Byron Toben announces a new worldwide one-act playwriting contest to be called:

 

“THE RETURN OF

G. BERNARD SHAW”

 

 


Caricature of GBS by Anne Stratford 2011

                            

 

“The Return of G. Bernard Shaw”

 

Shakespeare appreciation declined after his death in 1616, but it was revived in 1660 and is healthy today.  G. Bernard Shaw, the only person to have won both an Academy Award and a Nobel Prize in Literature (as well as being pictured on a Beatles album cover) is faced with a decline in popularity as we enter a technological Twitteresque era where rolling waves of witty language are being stopped by monosyllabic bursts.

 

What would a resurrected GBS make of all this?  And how re-animated?  Would his statue in Niagara-on–the-Lake, Ontario awake (as did the Commander in Don Juan in Hell)?  Would the mourners wish him to disappear again (as with St. Joan)?   Would he materialize in the green hills of John Bull`s Other Island?  Would he time travel to the future world of Galway 3000 C.E. as in Back to Methuselah?  His 51 plays and scads of other writings are a rich motherlode to mine.

 

Playwrights of the world unite! Let your imaginations run wild!

You have nothing to lose but the chains of convention!

 

Deadline:15 November 2012

 

Prize:  $ 500 first place

             $ 200 second place

             $ 100 third place

 

Length: 30 to 60 minutes

 

Application fee: $10 (Canadian or US) money order made out

                             to Quebec Drama Federation

 

Script details:  Send two copies, 8 ˝ by 11, to the QDF at:

                           Quebec Drama Federation

                           Suite 807

                           460 Ste. Catherine West

                           Montreal, QC.

                           H3B 1A7

                           CANADA

 

RETURN OF SCRIPTS: Scripts will be returned only if accompanied by a self addressed, properly stamped return envelope.

 

RIGHTS:  The author will retain all legal rights in the play

 

Note: This contest is not sponsored by the Quebec Drama Federation, which is merely receiving scripts as facilitation.

  Most of the application fee will go to the long established Actors Fund to aid theatre folk in distress.

   

 

   *********************************

Previous one act playwriting contests organized by Mr. Toben:

 

2009 (any title) theme: Montreal stories in a film noir style.

             First prize tie:   Liesl Barrell and Jane Gilchrist (Montreal)

 

2010 (The Search for Eileen Sullivan) theme: The Irish Diaspora

         to North America        

                                                                                                              

              First: Michael F Hennessey ( P.E.I., Canada)

              Second: Anne Phelan* ( New York, USA)

              Third:  Lucy Brennan** (Ontario and Ireland)

 

  * Dramatic reading at Atwater Library, Westmount, Quebec on

     September 23, 2011 in presence of author

 

   ** Dramatic reading at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec

      July 6, 2011 in presence of author