שנת שלום עליכם (1859-1916) :קול קורא לכתיבת מחזות קצרים ע"פ סיפורי שלום עליכם
International Competition: "Dramatic Adaptations of Sholem Aleichem Short Stories"
Call for Submission
The year 2019 has been declared as The Sholem Aleichem Year due to the 160th anniversary of the birth of the great Yiddish and international humour celebrity – the writer Sholem Aleichem (1859-1916) - whose writings abound with a humanistic outlook and ardent faith in the goodness of people, and as such promote tolerance, understanding, peace and belief in a better future in accordance with the charter of the ITI . The International Playwrights Forum (IPF) of the ITI, in collaboration with the Israeli Centre of the ITI and The Institute for Jewish Theatre calls upon playwrights and writers worldwide to participate in a competition for the 3 best adaptations of Sholem Aleichem's short stories. The winning plays will be chosen by a jury whose members will be selected by the IPF.
Sholem Aleichem stories have been translated into 99 languages, and served as a source of inspiration for people suffering hardship, racial persecution and despair, comedy, as well as for writers, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. The best known example is the highly successful musical "Fiddler on the Roof" based on Sholem Aleichem's "Tevye the Dairyman and his Daughters". Although embedded in a Jewish milieu, Sholem Aleichem's unique comic merits and optimism are universal.
The aims are:
•To challenge writers all over the Globe with the opportunity to find their unique cultural and personal expression and method to render a rich literary and cultural heritage with its humane appeal, compassion and humour, internationally accessible through the theatre.
•To develop the skills of emerging as well as more established playwrights by juxtaposing them with the difficult task of inter-medial and trans-cultural dramatic adaptation, as well as by offering them economic support for appropriating their works to stage productions.
•To endow the winning works with international exposure, thus promoting the chances of arousing international interest in their texts.
•Through the sheer inter-cultural encounter with the stories and through their medially-accommodated processing – to express the common human threads that unite us all as members of the Family of Man.
The Rules:
1.The entries must be in one of the main UNESCO languages, English or French, accompanied by a script in the original language.
2.The Competition is open to all playwrights and writers regardless of age, gender, race, nationality or membership of any organization.
3.Playwrights can submit one play only, which should be no longer that 20-22 pages (approx. 51,000 characters including spaces).
4.A list of Selected Sources is annexed.
5.No previously published or produced plays will accepted.
6.In submitting the play, the playwright agrees to abide by the rules.
7.The winners accept that their plays will be published and/or read and/or staged as specified in the clause "The Awards" below without further remuneration. However, the publication, translation and production rights beyond these stipulations belong to the author.
The Jury:
A multi-national jury of five members – directors, playwrights and dramaturgs
-will assess the plays and choose up to three plays. The jury's decision is final.
The Awards:
1.The winning plays will be awarded 2500 euros for the first prize, 1750 for the second, and 1000 for the third, generously granted by the ITI Executive Council towards further dramaturgical development of the drafts.
2.The winning plays will be presented at the 36th ITI World Congress.
3.The winning plays will published on the Website of The Institute for Jewish Theatre (further publications are considered).
4.The winning plays might be produced in the context of a planned Sholem Aleichem Festival.
Participation
1.All entries must be sent by e-mail as PDF attachment. The entry must bear the full name of the playwright, the title of the play and contact details in the body of the e-mail. The PDF must be without the name of the playwright.
2.All entries should be sent to the email-address: [email protected]
and in the subject line write: Sholem Aleichem Competition.
3.To ensure anonymity, the IPF guarantees to forward the script of the play to the jury without identifying the name of the playwright.
4.All entrants will receive e-mail confirmation that their play has been received, and that it complies or does not comply with the competition rules.
5.Once the jury has chosen, the winning plays will be announced in the ITI Newsletter. The winners will also be informed via e-mails, sent to the e-mail addresses from which they originally sent their plays.
Submission deadline is May 31, 2020
We wish you success!
