One Act Plays and Other Collections - Planning Thread

Elizabby · Post by **Elizabby** » March 21st, 2016, 5:25 am

catrose wrote:You'd get a better response if you started a thread in the Suggestions forum, in my opinion. It's not really one act play planning.

He's also posted it to the Play Suggestions thread - on the grounds that it isn't a DR either! Since it's Shakespeare (loosely speaking) I'd say Play Suggestions is the place for it - so I'll go express my interest over there!

dvimont · Post by **dvimont** » March 21st, 2016, 6:23 am

Elizabby wrote:
catrose wrote:You'd get a better response if you started a thread in the Suggestions forum, in my opinion. It's not really one act play planning.
He's also posted it to the Play Suggestions thread - on the grounds that it isn't a DR either! Since it's Shakespeare (loosely speaking) I'd say Play Suggestions is the place for it - so I'll go express my interest over there!

The reason I posted it here is that it seems to fall into the category of "Other Collections", (this thread's title being "One Act Plays and Other Collections"). But perhaps it's actually an "Other other collection" (sorta like "off off Broadway").

Anyway, I have given up trying to categorically categorize it, and have now posted it in several places (including the FB page).

Charlotte, please do quote it and repost it wherever you think it effectively belongs.

THANKS!!

Post by **TriciaG** » March 21st, 2016, 6:31 am

Please hold off a bit on it. The admins are discussing whether or not it violates the text policy (no self-published works). We allow people to make up tunes in a one-off situation, but having a whole project with tunes one person composed and posted on Archive is something we need to discuss.

dvimont · Post by **dvimont** » March 21st, 2016, 7:49 am

TriciaG wrote:Please hold off a bit on it. The admins are discussing whether or not it violates the text policy (no self-published works). We allow people to make up tunes in a one-off situation, but having a whole project with tunes one person composed and posted on Archive is something we need to discuss.

Okay -- thanks!!

ETA: If it helps the admins' discussion -- These works involve very famous lyrics penned by Shakespeare -- incomplete works, published without the music that is required to make them performable. I know of no settings of these that are available in the public domain (or even Creative Commons), which is why I created the settings in the first place. I don't think using these in any LV productions will set a precedent that will open the floodgates for self-publication of self-penned books, but I leave it up to the admins. THANKS!!

Elizabby · Post by **Elizabby** » March 21st, 2016, 1:33 pm

Hey Dan, if admin says no to a single Shakespeare song project, I'll launch a Shakespeare play that uses your music in it! (That's clearly within LV rules.) So, for a Shakespeare Song Showcase, which one has the most songs?

dvimont · Post by **dvimont** » March 21st, 2016, 1:42 pm

dvimont wrote:Also, I haven't yet researched to see what other settings of Shakespeare songs there may be in the public domain!

Given that there might be impediments to the use of my settings of Shakespeare songs in a collection (like, I'm not dead yet

), I put the search for other such settings to the top of my "to do" list.

Fortunately, my wife was helping me, and she found this potential treasure trove:

FIFTY SHAKSPERE SONGS: https://archive.org/details/fiftyshakspereso00vinc

Yes, that is how it was spelled in the book's title, published in 1906, which went with a variation of the spelling of the Bard's name that was used during his lifetime. This collection includes settings that date all the way back to the 1590s!

I'll be looking through these settings to see if some might be usable (although I would still likely have to make arrangements of these, which I would in turn place in the public domain, which might put us right back in the same predicament).

dvimont · Post by **dvimont** » March 21st, 2016, 1:49 pm

Elizabby wrote:Hey Dan, if admin says no to a single Shakespeare song project, I'll launch a Shakespeare play that uses your music in it! (That's clearly within LV rules.) Which one has the most songs?

Hey Beth,
By far the one with the most music is TWELFTH NIGHT (and yes, I would love to play the role of the Fool, who does a lot of the singing).

