Crossing Delancey

A Message from the President

Read the latest update from Curtain Players President Michael Fusco.

Stage Whispers...
Updated: September 13, 2011

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Recent News

• Spotlight: Panel welcomes ideas for Season 50
• Oct 25: 'The Dining Room' receives Roundtable review
• Oct 12: Stefan no Langer CP webmaster
• Oct 12: 'Dining Room' talkback set for October 23
• Sep 29: October board meet gets new date
• Sep 29: Infested, overgrown trees removed
• Sep 27: 'Delancey,' 'Titanic' tryouts on calendar
• Sep 27: Two leadership posts remain open
• Sep 27: New office for Charlesworth-Miller
• Sep 27: Playhouse makes room for 'Room'
• See all Curtain Players news. >

In the Spotlight

Panel welcomes ideas for Season 50

Curtain Players friends and followers are asked to suggest scripts for the community theatre company’s 50th anniversary season beginning in September 2012.

The Curtain Players Board of Directors and its artistic direction committee have redesigned the selection process for scripts produced at the Harlem Road playhouse and for individuals charged with directing them. This is being done by combining the reading and director selection committees into one body.

President Michael Fusco has appointed Casey Merkey, James F. Petsche, and Kim Sanders to join Artistic Direction Committee Chair Jill Taylor and Curtain Players Technical Director Booth Muller on this new committee. Taylor will coordinate the panel. Fusco will participate as an ex officio member.

The first step in the selection process is to assemble a collection of plays for consideration. Everyone has the opportunity to participate fully in this stage of the process by at least providing play titles (and perhaps playwrights’ names and reasons why Curtain should present said titles). That may be done by sending an e-mail to playreading@curtainplayers.com

An easy-to-complete form will be available in the programs for the Curtain Players production of The Dining Room during its October 14-30 run. Those forms will be collected at the end of each performance.

The deadline for submissions is November 1.

The committee will sort through titles received (organizing them by genre and reviewing them for viability for production by the organization), then present them in an informational package for consideration by director applicants. Those applicants will be able to choose several scripts to their liking from that package and/or suggest titles of plays that they have an interest in directing as well. Candidates from the pool of applicants will be interviewed by the panel after the winter holidays, and a proposed season could be ready for the board by late winter with announcement in the spring.

The goal with this new process is to attract a deeper pool of director candidates by giving hopefuls the opportunity to approach Curtain Players with a property which they are passionate about directing.

In its proposal to the board, the artistic direction committee explained that Curtain Players will not relinquish any authority as a producing organization in this new process.  The titles which directors may consider will include the public's submissions as well as their own suggestions, and will be vetted by the committee and reported to the board.  However, by not first selecting a narrow roster of plays for production and then searching for director – as has been done in years past – the potential for more director applicants will likely increase.