Written By:
Valdemar F Zialcita
Thomas G Tirney
PDC Staff Blog
A Success Story
by Thomas Tirney
posted: 2011-07-15 10:57:28
PDC member (and Philadelphia newcomer) Melissa McBain met director Jane Stojak at our February 2011 Directors/Dramatist social at Quigs Pub. Lo and behold, five months later they began a partnership to bring one of Melissa's plays to life for the Philadelphia Live-Arts Fringe Festival.
Says Jane: "Melissa told me about a script she had written, Altar Call, which intrigued me because it was about 'coming out' and I have a gay son. A few months later, she sent me the script for Going Back Naked. She was thinking of producing it for the Fringe and asked if I would read it. I did and found it to be beautifully written."
The play follows the Depression era childhood of Melissa's mother, Ann Fountain and her coming of age as a child star from Moorestown, NJ. Ms. Fountain was a piano prodigy and won several performance competitions including a prestigious Steinway-Julliard event.
According to Melissa: "When I met Jane at Plays and Players I was immediately impressed with her respect for playwrights. When she introduced herself to the group she addressed meeting playwrights' intentions and demonstrated a zeal for challenges. With her background as a theater owner and psychologist she clearly knew how to market plays and interact effectively with writers."
After Jane and Melissa agreed to collaborate on Going Back Naked, they raised $2,500 through a www.kickstarter.com campaign and began generating interest with the local-setting of the play. Melissa moved to Liberty City last year from Moline, IL, "Meeting Jane was a great introduction to the Philadelphia theater scene."
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PDC is hosting another social on July 27 at 7:30PM, again at Quig's Pub (upstairs at Plays & Players). As is the way of these things, everyone will be introduced quickly with mimimum ceremony and then have 5-8 minutes with each other to talk about projects, work, interests. We're going to time these interactions and make sure everybody has an opportunity to meet and speak with one another. Yes, it's speed-dating. But for the artistic set.
Afterwards, we can all hang out at the bar or klatch separately. This is the third such event PDC has put on since last fall. They've been popular...and successful.
Furthermore, I will be circulating a bio on everyone beforehand to cut down on exposition. We don't really like too much exposition in our plays so we can eliminate it here too
We will likely have 20-25 people attending but we don't yet have the full complement of writers. Please RSVP to tt@pdc1.org with your bio. We only have a few slots left. Can you make it?
Comments:
Melissa McBain said on 2011-09-16:
Thank you PDC and Plays and Players for hosting the Dramatist/Director Exchange which brought this partnership together. Our show, GOING BACK NAKED, closes tonight at Plays and Players but my collaboration with Jane Stojak will continue. And thanks to Tom for supporting our show while his own show, TEACH YOUR CHILDREN, is up and running.
Dramatists Guild of America, National Conference Day 3
by Thomas Tirney
posted: 2011-07-11 10:06:13
There were three packed Self-Production panels in the morning, one-after-the other from 9AM to noon. Such demand from the conference led me to several thoughts:
1. Writers for the stage have to be involved at some level of production—possibly all--to realize the work on stage since few opportunities t exist for a third-party to put it on for them.
2. Writers need to have other skill-sets (and another occupation!) than crafting a decent sentence. Although many, many, many writers I meet bemoan this necessity, it is a fact of live arts; if you’re not adept at directing, fundraising, publicity, stage management, acting, or other supporting functions, you ought to have a working knowledge of it and not shun the grubby business-aspect of the show.
3. If you are self-producing, the writing comprises the easiest part of the process.
I began writing plays five years ago and came very late to this compared with my peers. Ever since, I’ve held the notion that the dramatist requires a penchant for showmanship which other kinds of writing do not. The need for self-promotion, chutzpah, and recruiting others to share your vision may exist more blatantly for the playwright than, say, the novelist.
****
Adaptation/Translation with Marsha Norman, Doug Wright, and Carol Hall
Three playwrights gave their perspectives on the process using their own works as case studies: Marsha Norman spoke about her experience adapting The Color Purple, Doug Wright with Grey Gardens and The Little Mermaid, and Carol Hall from The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.
What I loved about this talk was that each of the panelists talked about how scrupulous, meticulous, and faithful one must be with the source material. And then they proceeded to explain, perhaps unwittingly, how they break that directive.
Carol Hall’s inspiration for her beloved musical derived from a Playboy article whom a friend filed about the Chicken Ranch in La Grange, Texas. The predominating notion Carol tried to keep in mind was respect for characters, even if they turned out to be hypocrites. “There are degrees of hypocrisy” she said which seemed to imply that everyone is a hypocrite.
Perhaps it takes a Texan to write a play set in Texas. I can’t imagine this musical being written today without some preachy political statement or contempt for the small-minded, bigoted Southerners ruining the overall effect.
Doug Wright kept his comments mainly to Grey Gardens and the Little Mermaid. His contribution to Grey Gardens is readily apparent when placed side by side with the documentary. Personally, I was more interested in his work on the Little Mermaid though it seemed a stretch to call this an adaptation. I couldn't tell what Doug Wright's artistic contribution to this piece was and I saw the show one week after opening. Did he suggest the in-line skates? No. Were there any particular lines that he added that he was proud of? My notes do not show that. Did he have any inputs on the tremendously expensive and weird sets (including Ariel's grotto which evoked nothing less than a gigantic, translucent anus)? He didn't say. Of course, he did enjoy working with Disney and the unlimited expense account for the show.
Wright didn't say it...but I'll say it for him: I believe if he had been given more creative license with this property, it is likely that it wouldn't have been such a commercial flop.
I loved Marsha Norman's name dropping and anecdotes regarding the adaptation of The Color Purple. Plenty of Hollywood and New York goss there. But what struck me in her discussion was the need to find just a few scenes evocative of the entire novel and ascribing one or two lines to lay out the development of a character which took several hundred pages.
My own view on adaptation takes the extreme view of expediency. Unless the artist holds out that the story he tells is true, then the artist has every right to bend the material to his wishes. Every work of art for the stage represents a fiction even if the dialogue is taken directly from a transcript or a recording. Isn’t it the height of irresponsibility for artists to say their work is true or “actually happened”; it obscures the truth in the art itself.
With the exception of Carol Hall, I think these playwrights couldn't talk about some considerations of their work because they were ultimately secondary collaborators. I suspect that there were many choices and paths they disagreed with in working with other artists. I respect that they cannot talk about those things in a public forum but that would have been damned interesting.
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David Ives is just like his plays: sharp, funny, unexpected, and adventurous. After listening to him talk about his work and ideas, it made me want to run out and re-read all of his stuff again. His attention to the craft of playwriting—constructing a line or architecting a laugh—is acute. And unfortunately, I had to run out of the interview to make an obligatory appearance at a Dramatists Guild meeting.
On growing as a playwright:
“Early on, I had been writing these one acts that required some kind of transition at the end of a line. So, you’d have a couple talking over a dinner and one of them would finish the scene and I wrote in that a bell sounded. This turned out to be funny to audiences and I incorporated it in a bunch of plays. By this time, I had met Stephen Sondheim and he become somewhat familiar with my work and he introduced me to some people as ‘Oh, this is David Ives, he writes those plays with bells in them.’ After that, I never wrote a play with a bell in it again.”
On jokes:
“Iambic pentameter is too long a line for jokes. In English, an ideal joke is 8 syllables.”
