Play Suggestions

Plays and other dramatic works
Post Reply
ToddHW
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 19799
Joined: August 14th, 2011, 4:24 am
Contact:

Post by ToddHW »

I am reading a most interesting book on The Theory of the Theatre: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=81907

Lottsa things I never consciously realized about how a story has to be told for best dramatic effect. In Particular, Chapter 5 on ECONOMY OF ATTENTION IN THEATRICAL PERFORMANCES ( http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13589/13589-h/13589-h.htm#2H_4_0009 ) - how to avoid losing the attention of the audience from what is really the most important amongst all the other things going on on stage. Having major and minor characters, often with stock characters for the minor, so you know who to listen to most; not keeping secrets from the audience and foreshadowing things so that when they happen you are considering the drama and emotions rather than wondering "how did I not see that coming?"; etc.

Thank you Librivox for continuing my education!

Todd
VocalPenguin
Posts: 165
Joined: March 4th, 2020, 5:12 pm

Post by VocalPenguin »

I just noticed there isn't any LibriVox recording of Cervantino's Entremeses yet. They're a great collection of Spanish one-act plays written by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (the guy who wrote Don Quijote). He died in 1616, so I'm pretty sure it's public domain. Here's the gutenberg link: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57955

Do we have enough Spanish-speaking Dramatic Works readers to do something like this?
TriciaG
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 60512
Joined: June 15th, 2008, 10:30 pm
Location: Toronto, ON (but Minnesotan to age 32)

Post by TriciaG »

VocalPenguin wrote: September 26th, 2020, 3:47 pm I just noticed there isn't any LibriVox recording of Cervantino's Entremeses yet. They're a great collection of Spanish one-act plays written by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (the guy who wrote Don Quijote). He died in 1616, so I'm pretty sure it's public domain. Here's the gutenberg link: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/57955

Do we have enough Spanish-speaking Dramatic Works readers to do something like this?
I don't know. You could try posting the suggestion in the Languages Other than English forum: viewforum.php?f=38
It might get more Spanish speakers reading it there than here. ;)
Serial novel: The Wandering Jew
Medieval England meets Civil War Americans: Centuries Apart
Humor: My Lady Nicotine
VocalPenguin
Posts: 165
Joined: March 4th, 2020, 5:12 pm

Post by VocalPenguin »

TriciaG wrote: September 26th, 2020, 3:51 pm I don't know. You could try posting the suggestion in the Languages Other than English forum: viewforum.php?f=38
It might get more Spanish speakers reading it there than here. ;)
Fair enough, I shall try suggesting there. For some reason I thought that forum was specifically for books in other languages and that all plays happened here, though in hindsight I don't know why I thought that.
TriciaG
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 60512
Joined: June 15th, 2008, 10:30 pm
Location: Toronto, ON (but Minnesotan to age 32)

Post by TriciaG »

I suppose it doesn't hurt to put it in both places! :lol:
Serial novel: The Wandering Jew
Medieval England meets Civil War Americans: Centuries Apart
Humor: My Lady Nicotine
ToddHW
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 19799
Joined: August 14th, 2011, 4:24 am
Contact:

Post by ToddHW »

The book of Spanish plays does not have casts of characters. It would help people decide if you could figure out how many characters were in each play; how many in the largest. Do you need 6 in most plays but 12 in the largest? (Of course you don't need to actually run them all in one project, just know how to pick them based on the number of people interested.)

I think that they would do best in a separate Spanish play project rather than the current One Act Play project, but I could be persuaded otherwise. There is space in the current project.

I could run these, maybe edit (though someone who can understand the language would do a better job - or at least be able to correct what I did wrong). Sadly I am strictly monolingual and jealous of those who are not.

Thanks, Todd
VocalPenguin
Posts: 165
Joined: March 4th, 2020, 5:12 pm

Post by VocalPenguin »

ToddHW wrote: September 27th, 2020, 5:50 am The book of Spanish plays does not have casts of characters. It would help people decide if you could figure out how many characters were in each play; how many in the largest. Do you need 6 in most plays but 12 in the largest? (Of course you don't need to actually run them all in one project, just know how to pick them based on the number of people interested.)

