New York Competition of Dramatic Arts

The New York Competition of Dramatic Arts (NYCODA) is an Annual Performance Festival and Competition for actors, located in New York City.

NYCODA, established in the spring of 2008, is becoming known for its appeal to both amateur and professional actors, but with a wider appeal to other areas of the performing arts. The company flew below the radar for a while, but is fast becoming known on the New York Performance Arts scene, and being identified as uniquely Brooklyn. In fact, many are calling it a Brooklyn movement of performance artists and a haven for the aspiring actor.

NYCODA was established as an annual performance festival and competition, where actors can compete in different genres, such as Shakespearean Drama, Dramatic Duologue, Humorous Verse and Open Reading. Actors compete in these categories, with the Open Reading category a favorite, because the actor has freedom to choose what to perform. In fact, many actors write and perform their own work in this category.

The NYCODA competition is typically held in the Fall of each year in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Contestants submit samples of their performances, typically monologues, via the company's website. The contestants are chosen months in advance, and are notified by the Summer preceding the Fall event. The festival is a one-day event and category winners are chosen at the end of the night and presented with some of the most sought after awards in the industry, with the biggest award, The NYCODA Actor Award going to the overall winner of the festival. The event is recorded for television purposes.

While the NYCODA festival primarily features competing actors, many other performance artists are included. Dancers, singers and other performers help add to the rich and complex texture of the event, and now the festival is being called the Sundance Festival of Brooklyn and the buzz is already alive in the community of aspiring actors, who see the festival and competition as another outlet to have their skills recognized and an opportunity to perform live on stage in front of a large audience.

Many noteworthy organizations are already in line to endorse the NYCODA movement, and to applaud it as the festival for which New York has long waited. The company has begun to develop an international outlook and has begun partnering with international agencies, in Africa and Europe. Through their international program, NYCODA welcomes actors and performance artists from all over the country and all over the world, and some NYCODA contestants have the opportunity to perform internationally as well.

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