On translating Feydeau:
“One has to take steps to make the play readable language and producible. The language is not the most important thing in an adaptation or translation. The play is. You have to find language to support everything underneath the play. It may not be literal or even close to it.”
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Many thanks to the sweet and hardworking staff of the Dramatists Guild of America who made this excellent first effort at a national conference happen. It was a success. I hope there will be many more of these and that I shall see more of you there at the next one.
Comments:
donald drake said on 2011-07-11:
Tom’s report on the need for self-producing is not surprising but still depressing. All of the needed skills for self-producing -- such as networking, fund-raising, publicity and acting -- are skills that I don’t have and activities that I shy away from. You might even say hate. What is depressing is that Tom is probably right that this is what’s needed to get produced in the current climate. It’s a shame to think that a good P.R. man will be more successful than a talented playwright. What has discouraged me from self-producing other than the high cost and demand for such skills is the conviction that it is impossible to achieve much with a self-production other than the fun of working with other artists and the ego satisfaction of seeing my stuff on stage. It’s almost akin to vanity publishing. One of three things are necessary for a commercially successful production -- an established theater with a large subscription base and big advertising budget, a very well known actor, or a very well-known playwright. A self-production has none of these things. You may be able to fill the seats with family and friends and if you are good at networking with some colleagues but it’s more than likely that the empty seats will be a blow to your ego. I hope there are playwrights in our group who can convince me that I’m wrong and can cite instances of self-production successes or other ways they are rewarding and worth the cost and effort. But I’m not counting on it. Playwriting is a joy for me and all the rest would be an unbearable chore. There’s a reason the file name for my list of submissions is “lottery.” In this environment, the chances of getting a production is about the same as winning the lottery. Though I have gotten productions in the past, the responses from theaters have dropped markedly in the last couple of years. There was a time I cheered when I got an acceptance letter. Then I was happy if I got a rejection that indicated the someone had actually read the play. Now I’m excited if I get a form rejection letter, indicating that someone took the time to rip open the envelope and find out my address. (The only silver lining to this depressing grey cloud is that theaters now want electronic submissions greatly reducing the high cost of submission and rejection.) So like the people who buy lottery tickets every week, I send out my plays with the hope that one will be a winning ticket, but I really doubt it. Still I wake up every morning, eager to get back to the computer and move forward with another play with the same enthusiasm that people buy their lottery tickets.
Dramatists Guild of America, National Conference Day 2
by Thomas Tirney
posted: 2011-06-17 09:10:03
Jesus God, it is hot and humid and jungly down here. Why did we move the capitol to this accursed, stifling land?
First seminar today: Jane Beard on Unblocking Creative Energy and Writers Block. Unless you've experienced an acute bout of block, it's easy to dismiss many of these meditative techniques as hokey or New Age or plain silly. Imagine: an entire class room cradling their heads to create a "magnet"; repeating meaningless mantras for stress relief; engaging in several small and harmless physical movements to break any number of personal preoccupations.
I watched with bemused bewilderment at first but much of these exercises have a point and most of them work to boot. I'm a skeptic by nature but nevertheless, when I'm blocked, I will piss on a spark-plug to get going again. Jane's ways are much less painful. I'm not a devout believer though I plan to follow up on some of these techniques. Check Jane out at www.invisiblelight.com
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Dramatists on the Web with veteran bloggers Roland Tec, Tim Bauer, Andie Arthur, and Robert Ross Parker. This was blogging 101 and doesn't need much explanation. Surprised at how basic the talk was. Anyway, you all know how blogging works. I'm still stupified at how many writers know nothing about blogging: an entire classroom of people, holding themselves out as writers, and ignorant of one of the best tools for promoting work and engaging the wider community.
Ironically, some of these folks are just in time to participate in a trend rapidly ceding ground to Twitter. Even Roland Tec mused that long-form blogging was "passe."
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Todd London, Keynote Speaker
Inspirational language, poetic and personal words...and yet so gloomy that I can't stop thinking about it. London's book Outrageous Fortune is essentially a crisis of confidence about the future of playwriting. Although Mr. London is a hopeless lover of playwrights (even married one) he admits to being an anachronism in a "roomful of anachronisms still manufacturing buggy whips."
London actively "questions his faith" and the "enterprise itself" even though he finds a great deal of satisfaction in his work and beauty in the art. He summarized the points in his book about marginalization of theatre, unresponsive institutions, and the impossible economics of writing for stage. Much of what London talks about is true and can't be refuted. For a career, "playwriting is not the answer."
Unfortunately, London doesn't have a solution to this nor do I suspect anyone else. I have to re-read the book and have a big think about it. My thoughts about this subject have too many cross-currents--London isn't exactly making an argument--his book is reportage more than anything else. My opinion tends to focus on the writer. Not the playwright, not the stage, and certainly not the "theatre.'
As a writer, do you identify with the theatre or with the writing? It strikes me that the theatre as an institution has a separate and possibly exclusive set of goals than the writer who writes for it. One identifies oneself as a playwright by preference but in a wider context, a decent playwright can easily excel in other modalities. Is this what dramatists should pursue? And though Todd London never says this, I wonder if the "reality of the landscape" as he calls it, leads him to this conclusion as well?
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A Conversation with Doug Wright
Wonderfully moderated by Faye Sholiton, Wright is as delightful in person as his plays. Maybe more so. The author of I Am My Own Wife, Quills, and Grey Gardens is a natural and enthusiastic ranconteur. We in the audience never stopped laughing. I'm just going to throw out some of the choicer quotes:
"Far more than politics and theology, I think art is the most uncompromising moral force we have. By exposing our foilbles and holding our feet to the fire, art is more instructive in how we should attempt to mark our time on the planet than all of those institutions erected to give us guidance."
On Grey Gardens:
"It was Scott Frankel's brainchild who approached me about making a musical on the documentary. And I said, 'It's impossible!' He asks, 'Why?' I said, 'The most thrilling aspect of the film is its verisimilitude. They are utterly real for the camera in every moment. Employing all the artifices of the stage will rob it of its authenticity.' And Scott says 'Great. Let's get together with my lyricist next week and you can expound on why it's a terrible idea.' And after two years of these lunches, we had a draft."
On Quills:
"When I wrote this, I was motivated by the controversy surrounding Robert Mapplethorpe and the condemnation they received from Senator Jesse Helms. In the culture at large, Helms and Mapplethorpe were painted as adversaries. The Senator found something to demonize to get re-elected and Mapplethorpe went from obscure photographer to Barnes & Noble coffee table books. This was working for both of them. When you look at radical artists, who is the most reliable Muse? It's always the censor."
On working on the book for Little Mermaid:
"There are a lot of things problematic in this movie to women given that this girl sacrifices so much for a fella. But among transgendered people this story is extremely important because the heroine has to change everything below the waist to find love. Little Mermaid has more significance than the audience realizes."
Comments:
Dramatists Guild Conference: Day 1
by Thomas Tirney
posted: 2011-06-14 19:04:45
More of a travel day than anything, the events began late in the afternoon. Missed the excellent David Faux on his The Artist as CEO. Faux is the Director of Business Affairs of the Dramatists Guild and he’s a speaker I’d like to invite to Philadelphia for this particular talk. The first big thang happened at 6:00PM where Christopher Durang was interviewed on stage.
What a let down.
But not because of Durang. I felt the interlocutor simply hadn’t prepared enough. The author of Marriage of Bette and Boo, Beyond Therapy, Vietnamization of New Jersey, and Sex and Longing spent far too long on the oft-told background to Sister Mary Ignatius Tells It All For You.
