]. And I have access via my work to a Proquest version: also not PD.

:help: At this point, I am stuck for ideas. If I could get hold of a paper copy, I would scan it myself and post it to Archive.org. Let's call that the nuclear option. Does anyone with better research skills than mine know where else I could search for a PD copy?

Thanks, team!
Last edited by RobMarland on June 14th, 2017, 3:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
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annise
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Post by annise »

Hi
The Google version you linked is a scan of a 1604 version which would be PD - not easy to use , but PD I think .

Anne
RobMarland
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Post by RobMarland »

annise wrote:Hi
The Google version you linked is a scan of a 1604 version which would be PD - not easy to use , but PD I think .

Anne
I would have hoped so, but I know that some scans are under copyright: the text itself might be PD, but the image file is not. For the Proquest version I have access to, this is made explicit: it's a scan of the same edition as on Google, but is all "personal use only, no publishing of images, etc". I have not looked up the Google Books rules, but I would assume they are the same? I would be very glad to have confirmation that they are not!


EDIT:
This, from here: https://books.google.com/googlebooks/library/screenshots.html#books-fullview
You can see books in Full View if the book is out of copyright, or if the publisher or author has asked to make the book fully viewable. The Full View allows you to view any page from the book, and if the book is in the public domain, you can download, save and print a PDF version to read at your own pace.
So maybe I am fine to use a Google Book? I have just never seen anyone use one as a source text.
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annise
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Post by annise »

We aren't publishing the scan . We are using the words - they can't copyright the words , they can stop you printing the scans as a book and selling the book - that is a simplistic explanation but do you get the idea ? If google had a text version with old fashioned letters and words modernised and the language adjusted , then they may be able to copyright it.

Anne
RobMarland
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Post by RobMarland »

annise wrote:We aren't publishing the scan . We are using the words - they can't copyright the words , they can stop you printing the scans as a book and selling the book - that is a simplistic explanation but do you get the idea ? If google had a text version with old fashioned letters and words modernised and the language adjusted , then they may be able to copyright it.

Anne
OK, got you. I had always assumed that the requirement to provide a PD source text was that the words and the document itself had to be PD.

Because reading from a 1607 edition of the play would be a very onerous task for volunteers, and there do not appear to be any more modern editions, I am creating a Google Docs script with simpler formatting. This is quite a lot of work, so I wanted to be sure I could use the Google Book version of the play before I proceeded.
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ToddHW
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Post by ToddHW »

I consider letting readers learn to read from an old script (without s's as f's though) as educational and part of the fun. Like solving a jigsaw puzzle or murder mystery.

Thanks, Todd
RobMarland
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Post by RobMarland »

ToddHW wrote:I consider letting readers learn to read from an old script (without s's as f's though) as educational and part of the fun. Like solving a jigsaw puzzle or murder mystery.

Thanks, Todd
Ha! This one really is tricky though. I think it's OK to PL against, but probably a royal pain to read from. The character names are quite inconsistent too, which could lead to confusion. It's as if these early modern typesetters didn't know LibriVox would need nice, clean scripts in 400 years' time. #Selfish
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