I think that they would do best in a separate Spanish play project rather than the current One Act Play project, but I could be persuaded otherwise. There is space in the current project.

I could run these, maybe edit (though someone who can understand the language would do a better job - or at least be able to correct what I did wrong). Sadly I am strictly monolingual and jealous of those who are not.

Thanks, Todd
Thanks for your input. I have run some statistics, and found the following numbers:
Out of the 11 plays in the collection:
The smallest cast is 7.
The largest cast is 15 (14 characters, but one character is actually two singers).
The average cast size is around 10-11.

Note: the above numbers don't account for the Stage Directions reading. The Stage Directions are, however, quite simple in these plays, since they mainly just consist of entrances and exits.

I now have a list of the characters in all the shows, though posting it here might make this post unwieldy.

I agree that it would do best as its own thing, instead of being in the One Act Play project, since many of the plays are mildly related, with recurring characters and such. It might be worth splitting it up into a couple of volumes though, depending on how people feel about projects with 100+ roles in the Magic Window.
mightyfelix
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 11082
Joined: August 7th, 2016, 6:39 pm

Post by mightyfelix »

So it sounds like we'd need at minimum 15 (maybe 16) Spanish speakers for this project to be viable, assuming that each reader was willing to voice characters in more than one play within the collection. I don't know how many Spanish speakers we have, as I don't spend any time, really, in the non-English section of the forum. But I'd imagine it wouldn't be hard to get this many readers together. I can speak a bit of Spanish (though I can't understand much yet) and would maybe be interested in taking on a teensy weensy role that doesn't require much real acting. :mrgreen:

The MW can certainly handle that many sections (I am running a play now that requires 146 MW sections), but you'd need an experienced BC to organize and juggle them all. Todd has offered to do this, and I would be willing to as well. I don't know that I'd want to edit, and I agree that someone who is fluent in Spanish would be more effective as an editor.

But I do think this collection would be both possible and worthwhile.

EDIT: Looking at the MWs for two current Spanish projects, it seems we do have enough Spanish speakers, although they may not all be interested:
viewtopic.php?f=60&t=81505
viewtopic.php?f=60&t=80786
philchenevert
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 24587
Joined: October 17th, 2010, 9:23 pm
Location: Basking by the Bayou
Contact:

Post by philchenevert »

I did not realize what a dynamic forum Dramatic Reading is until just now. Wow. Tons and tons of things going on by lots of creative people. MightyFelix has agreed to join our Zoom this Sunday (about 12:30) as a representative of DR and tell the rest of us non-DR people what goes on behind the curtain. You are all welcome to drop in and share with us too. Who knows, maybe some new people will start signing up for your plays. Or we may scare people away, that is a possibility too. The link is in my sig. I have no play suggestions; you seem to have no lack of them!.
Peruvian owls always hunt in pairs because they are inca hoots.
89 Decibels? Easy Peasy ! https://youtu.be/aSKR55RDVpk
benderca
Posts: 3006
Joined: June 24th, 2017, 12:55 pm

Post by benderca »

philchenevert wrote: September 29th, 2020, 12:04 pm I did not realize what a dynamic forum Dramatic Reading is until just now. Wow. Tons and tons of things going on by lots of creative people. MightyFelix has agreed to join our Zoom this Sunday (about 12:30) as a representative of DR and tell the rest of us non-DR people what goes on behind the curtain. You are all welcome to drop in and share with us too. Who knows, maybe some new people will start signing up for your plays. Or we may scare people away, that is a possibility too. The link is in my sig. I have no play suggestions; you seem to have no lack of them!.
...and we have a lot of fun!

I'll try to be there too!
TJ
VocalPenguin
Posts: 165
Joined: March 4th, 2020, 5:12 pm

Post by VocalPenguin »

mightyfelix wrote: September 27th, 2020, 10:09 am So it sounds like we'd need at minimum 15 (maybe 16) Spanish speakers for this project to be viable, assuming that each reader was willing to voice characters in more than one play within the collection. I don't know how many Spanish speakers we have, as I don't spend any time, really, in the non-English section of the forum. But I'd imagine it wouldn't be hard to get this many readers together. I can speak a bit of Spanish (though I can't understand much yet) and would maybe be interested in taking on a teensy weensy role that doesn't require much real acting. :mrgreen:

The MW can certainly handle that many sections (I am running a play now that requires 146 MW sections), but you'd need an experienced BC to organize and juggle them all. Todd has offered to do this, and I would be willing to as well. I don't know that I'd want to edit, and I agree that someone who is fluent in Spanish would be more effective as an editor.