Been there, man.
Durang can be heard on several podcast interviews (Downstage Center, Theatre Talk, others) revealing this as well. Honestly, who doesn’t know about this stuff? There was nothing on his writing habits, his consistency, what he’s working on now, nor much on Why Torture is Wrong and the People Who Love Them playing at the nearby Capitol Hill Arts Workshop. These are all things that an audience of writers would want to hear and learn.
I did discover that Durang (along with his colleague Marsha Norman) try out drafts on his students at Julliard. But that was the only new bit of information. It’s nice to have a captive focus group attentive to your needs and thoroughly familiar with your work. We all need that.
I had hoped to hear more of Durang’s evolutionary thinking since Why Torture premiered in 2009. Afterall, this is one of his most recent works. I recall an interview he gave before the play went up and he seemed so angry and indignant, it was uncharacteristic. Is he just as angry with a different administration in the White House? Is this political style of writing bearing more fruit in his artistic work. Is it important to him anymore? This is all cool, new stuff.
It’s hard to categorize Durang as an activist-playwright since he doesn’t consider himself one but in an unusual twist, he has gotten angrier with age. This development in the artists’s life and work is interesting. Do we have to go back and re-hash so much of Durang’s early successes from the 1970’s? C’mon. It was a privilege to have Durang speak live but can’t stop thinking the interview was a missed opportunity.
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Molly Smith, Artistic Director of Arena Stage keynoted Friday night. I hate to say that my knowledge of Arena Stage, its extensive programs and generously endowed coffers is scant. But Arena is hardly a household word or common knowledge…yet.
Naturally, the subject of her talk was the New Play Institute there. With a $1.1 million grant from the Mellon Foundation, this program was launched in 2009 to hire playwrights and put them on staff at the Arena for a period of three years. Moreover, the Institute was created to be a center for research and development, best practices, and effectiveness in new play development. A visible thought bubble appeared over the audience with the wish that all theatres could staff and pay writers.
So far, Arena appears an anomaly—albeit an important one—in that other theatres, even the ones as well funded and successful as Arena haven’t followed suit. And even Molly admitted the new plays that premier at Arena don’t make money and don’t garner large audiences. However, just a glimpse at the website overwhelms you with the hive of activity down there in DC. It is so very impressive I’d recommend a trip to the Capitol just to see Arena's facilities. Substitute the obligatory granite graveyard tour that is the Mall and tour Arena.
Comments:
Pat McGeever said on 2011-06-15:
Thanks for doing this, Tom. I understand the Kennedy Center is worth touring for its state-of-the-art accessibility to people with hearing or vision handicaps, and to people in wheelchairs.
A National Conference For Playwrights Birthed in D.C.
by Thomas Tirney
posted: 2011-06-07 20:02:02
An exciting experiment will take place this Thursday in Washington D.C. The Dramatists Guild of America throws its first conference for members and the profession. Perhaps the only comparable event involves the Theatre Communications Group where the emphasis falls upon non-profit theatres and not the dramatists. It’s a positive sign that writers for stage now have a national forum to gather, exchange ideas and toot their own horn.
The three day affair has three tracks of seminars and panels full of giants from the stage. Christopher Durang kicks it off in a Thursday session followed by a Molly Smith keynote; Edward Albee will be in conversation with Emily Mann on Friday preceded by a Todd London keynote; Stephen Schwarz teaches a musical theatre seminar on Saturday; and more and more and more.
Below is the full schedule and link:
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http://www.dramatistsguild.com/confschedule2011.aspx
Apart from soaking up the aura of Durang, Smith, Albee, Schwarz, Wright, Norman, etc., I plan to hit the separate talks on copywright, Fair Use, agents, and finally contracts. More entries to come during and following the conference.
Comments:
Wally Zialcita said on 2011-06-11:
This looks great, the start of something of value to us all. I look forward to hearing how it went.
Plays & Players Celebrates 100 Years
by Thomas Tirney
posted: 2011-04-07 13:08:01
Plays & Players Theatre celebrated its 100th year anniversary on March 20th and it was a touching event. The staff presented ten decades of history for patrons marvel at in the form of scrapbooks, playbills, photographs, and old poster boards. These displays only hinted at the accomplishments of the theatre as well as the innumerable participants that kept it going through lean years and flush. From beginning to end, the event was suffused with the child-like wonder of having come so far.
As is the way of these things, the party also looked to the future. Plays & Players--which owns and produces at the 1714 Delancy Place theatre-- has always been a pillar to its community and the event showcased a staff in the process of revitalizing a Philadelphia institution. While the front office continues to produce crowd-pleasers every season to satisfy its incredibly loyal following, it also has underwritten world premieres by local playwrights (e.g. Nick Wardigo’s Concrete Dinosaur and P. Seth Bauer Early in the Mourning) and even controversial material such as Richard Greenberg’s Take Me Out. All three of these plays were featured in the 2009-2010 season.
Beyond that, P&P established a Playwrights Residency with PDC last year and has thrown open its doors to artists of all stripes. P&P remains remarkably accessible for artists to hone their craft, use the space, and network with collaborators. The Skinner Studio on the third floor is a hotbed of artistic ferment and the adjacent bar at Quig’s Pub supports much of this activity as a place for artists to meet, talk, hang, argue, and drink.
That’s community.
Indeed, when thinking about the future of theatre and stagecraft in this country, I envision the survivors and thrivers of the next ten decades to be institutions such as Plays & Players—not because it is well funded or underwrites expensive productions. On the contrary, one could argue that P&P is neither well funded nor has the capacity for high production values. It is precisely because the entity engages artists and gives them a stake in the theatre. Compared to the gleaming taxpayer funded gems on Broad Street, Plays & Players is a rambling, rickety piece of real estate outmoded for the demands placed upon it. However, if you have ever been involved in any of P&P’s productions or have used the facilities as an artist, the immediate contrast is this: a direct and tangible connection to an artistic community in constant motion. That’s exhilarating. And there aren’t many places like it in the city.
These accomplishments are in no small part due to the Homeric efforts of Bill Egan who first became involved with P&P as an actor at the age of 18 (he turns 40 April 22nd so put it on your calendar). Since then, Bill has directed and produced for the P&P stage as well as served on its Board and managed the front office.
Over time, Bill has become as instrumental as anyone at P&P for its programming choices and fiscal health. In the course of his acting career and free-lance work, he met a young director Daniel Student, who became heavily involved in the theatre in 2008; artistically and as a member of the Board. Dan spearheaded a 5-year strategic plan to change the management model from a Board-run community theatre to a staff-run professional organization.
When Bill became Board President three years ago, it was Bill's vision to bring in a younger group of managers and artists, including a first-ever Producing Artistic Director for P&P; a position to which Dan was appointed in January 2011.
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The party ended with a peroration by long-time Board Member John Cannon who became involved in P&P during the late 1960’s when a manager pitched him thusways: “We produce plays that aren’t very good but the plays are something you might like.” In spite of the lakcluster sales job, John dove in with rare dedication and shepherded the theatre through two harrowing decades of financial strain and scarcity.
Before finishing his speech, John directed his appreciation to the audience, to the artists, and to the folks that make P&P run. Then he took out a crumpled piece of paper and read from a list of twenty-five names-- now ghosts of the theatre—as a gesture of thanks to all those unacknowledged people that made P&P what it is.