SweetPea · Post by **SweetPea** » March 21st, 2016, 1:51 pm

Twelfth Night is my favourite! I'd love to participate if you were to launch it, Beth

catrose · Post by **catrose** » March 21st, 2016, 2:27 pm

I'd recommend launching the collection as a book like this: https://archive.org/details/songsofshakespea00shak
of Shakespeare songs already.

And not to say that people have to sing Dan's music for them. I'd say that would be the best way to get around self published books being an issue. There are other public domain versions of Shakespeare songs out there. You can open it like the Sea Songs collection last year (I think it was then...) or like the Christmas Carol collection or the solo Hymn collection someone's doing.

Could I please beg for a break from Shakespeare for the rest of this half of the year? We've redone/are redoing 4 already. Redoing old plays is all well and good and I do love Shakespeare, but Librivox's mission is to get more things into the public domain and although choice of the voice allows us to do as many different versions as we want of things, redoing a lot of these Shakespeares, especially ones that were redone only a few years ago, is time that could be used in getting out new dramatic works into the public domain, plays that may be as good as Shakespeare but are less well known or haven't been physically performed in hundreds of years.

Elizabby · Post by **Elizabby** » March 21st, 2016, 6:42 pm

catrose wrote:
Could I please beg for a break from Shakespeare for the rest of this half of the year?

I actually think this is an inappropriate request. If you do not wish to participate in any further Shakespeare plays that's your decision. I don't think you can ask everyone else to refrain from launching Shakespeare plays because you happen to have had enough at the moment.

catrose · Post by **catrose** » March 22nd, 2016, 12:56 am

I think you've interpreted my question in the wrong way. I politely asked for you to refrain from launching anything Shakespeare at the moment, not through being sick of him but through there being too many of his projects at the moment, in my opinion (which is all I ever give). I do not see my suggestion of refraining from this idea for the moment as any different from someone saying, as has been said in the past, please don't launch this dramatic reading yet because it has a large cast list or because a non-dramatic version hasn't been finished yet or there are many similar projects to this already out that aren't full. You don't have to listen to me. I am simply reminding you that the aim of the librivox dramatic forum isn't to keep remaking the same plays, although that is a part of it and it is what you find fun.

Post by **annise** » March 22nd, 2016, 3:49 am

Hey - this is the one act plays pllanning thread. What are you all doing in it ?

But I'll answer.
LV is not about telling ppeople what project they can do or what project they can read for - yes this is highly inefficient - but LV is not about being an efficient production line. Within certain guidelines anyone can pick what they want to do. Personally I feel the flashmob deserve to have a chance to get their 4 plays done without other Shakespeare running - but that is a non hat wearing opinion as are my views on many projects people start but I will pick up my share of them and keep my opinions to myself.

It takes a little while for decisions about new things to be discussed by the admins - we need to be sure there are no pitfalls and everyone has a chance to look for them but it will happen.

Anne

dvimont · Post by **dvimont** » March 22nd, 2016, 7:47 pm

Post moved to here: viewtopic.php?p=1222782#p1222782

Elizabby · Post by **Elizabby** » March 22nd, 2016, 8:40 pm

Dan, it was chocoholic, on the Play Suggestions thread.

dvimont · Post by **dvimont** » March 24th, 2016, 3:58 am

TriciaG wrote:Please hold off a bit on it. The admins are discussing whether or not it violates the text policy (no self-published works). We allow people to make up tunes in a one-off situation, but having a whole project with tunes one person composed and posted on Archive is something we need to discuss.

I think it's best to just go back to Plan A here, in which I was offering up settings of songs from Shakespeare plays for potential use in LV complete play productions. We certainly don't want to inadvertently turn any part of LibriVox into the "Budding Songwriters Karaoke Podcast". The obvious way to make a separate collection consisting of only songs from Shakespeare's plays is to extract song performances from already-completed LV Shakespeare productions and "remix" them into a song collection, which can then be reposted to an appropriate place on the Internet Archive.

Thanks! (Sorry for putting anyone on the admin team through unnecessary paces!)

Dan