Prof. Gad Kaynar Kissinger
President – The International Playwrights Forum
President - The Israeli Centre of the ITI
Ms. Ursula Werdenberg
Secretary General - The International Playwrights Forum
Mr. Moti Sandak
General Manager – The Institute for Jewish Theatre
Mr. Shmuel Atzmon-Wirtcer
Chairman and Board Member - The Institute for Jewish Theatre
Selected Sources
Tevye the Dairyman and Motl the Cantor's Son (Penguin Classics) Paperback – January 27, 2009
Favorite Tales of Sholom Aleichem Hardcover – November 18, 1990
Sholem Aleichem: Five Short Stories Paperback – March 20, 2014
Jewish Children (Classic Reprint) Paperback – February 10, 2017 by Shalom Aleichem
Wandering Stars: A Novel Paperback – August 31, 2010 by Sholem Aleichem
Tevye's Daughters: Collected Stories of Sholom AleichemPaperback – November 19, 1999
Wish list at the Yiddish book center
http://sholemaleichem.org/recommended-reading/
books
https://www.thriftbooks.com/a/sholem-aleichem/235667/
Sholem Aliechem :introduction
http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Sholem_Aleichem
Suggested Reading
al-Makhshoves (I. Elyashiv), “Sholem Aleykhem,” in Geklibene verk, pp. 172–190 (New York, 1953), in English as “Sholem Aleichem [A Typology of His Characters],” Prooftexts 6.1 (1986): 7–15; Max Erik, “Menakhem Mendl: Geshtalt un metod,” Shtern 5–6 (1935): 180–202, 8 (1935): 82–90, English translation in Prooftexts 6.1 (1986): 23–39; Max Erik, “Vegn Sholem Aleykhems ‘Ksovim fun a komivoyazher,’” Visnshaft un revolutsye 3–4 (1935): 161–172; Victor Erlich, “A Note on the Monologue As a Literary Form: Sholem Aleichem’s Monologn; A Test Case,” in For Max Weinreich on His Seventieth Birthday, pp. 44–50 (The Hague, 1964); Ken Frieden, Classic Yiddish Fiction (Albany, N.Y., 1995), pp. 95–224; Jacob Glatstein, “Menakhem Mendl,” in In tokh genumen: Eseyen, 1945–1947, pp. 469–484 (New York, 1947); Janet Hadda, Passionate Women, Passive Men: Suicide in Yiddish Literature (Albany, N.Y., 1988), pp. 101–118; Binyamin Harshav, “Dekonstruktsyah shel dibur: Shalom ‘Alekhem veha-semantikah shel ha-folklor ha-yehudi,” in Tevyeh ha-ḥalban u-monologim, pp. 195–212 (Tel Aviv, 1983); Dan Miron, Masot meshulavot (Ramat Gan, Isr., 1976); Dan Miron, The Image of the Shtetl (Syracuse, N.Y., 2000); Dan Miron, Ha-Tsad ha-afel bi-tseḥoko shel Shalom ‘Alekhem (Tel Aviv, 2004), pp. 19–116; Shmuel Niger, Sholem Aleykhem: Zayne vikhtikste verk, zayn humor un zayn ort in der yidisher literatur (New York, 1928); Avraham Novershtern, “Menakhem Mendl le-Shalom Alekhem: Ben toldot ha-tekst le-mivneh ha-yetsirah,” Tarbits 54.1 (1984): 105–146; Nokhem Oyslender, “Der yunger Sholem Aleykhem un zayn roman Stempenyu,” Shriftn 1 (1928): 1–72; David Roskies, Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture (Cambridge, Mass., 1984), pp. 163–195; David Roskies, A Bridge of Longing: The Lost Art of Yiddish Storytelling (Cambridge, Mass., 1995), pp. 147–190; Dov Sadan, “Sheloshah yesodot,” in Avne miftan, vol. 1, pp. 45–54 (Tel Aviv, 1961), in English as “Three Foundations,” Prooftexts 6.1 (1986): 55–63; Chone Shmeruk, ‘Ayarot u-kherakhim: Perakim bi-yetsirato shel Shalom-‘Alekhem, ed. Chava Turniansky (Jerusalem, 2000); Eliyohu Spivak, Sholem Aleykhems shprakh un stil (Kiev, 1940); Yeḥi’el Yeshaia Trunk, Sholem-Aleykhem: Zayn vezn un zayne verk (Warsaw, 1937); Yeḥi’el Yeshaia Trunk, Tevye un Menakhem Mendl in yidishn velt-goyrl(New York, 1944); Meir Wiener, Tsu der geshikhte fun der yidisher literatur in 19tn yorhundert, vol. 2 (New York, 1946), pp. 235–378; Ruth R. Wisse, The Schlemiel As Modern Hero (Chicago, 1971); Ruth R. Wisse, Sholem Aleichem and the Art of Communication (Syracuse, N.Y., 1980); Ruth R. Wisse, The Modern Jewish Canon (New York, 2000), pp. 31–64.
THE OFFICIAL SHOLEM ALEICHEM WEBSITE : resources
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