And right there was a reminder that the theatre is really a community of souls—not a building or an abstract corporate entity--whom the living commemorate in their performances and memories.
Comments:
The Internet and Writing Opportunities
by Thomas Tirney
posted: 2011-02-12 14:35:20
Last week I accompanied my girlfriend to a blog event hosted by TravelZoo for travel-foodies writing on ’dem Internets. She took me along as her “opener”; Dana can’t stand confabs and schmoozing so I stood in to start the small-talk, build her up, and then bring her in after the conversation is good and going.
A tiny minority of bloggers attending sustained themselves from their websites but most were simply running their sites for the joy and pleasure of it, hoping at some point to break-even on expenses. As it goes with these events, the participants all had a passion for their niche: there was a blogress devoted to eco-Manhattan eateries, a site providing nutritional information regarding high-end restaurants, and others too esoteric to mention.
When we talked about the business of blogging, a common theme developed among these entrepreneurs—writing is difficult; creating an interesting piece day after day is doubly so. The most common problem among them was how much time and effort it takes to do primary research in order to provide information not readily available to readers.
No, duh.
But that is exactly required not only to maintain a successful blog, but it’s just as important for any good writing. And guess what? It’s labor intensive. By the same token, here is another opportunity for writers scraping by. It may be too much for writers to create their own blog and gather a following to pay bills. However, bloggers who do run commercially-driven sites have scarce resources to keep the blogrolls fresh. Why not ghostblog? Why can't this be an opportunity for my pecunious playwright pals. Or any writer.
Writing for various outlets on the Internet—e/magazines, blogs, theatre reviews, criticism, essays, reportage, commentary, etc.—helps build a portfolio, provides credibility, and gives a writer instant references for their work. It may not be a living wage...but it can add to one.
Comments:
The Broad Street Review Celebrates Its 5th Year This Thursday
by Thomas Tirney
posted: 2011-01-30 17:48:55
The Broad Street Review celebrates its 5th anniversary as Philadelphia’s virtual salon for the cultural cognoscenti this Thursday, Feburary 3rd. The party starts at 5:30PM at the Franklin Inn Club. Space is limited so book as soon as you can. Tickets can be had at the following link:
http://broadstreetreviewbirthday.eventbrite.com.
The founder and editor of the BSR, Dan Rottenberg has created a highly accessible and acutely local commentariat on issues involving the arts. The website provides criticism, essays, and opinions on music, theater, opera, dance, and cinema; almost all of the contributions come from Philadelphians and/or regional writers. And of course, any scribbler can contribute.
A unique feature of the BSR is simply the existence of the editor. Too many “open-source content” websites--even the ones considered massive successes such as Huffington Post-- frequently contain vacuous opinionating or invective masquerading as thought. While all are encouraged to write for the BSR, what guarantees the posting is good writing, intelligent commentary or incisive opinions. The random screeds and the back-and-forth free-for alls don’t exist here. Thank God.
Nonetheless, the BSR is one of these websites that has endless potential but hasn’t quite hit its stride yet. It’s not the quality of writing—Toby Zinman contributing NYC theatre reviews, Dan Coren writing on classical music, and the erudite Prof. Robert Zaller opining about everything—nor the editorial selection; Dan Rottenberg does an admirable job of ensuring intelligent and thought-provoking posts. It simply needs more content…in this it shares a deficiency that the PDC has with its own website. It leads me to a question I’ve been asking ever since interviewing Dan Rottenberg for the In Conversation series: why aren’t we seeing a proliferation of writers sending material to Dan? Do playwrights or screenwriters think criticism is beneath them? Is writing about art and culture too difficult?
I don’t know the answers. But I do know dozens of writers who hold themselves out to be artists who aren’t writing on a daily basis but could be doing many, many things to hone their talent. BSR is just one outlet. I’ve always thought PDC members could provide a charge to the Philadelphia cultural conversation missing from established outlets such as the Inquirer, Daily News, or City Paper. Certainly, the BSR is one way to do it.
Rottenberg has ambitions for the site to be much larger; he’d like to add books and architecture as categories. Ultimately, he sees the website growing into a broader version of the New York Review of Books, where the subject in question (a book, a play, an exhibition) becomes a jumping off point to talk about a wider concept. Good to see such big thinking still happening in Philly.
See you at the party.
Comments:
The 17th Edition of the DGA's Resource Directory is Now AVAILABLE
by Thomas Tirney
posted: 2011-01-22 16:27:02
Two weeks ago, the Dramatists Guild of America (DGA) mailed the 17th printed edition of its Resource Directory to members. The DGA provides many services, but this treasure trove of information is worth the dues alone.[1] Naturally, significant parts of the book are already available online (such as the Dramatists Bill of Rights as well as play contests via The Loop), but having a comprehensive listing of grants, foundations, theatres, deadlines, and helpful advice at one’s finger tips is invaluable.
Remember the Yellow Pages?
If you do, this is better than that.
The Guild has also added significantly to new-ish categories such as 10-minute play contests, volunteer posts, and LGBT opportunities. These entries hadn’t existed five years ago in the Resource Directory and their appearance demonstrates how the theatrical world has evolved in such a short period of time.
The implicit thrust of the book is to be your own advocate. Indeed, the entire book lays out as a self-help guide not only for the budding stage artist but also the seasoned, career-minded playwright. Gary Garrison’s chapter on agents is sage advice for learned hands and novices alike. Roland Tec’s chapter on Synopsis Writing contains insights from professional writers, literary managers, and artistic directors. The bibliography, Books on Writing for the Stage, contains real heavyweight (and useful) tomes. And the summary of contest deadlines may be the biggest reason why this book is so coveted. I ripped those pages out and put the entire calendar on my bulletin board.
Lastly, I’d like to highlight the Dramatists Bill of Rights, a unique feature promulgated by the DGA to remind playwrights about the special privileges afforded to them for a stage manuscript. These rights are not always self-evident when working with theatres and collaborators. For example, the section on Ownership of Incidental Contributions is particularly enlighteningTo wit, that “neither dramaturgs nor directors (nor any other contributors) may be considered a co-author of a play, unless (i) they’ve collaborated with you from the play’s inception, (ii) they’ve made a copyrightable contribution to the play, and (iii) you have agreed in writing that they are the co-author.” This especially comforting to a playwright considering the proliferation of workshops and the sheer number of dramaturgs paired with writers to develop a stage-worthy play.
At some point in the near future, the DGA will save the money and blast this out electronically. But I imagine the folks at DGA will likely provide a more in-depth resource with the addition of hyperlinks and digital annotations.
Maybe next year.
In the meantime, get your hands on it.
[1] Annual dues are as follows: Member $130, Associate $90, Student $45.
Comments:
Pat McGeever said on 2011-01-24:
BTW, the "Act for Charity" Short Play Festival at the Shubin, with a deadline of 2/15 on the Submissions Calendar, has now announced its charity for this year: H.O.M.E., an organization that does outreach to homeless people.
Pat McGeever said on 2011-01-24:
I wanted to second Tom's suggestion on the value of the DG Resource Directory. For the PDC Submissions Calendar elsewhere on this site, that is mainly what I use in posting opportunities. Liam, the main difference is that DG is annual and Dramatists Sourcebook is biennial. Things do change year to year. Everybody, before you submit, call them to make sure the info is still accurate. Sometimes the dates change or the event gets cancelled.
Liam Castellan said on 2011-01-22:
Is there much difference in the content/value between this and TCG's "Dramatists Sourcebook"?