But I do think this collection would be both possible and worthwhile.

EDIT: Looking at the MWs for two current Spanish projects, it seems we do have enough Spanish speakers, although they may not all be interested:
viewtopic.php?f=60&t=81505
viewtopic.php?f=60&t=80786
The larger casts generally have a few characters with very few lines, so there should be plenty of opportunities for non-native speakers! :mrgreen:

Whether it's you or Todd who ends up running the project, feel free to call on me for help getting character descriptions, and other basic translation tasks. I can also do some PL'ing as needed until a DPL comes along.
mightyfelix
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 11082
Joined: August 7th, 2016, 6:39 pm

Post by mightyfelix »

VocalPenguin wrote: October 1st, 2020, 1:32 pm
mightyfelix wrote: September 27th, 2020, 10:09 am So it sounds like we'd need at minimum 15 (maybe 16) Spanish speakers for this project to be viable, assuming that each reader was willing to voice characters in more than one play within the collection. I don't know how many Spanish speakers we have, as I don't spend any time, really, in the non-English section of the forum. But I'd imagine it wouldn't be hard to get this many readers together. I can speak a bit of Spanish (though I can't understand much yet) and would maybe be interested in taking on a teensy weensy role that doesn't require much real acting. :mrgreen:

The MW can certainly handle that many sections (I am running a play now that requires 146 MW sections), but you'd need an experienced BC to organize and juggle them all. Todd has offered to do this, and I would be willing to as well. I don't know that I'd want to edit, and I agree that someone who is fluent in Spanish would be more effective as an editor.

But I do think this collection would be both possible and worthwhile.

EDIT: Looking at the MWs for two current Spanish projects, it seems we do have enough Spanish speakers, although they may not all be interested:
viewtopic.php?f=60&t=81505
viewtopic.php?f=60&t=80786
The larger casts generally have a few characters with very few lines, so there should be plenty of opportunities for non-native speakers! :mrgreen:

Whether it's you or Todd who ends up running the project, feel free to call on me for help getting character descriptions, and other basic translation tasks. I can also do some PL'ing as needed until a DPL comes along.
I've posted in the Languages Other Than English forum to see if there would be enough interest for this to get off the ground: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=82935
Shubham000
Posts: 15
Joined: October 10th, 2020, 10:57 am

Post by Shubham000 »

I can also sing but i am from India and i think it would be different style of singing , so can you help me or you can give me any male character without any song :roll:
mightyfelix
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 11082
Joined: August 7th, 2016, 6:39 pm

Post by mightyfelix »

Shubham000 wrote: October 19th, 2020, 9:06 am I can also sing but i am from India and i think it would be different style of singing , so can you help me or you can give me any male character without any song :roll:
Most of the plays we do don't involve any singing. Almost all of them, in fact. Look through this Readers Wanted drama forum for any project that doesn't say FULL in the subject line. The first post of the thread will then explain to you what to do next.
ColleenMc
LibriVox Admin Team
Posts: 2785
Joined: April 9th, 2017, 5:57 pm

Post by ColleenMc »

Hi y'all! Venturing into the unfamiliar territory of the dramatic reading/plays forum with a wee suggestion.

I don't know if this has been done previously, but while looking for works for the Christmas short works collection, I came across this Thirty New Christmas Dialogues and Plays (link: https://archive.org/details/thirtynewchristm00iris)

I thought that a couple or few of you might want to consider putting together a short play or dialog from this to act as a contribution to the short works collection. I was going to post this to the Christmas short works thread, but thought it would get in front of more interested eyes over here!

Also, separate from the short works, this might be a useful resource (if not previously known/adapted by you) for your own dramatic Christmas collection, one-act play collections, etc.

Colleen
Colleen McMahon

No matter where you go, there you are. -- Buckaroo Banzai
Post Reply