WomenArts is grateful to the playwrights of NewShoe for creating Mixed Relief, a one-act play that is designed to be a springboard for discussion about government arts funding past and present. You can download the script and sound cues using the links below.

New Shoe retains all copyrights for this play, but when you download the script, you will be sent an email that grants you non-exclusive rights to do readings or productions.

New Shoe has agreed that no royalties will be required, but you must promise to give proper credit to the New Shoe playwrights in your press materials and playbills.
Please let us know if you decide to do the play or if you have any additional questions or comments. Contact Us>>

Download the Script:

To download the script of Mixed Relief as a Word document, please click here>>

To download the script of Mixed Relief as a Rich Text document, please click here>>

Download the Music:
You can use live music, find your own recordings for the show, or download the eight sound cues below:

Cue #1 Mama Don’t Want No Peas – traditional, performed by Zora Neal Hurston (mpeg4) Download>>

Cue #2 Tuxedo Junction – The International Sweethearts (mpeg4) Download>>

Cue #3 It’s Right Here – Blanche Calloway (mp3) Download>>

Cue #4 This Year’s Crop of Kisses – Alice Faye (mp3) Download>>

Cue #5 – Oh You Nasty Man – Ray Noble & his Orchestra performed by Alice Faye & Rudy Vallee – (mpeg4) Download>>

Cue #6 – Bam Bam Train – BamBam Busta Whyte (Harmonica) (mp3) Download>>

Cue #7 – Halimufack – traditional, performed by Zora Neal Hurston (mpeg4) Download>>

Extra Cue – Gavel Sound Loop (mpeg4) Download>>

A note about the copyrights on this music: Since https://www.womenarts.org/2013/03/09/mixed_relief/ Relief is intended to educate audiences about the WPA in non-profit settings, and only small portions of the songs will be used for the cues, we believe that the use of these songs in your readings will qualify as “fair use” and copyright permission will not be needed.

Mama Don’t Want No Peas and Halimufack were songs that Zora Neal Hurston recorded while she was working for the WPA as an ethnographer in Florida. We found these songs in the Library of Congress archives where you may find other music of the period. Here is what the Library of Congress says about the copyright issues:

“While the Library is not aware of any copyright in the materials in this collection except as noted below, users should be aware of possible rights particularly in the underlying works in the sound recordings. As is often the case with materials collected in the course of ethnographic field research, it is frequently difficult or impossible to identify specific speakers or singers included in sound recordings. It is also often difficult or impossible to identify specific songs sung by participants sufficiently to perform a comprehensive assessment of the copyright status of underlying musical rights in lyrics or compositions. The Library of Congress has exhaustively researched this collection to ascertain any possible legal rights embodied in the materials in the collection. While we have been unable to identify any copyright in the recordings provided online here, we stress that the collection is being made available in American Memory strictly for educational, noncommercial uses.”

NewShoe Company Members

Suzanne Bennett (Curator & Dramaturg): A compiled script, Words of Choice, with Cindy Cooper, was published in the anthology, Front Lines: Political Plays by American Women, The New Press, 2009. Co-authored Hitting the Glass Ceiling: Study on the Representation of Women in American Theatre, a NYSCA funded project. With Jane Peterson, wrote Women Playwrights of Diversity, Greenwood Press.

While Artistic Director of the Eureka Theatre, Suzanne commissioned and directed Anna Deavere Smith in a performance piece about San Francisco and produced the premiere of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. She has directed and developed new plays for theatres in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. As Director of Special Programs for the Women’s Project and Productions, she headed up their Directors Forum and the Ford Foundation sponsored program “Fostering Artistic Leadership.” Her Ph.D is from University of Missouri.

Michèle Aldin Kushner (Playwright): ADVANCED WOMEN, is the 2009 winner to the Todd McNereny Playwriting Award, College of Charleston; it will read at the 2010 Piccolo Spoleto Festival, SC.   Her other plays have been read/produced in New York City. Alfred P. Sloan Award for her screenplay, 11 MONTHS. MFA, NYU.

Jill Campbell (Playwright): Plays performed in Alaska, Chicago, Dublin, London, New Jersey and New York. Resident Artist with Mabou Mines, 92nd Street Y/Makor Center and Caird Company (UK).  An associate with Juggernaut Theatre Co. Presently the Supervising/Associate Producer of Dancing Across Borders), a documentary about a Cambodian ballet dancer, out in 2010.

Marya Cohn (Playwright): Writer, director, and writing teacher. She is developing a feature film The Girl in the Book, has written and directed several short films, among them Developing, which aired on the Sundance Channel and Reel New York, and has had articles published in various magazines, most recently in GOOD.

Dana Leslie Goldstein (Playwright/Lyricist): Work seen at Cherry Lane, Culture Project, Julia Miles Theatre, York, New Dramatists, BMI, Lark, Neighborhood Playhouse, Ellis Island, Vineyard Playhouse, Pulse, TBG, on TYA tours.  NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM (Winner, New England New Play Competition) WorkShop Theater Company’s 2009-2010 season. LIBERTY (book/lyrics) opens off-Broadway in August, 2010.

Andrea Lepcio (Playwright): LOOKING FOR THE PONY (NEA Outstanding New American Play finalist) Vital Theatre Company in New York City and Synchronicity Performance Group in Atlanta in 2009.  Plays produced and developed at Chashama, HERE, The Lady Cavaliers, Lark Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Source, NewShoe, Raw Impressions, Shalimar Productions, Three Chicks, Titans Theatre, Williamsburg Art Nexus, and Women’s Project in NY, and at Bloody Unicorn, Hangar Theatre, Provincetown Theatre Company, and Trustus Theatre, regionally.  Her screenplay, A September Spring, won the Sloan Foundation Dramatic Writing Award.  M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing, Carnegie Mellon University.  M.B.A. UC, Berkeley.

About NewShoe

NewShoe is a playwright-director theatre group whose aim is to encourage collaborations among women playwrights and directors and to foster an artist’s individual work through thoughtful response to scripts and projects. In bimonthly meetings and workshops, NewShoe strives to create a trusting environment that helps shape more thoughtful and courageous work.

The name NewShoe is inspired by Nu Shu, the name given to the code writing of Chinese women in feudal Hunan province. Forbidden to write, the women came up with a cryptic writing system to communicate with and supported each other through poems, stories, and songs. Our Anglicized spelling winks at the association of women with shoes while acknowledging we are the newest shoe in a continuum of theaters for women who owe their inspiration to Julia Miles and her leadership of the Women’s Project and Productions.