Introducing the PDC Literary Staff
by Thomas Tirney
posted: 2010-12-31 07:35:37
The Dramatists Center is presently replacing most of its older programs for members with a process to shepherd the playwright and his text to the most appropriate setting and venue. We discovered over the years that PDC had no capability of workshopping plays or matching playwrights with collaborators for non-public readings. Aside from Writers Table (a weekly program for short form work or scenes), our most consistent and well-regarded program for members was Readings in Restaurants. RinR was designed for full length plays to be heard in a public setting. Unfortunately, PDC had nothing on offer for the in-between stuff. We had no programs for developing unfinished full-lengths, one-acts, or sketches beyond 10-15 pages. And this is what the Literary Staff proposes to do for our members.
Because the Literary Staff consists of several volunteers (members and officers), it should spread the workload across more shoulders and improve its effectiveness and responsiveness. Furthermore, it should allow a greater variety of ways to develop new work.
The staff makes the writer’s intention the guiding principle; it isn’t there to judge or reject a text. Obviously an unfinished play of thirty pages won’t serve the writer or the text with a full scale rehearsed reading. A clutch of alternatives exist for sketches to one acts; from half a play to a full length rough draft. In fact, it is rare for PDC to conduct a full length reading that requires a staged reading. The staff helps set up the most appropriate venue for the play (fragment, sketch, dialogue, etc.) submitted.
Let me give you an example of how this works. I have a full length play recently finished and it requires a heavy integration of projection. How the projection is done remains to be decided. Do we use front projection, rear projection, or a large flat-panel for the readings? We don’t know.
Furthermore, I have a public reading coming up in January so the timing of the projection and the dialogue requires rehearsals and workshopping. Frankly, I don’t even know if this play will “work.” Lastly, the play will require one stage manager and three actors--one to read stage directions and the other two to play all nine characters. The casting may be problematic as well. The main female character is a seventeen year old girl and the main male character is a 44 year old man. There are also two more seventeen year old characters, three more mid-forties characters and one in her mid-twenties. Finding the right and versatile actors could be an issue at this stage.
This is where the Literary Staff shines. Having a partner to work on these issues with you not only is a relief but helps you learn more about your piece as you go along. I sent my piece in to the Literary Staff via Wally Zialcita and heard back shortly from Brian-Grace Duff who volunteered to help me execute Teach Your Children. Simultaneously anxious and excited, I’m moving forward on this with confidence because I’m working with a skilled and sympathetic person from the Literary Staff.
The success of the Literary Staff depends upon two things: the zeal of our volunteers and the volume of work they need to process. The volunteers are doing their part. I ask members to examine their portfolio of writing and choose pieces that need work; a play or a piece of dialogue long abandoned because it was too difficult to finish. Select a finished text that needs polish. These are exactly the kind of problems the Literary Staff can help resolve.
Please send your piece to the Executive Director, Wally Zialcita (literary@pdc1.org) and one of the following volunteers will contact you about establishing a time, date, place, and collaborators for the piece to be heard:
Quinn Eli
Brian Grace-Duff
Michael Schwartz
Wally Zialcita
Jeff Von Staley
Krissy Scatton
Robert Castle
Bill D’Agostino
Tom Tirney
Felicia Rivers
Happy new year.
Comments:
Richard W. Kotulski said on 2011-01-03:
I think this is a great direction to start moving in.
The Perfect Reading: Two Artistic Directors Talk About Readings and New Play Development
by Thomas Tirney
posted: 2010-12-12 08:56:11
It may take years for an artist to acclimatize hearing his own work but the reading is a necessity in advancing a newly created play. And after you’ve done the writing, the editing, and the re-writing; you’ve got to book a space, find a director, cast it, and then have the reading itself. And all these activities ought to be done with an acute detachment to recognize where the play succeeds and where it fails.
In many respects, a finished manuscript for a stage play is only a starting point. The solo effort of the writer ends and the actions of third parties begin to inform the potentialities of the script. The development process involving actors, dramaturgs, directors, and others establishes a feedback mechanism for the writer to polish and hone the piece until it’s truly complete. A few elite writers don’t need this…but for the rest of us, it’s the best way to perfect one’s writing.
This is not an easy process. Doing this stuff consistently on your own takes rare fortitude. It helps to have help. Two Philadelphia-based artistic directors-- both dedicated to staging and developing new work--agreed to talk about their approach to conducting readings of new work.
Seth Rozin, Artistic Director for InterAct Theatre
Co-founded InterAct in 1988, and has since directed over 35 productions, including Israel Horovitz's Lebensraum, Gibbons’ Permanent Collection, and It’s All True. Seth has also directed for the Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles, Blue Heron Theatre and the 45th Street Theatre in New York, as well as regionally with Act II Playhouse, Venture Theatre, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Philadelphia Young Playwrights Festival, and the University of Pennsylvania.
Paul Meshejian, Artistic Director for PlayPenn
Paul Meshejian is the Founding Artistic Director of PlayPenn. Since 1989 he has been a company member at People’s Light and Theatre (PLT) where he has both acted and directed. In the 1980’s he was the founding artistic director of Stage One: Collaboration, a professional theatre in Minneapolis/St. Paul devoted to new and rarely produced works. Paul is on the Acting Faculty at University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
On the Utility of Public Readings
Seth Rozin
“I’ve come on a long journey on this in my time developing new work. I don’t find public readings very useful. They could be useful as programming i.e. another offering from a theatre aside from a full production but the public reading tends to be overvalued to playwrights in general.
If your thrust is value to the playwright, I find a public reading more dangerous than helpful:
A) If the audience responds positively, the playwright often takes that for validation for a full production. The impulse is to proceed much sooner to that end and the writer may simply have mistook the response for generosity of spirit from the audience.
B) If the audience responds positively, the playwright may conclude that the piece needs no further work or refinement.
No matter how much you tell the audience the play is a work in progress, they will generally conclude it’s a finished work and judge it accordingly. Therefore, if the audience gives it a negative response, it can be demoralizing for the playwright. Wholesale changes may be made that don’t need to be made wherein the reading may not have had the right actors or there was not enough rehearsal time.
Way too many readings will be judged using the audience as a barometer and that probably does not serve the playwright. I’ve seen playwrights give up with a bad response and seen them give up for other reasons with a good response. ”
Paul Meshejian
“You know, there is more than one kind of reading. You have readings for subscribers or members (programming) and there are development readings. With the latter, we don’t know what we have so we need an audience to find out. The audience makes the best teacher and in my opinion, it’s the primary collaborator.
If you were making any product and bringing it to market, you would test it before putting it on sale. I don’t fully subscribe to this but you get the picture.
Most playwrights don’t want to hear from an audience. I’ve developed 45 plays at PlayPenn and only one playwright asked to have an audience feedback session. I think the audience question and answer can be useful but playwrights will learn what they need to learn by watching the audience during the reading.
Furthermore, things are tough to control with audience feedback. It requires a skilled individual to field these questions and ensure they’re appropriate and not confrontational. “
On Developing New Plays
Seth Rozin:
“I disagree with theatres that think play development is readings. In my mind, play development connotes close collaboration between a writer, director, actors and others working on the same thing together…privately. In a private reading, you can bring together people and try out things and there is nothing at stake. That’s how progress is made.”
Paul Meshejian
“When I created PlayPenn, I thought of ways to best serve the writer. At the same time, I’m a pragmatist and want to advance the idea of new play production in Philadelphia.
I give playwrights as much involvement as they want when it comes to the process. It’s in their hands really. I’m a deep believer in the artist as grown up. When we have development hell, some artists abdicate responsibility to other people. Responsibility means making decisions but that’s hard. This includes the space, the director, the actors, the time—it’s an organization job. It could take a week to pull together. Or a month.”
What Makes a Successful Reading?
Seth Rozin
“Actors and directors want to make good art. If they are good at what they do, they can mask the flaws in the play. This is not necessarily the in the interest of writers. In a best case scenario, the reading allows the strengths to shine through as well as bare the weaknesses. Takes a real lack of ego (for the part of the dir and actors) to let that happen. You’ve got to be helpful to the writer.”
What’s the Most Important Thing When Conducting a Reading?
Seth Rozin
“The single most important thing (for any reading) is getting good actors: moreso than having a decent director. Why? Even with no prep time, good actors can simply wing it. It’s especially useful if you’re doing a cold reading.”
Paul Meshejian
“The reading needs to have a purpose aside from just having an audience hear it. If you’re having a reading to learn from the audience about what’s working and not working, the public reading is a useful tool but it’s just a tool. The writer needs to get more out of it than just an audience reaction particularly if it’s not a finished work.”
On Staged Readings
Seth Rozin
“A fully staged reading isn’t so useful. You can’t do in a reading what you can do in the production. There is no way to really evoke the physical world of the play in the reading. And this is particularly true of comedy. Why go a quarter of the way in the reading? You’re better off with a concert-style reading than that.”
Final Remarks
Seth Rozin
“Every playwright wants readings but that’s not exactly helpful to have one for every script. I think the optimal process means collaboration and fine tuning. You want exposure with a reading when it’s needed and then you keep at it until its ready for production.”
Paul Meshejian
“In a reading you want to do service to the playwright but give artistic directors a chance to hear something that might otherwise pass on it if they read it on the page.
Sometimes I wonder at the whole idea of readings. They are everywhere. I wonder if they are as purposeful as they might be. I try to organize something that satisfies the first purpose (playwright/process) and secondarily on getting it produced; giving those decision makers who see it enough of an impression to make a decision."
Comments:
MM Wittle said on 2010-12-12:
I just want to thank you for this blog post. I am currently in the process of writing my thesis for grad school which is a full length play and reading this blog helped clarify things for me. Again, thanks.
New York Magazine's Grand Suck-Up to Tony Kushner
by Thomas Tirney
posted: 2010-10-31 16:09:27
The Signature Theatre in Manhattan devoted its Fall 2010 season to the works of Tony Kushner and kicked it off with Angels in America. The event occasioned an article in the October 25 issue of New York magazine entitled The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Himself. And just in case the reader wasn’t sure how to think, the subtitle reads:
Tony Kushner is one of the last public intellectuals left standing in the theater—or America. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.
I should have stopped there but kept on hoping the reporter, Jesse Green, could give me a tour of Kushner’s public intellectualism or provide something other than a frivolous puff-piece about one of our most important playwrights.
I urge you to read the story if only to understand how vapid high-brow reportage of the arts has become. If Mr. Green represents what we get when we pay for print, then my advice is to keep trolling the net for interesting blogs. Sometimes I think publishers deserve their fate. And journalists by all means.
CRITIQUE
If the suck-uppedness of the writing wasn’t apparent in the first two paragraphs( Tony is smart! His current reading list includes Oxford Book of Death, Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks, The Theory of Revolution in Young Marx, and Dionysus the Pseudo-Arepagite…OMG), it’s apparent when Green refers to our “greatest living playwright” as “St. Tony.” There must be a word for two hyperboles in one sentence. And just in case you didn’t get it the first time, Green states later that "Kushner really is a saint.”
Drivel.
Albeit, forgiveable drivel. To have an exalted if un-nuanced opinion of Kushner’s work is no crime. I think he's great, too.
What’s especially bothersome for those of us interested in Kushner and his opinions (not flattering him into bed as Green does) is that the article routinely dismisses Kushner’s more provocative statements with no elaboration or analysis. When Tony Kushner says the following:
“The primary thing I should do apart from being a good husband, brother, son, and friend is to be a citizen activist.”
Really?
What the hell does that mean? What about the writing? Is progressive political activism more important to Tony than contributing to the stage? Kushner after all is only 54. Does he mean advocating certain political issues that are near-and-dear to him or does it encompass a more comprehensive approach to politics? Would he ever run for office?
We want to know! Ahh, but we’ll never know. Mr. Green chooses to leave such pregnant statements unexplored. Instead, a large part of the article is devoted to the fact that Kushner is gay. Wait, didn’t you know that?
Since homosexuality is ever present in Kushner’s work (and ever present in this article), the enormous influence that Kushner has had on the topic (in arts, in politics, in general attitudes) is summarized with the statement that Tony Kushner is still loyal to “gay themes” and that "gay fantasia on national themes" merited a reference in The Simpsons.
What's unfortunate about Green's composite is that he undermines the whole "public intellectual" bent of the piece. Allowing Kushner to contort himself into a strange and inscrutable defense of President Obama—and by extension, the Democrats—makes him look like an unsophisticated and even unthinking partisan. Try this one on:
“There are lies, and those should not be tolerated. But there’s a degree of rhetorical finesse that’s required to maneuver through very treacherous waters.”
So I guess lying is OK and should be tolerated? Kushner struggles to clarify:
“Do I think [Obama] should have lost the election for the chance to say he supported same-sex marriage? No. Given that we would have had John McCain and Sarah Palin, I would have said, ‘Say anything you need to.’
Now I’ve got it. Lying is OK!
“St. Tony”?
Pleez.
I personally disagree with him. Obama most certainly would have gotten elected either wholeheartedly endorsing same-sex marriage or supporting it with vague statements of letting the courts, the legislatures, or referendums decide the matter. At any rate, President Obama and the Democratic Party have clearly let Kushner down:
“We’ve [the LGBT community] been asked to eat oceans of shit by the Democratic Party; we’ve been 75% loyal for decades without a wobble and without a whole lot of help from these people.”
And yet, the support is still there. What’s the reason for that? Again...silence.
Kushner loathes the other end of the political spectrum (the “counterrevolution") and calls it “anarchism-libertarianism that meshed perfectly with Ayn Rand and all that nonsensical malevolent crap.” But undoubtedly he and the LGBT community can learn from it.
The Tea Party, for instance, has had enormous influence on entirely compromised (in their view) Republicans such as Arlen Specter, Bob Bennett, and Mike Castle. In other words, the movement succeeded in kicking them out and getting their own guys in. And they've taken a big risk in substituting Pat Toomey, Mike Lee, and Christine O’Donnell for those experienced incumbents who make their constituents eat oceans of shit.
Yet, they’ve done it anyway. Surely this ought to be reason for encouragement to Kushner’s stifled aspirations for political change. It seems to me that he ought to trust the grass-roots support for the very community he helped strengthen so much.
In spite of Kushner’s serious commitment to progressive politics and gay rights, it’s rather sad to see the weighty brow of this creative titan conform to a childish “my side right or wrong” when it comes to activism. It won’t persuade anyone who hasn’t already made up their mind—which is the point of being a public intellectual. Such is the mantle on the shoulders below the heavy head that wears the crown these days.
Comments:
The Importance of Being Networked
by Thomas Tirney
posted: 2010-10-13 13:46:23
On Tuesday the 12th, I attended a Directors/Dramatist Exchange hosted by the Dramatists Guild of America at Plays and Players on 17th and Delancey. This event matches a number of directors to an equivalent number of dramatists and gets them to talk about their ideas and aspirations. It’s like speed dating for the theatre set.
This is the second event I’ve attended of this nature. I can’t fathom why it’s not done more often. And we could use a little bit of it ourselves.
The dirty rotten secret of theatre arts is that plays get produced on the merits of a writer’s networking skills just as often as the writer’s ability to write. Your theatrical collaborators—be they directors, producers, or dramaturgs—want to know what kind of person you are apart from the kind of art you’d like to create. After all, if collaborators like your work, they want to know ahead of time with whom they will be working. And don’t we all want to work with people we like?
Networking is a significant aspect to the success of a dramatist. Theatre classes, texts, and guidebooks never pay enough attention to this vital activity in a playwright’s life. Unless you are willing to underwrite and produce your own work all the time, you better get to know local directors and those who can help champion your stuff.
There are many reasons why playwrights have difficulty selling themselves but it stems from this fundamental truth: it’s work. It isn’t fun and games. It takes time and effort. The question is…are you prepared?
1. Have you summarized each one of your plays in four sentences or less?
2. Can you succinctly state what you like to write about it and what kind of writer you are? Again, it helps to do this with extreme brevity.
3. What is most important to you when working with a director? Are you a collaborator or a tyrant?
4. Do you have ready-made samples of your work to send to interested parties?
Writers must be their own activists, advocates, and agents. The more folks you know in theatre, the more opportunities you will have for your writing. Last night, I met three directors in Philadelphia with whom to explore possibilities for my newest pieces. It’s going to be fun.
Comments:
Make a Difference, Run for the Board
by Thomas Tirney
posted: 2010-10-10 10:47:12
The PDC Annual Meeting and Board election will take place this month on October 25 with a location yet to be announced. And I urge member writers to attend as well as get involved. All-volunteer organizations, such as ours, rely heavily on member participation to for its programming; the Board’s burden of responsibility looms larger than for a typical non-profit. Board members not only provide the obligatory oversight but also become personally responsible for executing programs, starting new initiatives, and raising funds.
For fiscal 2010, the Board numbered ten people and included three of our officers. Everyone worked hard and contributed generously of their time. This Board has done a great deal with scarce resources but before we grow into a more professional organization—which assumes a working staff and a physical home—PDC will need more volunteers and more Board members. The PDC By-Laws allow up to 21 members on the Board. We have far more capacity for volunteers than we currently carry.
While more money is always great to have, we could accomplish much more with additional manpower. Indeed, I’m very encouraged for PDC’s future based upon this experience. Happily, the PDC relies more upon the energy, dynamism, and creativity of its members than capital. And the money we do put to work is used judiciously and for maximum effect. If anything, this year’s Board has demonstrated how far PDC can stretch a dollar and bodes well for any future fundraising or grants that come our way.
Lately, I’ve heard some fantastic ideas coming from our artists regarding what PDC can do. For instance, a healthy minority of our writers do film work or multi-media mixed with live art. Is there any reason why we can’t bring our writers together with Philadelphia’s healthy indie film scene? Why can’t we have events or programs that bridge the gap between film and live art? Another idea that has been kicking around concerns our relationship with the regions high schools and colleges—it is non-existent. We can certainly augment outreach to students whose institutions aren’t equipped to give them a conduit to the theatrical community or programs designed to nurture individual work.
If these or other ideas animate you, please volunteer. Come to the Annual Meeting. Run for the Board. We could use you.
Comments:
Melissa McBain said on 2010-10-27:
Who Wants the New Kid on the Block?
Congratulations to the newly-elected board members. I have been following PDC on Twitter for the past few months in anticipation of my return to Philly after a decades long absence. (My first teaching jobs were at Simon Gratz and Radnor Jr. High.) Now I am back and eager to answer Tom's call for volunteer service to PDC and the larger theatre community. ( In my former life I was a college professor of theatre and education at Augustana College in Illinois. I also founded and produced the Quad City Playwrights Festival for ten years while acting in and directing numerous contemporary, original, and classical plays. ) With four produced plays to my credit I am now a full-time playwright. Where can I be of service to PDC? Perhaps I could participate in the docent program. Although I am not offering myself up to the first bidder I do want to explore how my skills, experience, and passion might dovetail with the needs of PDC.
Katie Clark Gray said on 2010-10-11:
As a board member for 2009-10, I highly recommend the experience. You gain a much greater understanding and appreciation of what PDC is and how it can serve its membership. Better yet, you can have a hand in shaping what it will be in the future.
The PDC: Looking Back, Looking Ahead
by Thomas Tirney
posted: 2010-09-21 11:39:45
The Philadelphia Dramatists Center turns 17 in 2011 and like a gawky teenager, the organization still struggles now and then to get its bearings. Nonetheless, the PDC is at the cusp of maturity.
Since I joined in September 2008, PDC has undergone a revitalization led by Executive Director Wally Zialcita and former Board Chair Richard Kotulski. I’d be remiss not to mention Donald Drake, Walter Vail, Katie Clark-Gray, Jacqueline Goldfinger, John Russell, and Bob Castle who have maintained, improved, and introduced important programs for our writer-members.
In two years time, the organization has accomplished the following:
· Grown paid membership from less than 28 to over 80
· Implemented a policy to pay actors and directors for our readings programs
· Established grants for self-producing playwrights showing work at the Fringe Festival
· Sponsored Theatre Tours where a docent guides participants through a season of plays
· Introduced a re-designed website, expanded its content and improved applicability
And there are other achievements. PDC has been active in supporting events in addition to our core programming; theatre opportunities that give our members a chance to hear their work or create something new. This includes a renewed alliance with Primary Stages, one-of-a-kind happenings such as The Preservation Project, the Producers’ Panel, and underwriting a winning entry from our membership at the SPARK Showcase.
Furthermore, we’ve improved our relations with local theatres and advocacy groups. Last year, we hosted or co-sponsored events with Theatre Alliance of Philadelphia, Plays & Players Theatre, PlayPenn, and the Dramatists Guild of America. We should be proud that our all-volunteer PDC can hold its own and gain the respect of these long-standing, professional organizations.
That isn’t to say that everything we did last year rocked. We learned a few things concerning programs that fell short of our goals. We experimented with one program called The Lab; an 8 week development process which paired three of our member playwrights with directors and actors for an intensive workshop. Certainly the Lab was successful for those selected playwrights—Quin Eli, Anne Belc, and Jacqueline Goldfinger—but the expectation of having the works staged or holding a public reading was never realized.
Two of our core programs, The Gym and Writers’ Table remain dormant and it’s unclear if we will be able to resurrect them this year. Another staple, the Play Reading Marathon didn’t take place last year either.
These are just a few of the issues the officers will be working on next year. But more importantly, I believe the Board is ready to take up two challenges PDC has talked about for years: improving our fundraising capabilities and finding a home.
Membership dues provide the bulk of our income and Anonymous Theatre contributes between 25% and 33% of revenues. The organization has grown to the point where we can and should augment our income with grants, donations, and a dedicated fundraiser. We are targeting 2011 as a year to begin applying for grants and matches as well as brainstorming another event that compliments Anonymous Theatre and plays to our strengths as a creative organization. Ideas are welcome.
Just as important, PDC needs a modest amount of space where our officers can work, members can gather, and writers can write. We envision smallish office space somewhere accessible in Center City with a few cubicles and a conference room for readings, meetings, and other small-scale events. I believe this goal can support a lot of our programming efforts and help keep PDC relevant for its members trying to make a career as writers.
Comments:
Pat McGeever said on 2010-09-21:
I'm very disappointed to learn that Writer's Table, which must have virtually no dollar cost, has gone dormant. It's been most valuable in the past, and I've been working for a year to have my latest play, "Sister Sex," ready for just this opportunity.
9 Plays x 9 Days = $290.00
by Thomas Tirney
posted: 2010-09-07 13:11:18
Back in May, the former Prime Minister of the Czech Republic Vaclev Havel was interviewed at the Wilma Theatre. Here was a Communist dissident and Cold War icon; the first democratically elected Prime Minister of the Czech Republic (and the last), a key player in post-Soviet Eastern bloc reconstruction and an internationally renowned playwright talking to a packed house about his life and art.
For free.
For theatre lovers, does it get much better?
One quibble: I was disappointed my friend Richard Kotulski (Wilma’s Casting Director) wouldn’t sneak me into the after party which included the representatives of the Czech mission to the UN as well as Madeline Albright. The Czechs are famous for resisting tyranny and drinking. And I’ve seen Madame Albright at “Janet Reno’s Dance Party” on SNL—that broad can kick it. The fest went on until 3AM so I’m told.
In any case, the talk was an outstanding event; the only thing I lost was time. Subsequently, two things came to mind.
First, I had to support the Wilma and purchase a subscription.
Second, I wondered about the economics of seeing all the theatre there was to see. Surely it would break the bank. I began to study ways to mitigate the hit to the pocket book while seeing more shows.
As theatre artists, we should all have a discount at the box office as a perquisite. To my shock and chagrin, this is not the case. There is no such thing as an industry rate in this town. Which is unfortunate. Happily, we have other resources for saving our dollars.
Below was my itinerary for nine days in May and June 2010:
Troupe or Other Expenses:
Title Venue Discount Price Booze, M&M’s, Etc.
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom PTC Rush $25 $15 for wine, M&M’s
516 Studio5 PDC* $15 $ 3 for M&M’s
Leaving Wilma None $40 $12 for beer and M&M’s
The Screwtape Letters Lantern None $20 $ 0, brought my own M&M’s
Nightshift (reading) Time N/A Free $21 for absinthe
Sunday Park George Arden PDC* $15 $ 3 for Peanut M&M’s
The Gravedigger B. Someday None $12 $ 0
Black Pearl Sings! Adrienne None $27 $ 0
Carousel Plays&Players Fun Guide $15 $15 for beer, $12 parking
Improv Comedy The N Crowd None $15 $25 for wine, beer, whiskey, M&M’s
*Philadelphia Dramatists Center Theatre Tours program
Total Costs = $290
I wouldn’t recommend squeezing all this theater into such a short time unless you see it as a kind of cultural purgative. It’s hard work. But the above list proves you can definitely see as much theater as you want in Philly even if you don’t necessarily want to see that much. In any event, the truly useful information gleaned from my manic experiment concerned saving money. Let me share five observations with you:
1. Use the Philly Fun Guide
This ought to be your first stop when hunting for tickets and shows: www.phillyfunguide.com. The best way to find theatre discounts is to sign up for Funsavers which is half-price ticketing via email. Every Thursday, an email goes out to subscribers regarding up to 35 arts events offered at 50% off the regular admission price. Not all of it is theatre—Funsavers also includes music, museums, lectures and other cultural events.
According to Anthony Tanzi, the Electronic Marketing Assistant at the website, the majority of theatre companies in Philadelphia participate in Funsavers.
2. Join the Philadelphia Dramatists Center or the Theatre Alliance… or Both
The PDC’s Theatre Tours program has arranged for participants to see 4 different shows this coming Fall season for $14 each. This year’s schedule includes Macbeth at the Wilma Theatre, The Early Bird at Inis Nua, That Pretty Pretty at Theatre Exile, and Run Mourner Run at Flashpoint. More information here: http://www.pdc1.org/page.php?p=12
Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia also has a membership discount program to thirteen participating theatres in town: http://www.theatrealliance.org/member-discounts
Individual memberships to the PDC and the Theatre Alliance are $55 and $50, respectively.
3. Buy a Subscription to a Theatre You Like
When you subscribe to a season with one theatre company, you receive discounted tickets anywhere from 25%-50% the listed price. The discounts are higher if you are a senior citizen, student, or educator. In any case, the percentages vary from venue to venue. For instance, the Wilma Theatre offers seven different kinds of subscriptions and each one of these subscriptions has between two and four discount schedules. The Arden has a combination of 27 subscriber packages as well as a similar number of discount schedules. If you care about your cash, it helps to pay attention to the myriad subscription levels and the ticket policies. Believe me, theatres do accommodate the audience with respect to prices and choices.
4. Go at the Last Minute
If your schedule permits, taking advantage of rush tickets before a show could mean up to 50% off the box office price. It’s hard to obtain statistics on this, but in my observations, few shows at any Philadelphia theatre sell out on weekdays and for Sunday matinees. These are exactly the times when you want to inquire about rush tickets. Rush tickets are generally available for purchase 30 minutes prior to curtain. You have to be present at the theatre and buy them in person at the box office and many theatres only make them available in limited quantities.
5. Enroll in a Class
Student ticket pricing is by far the best way to keep your expenses low at the box office. Unfortunately, I’m not a student anymore but I plan on becoming one very soon. Student price levels are often 35%-60% off the listed ticket price. Furthermore, as a student you can score rush tickets that go for 80% off the list price!
If all else fails you can ask for an industry discount and the box office may take pity on you.
But I wouldn’t bank on it.
As a theatre artist (and PDC Board Chair) I don’t see it as my job to promote local theatre. That may be a by-product of what I do, but it isn’t my goal. My objective is to see more of you have your names attached to the productions I’m seeing.
And so, on your way to a fully-staged production, you ought to be patronizing the theater.
Why?
It’s R&D for your creative P&L. You can’t know what is going on among your contemporaries without seeing or hearing writing in 3-D. It inspires, enhances, and hones your writing. Live theatre serves as a feedback mechanism for your own ideas on stage. Aside from filling up blank pages with ink (and then cutting it down to a pointy point), what else will keep you sharp?
Comments:
Paula Diehl said on 2010-09-21:
Since I live at least 45 minutes from the city, this is the kind of information I like to have stored in my mind for future reference, especially since some good venues in music and drama do not include the cost of a ticket or the means to get that information. I'd like to add that the writing style almost demanded that I read the blog. Perhaps some one will also post the reason I had to ". . . Verify the Text . . . ' It seems to be an important concern to some of the drama groups.
Robin Rodriguez said on 2010-09-10:
I would add signing up for TAGP’s (The Theater Alliance of Greater Philadelphia) free email listserve. You’ll receive, among other mostly-theater things, information about industry nights and specific-show discounts. Choosing the Daily Digest can lessen the many emails. Subscribe at theatrealliance-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
And for the math impaired, Tom actually saw 9 plays plus 1 reading, so 10 total, with the theater cost at $184. The $106 spent on food/alcohol is obviously optional.
Reactions To Terry Teachout's "America's Favorite Plays"
by Thomas Tirney
posted: 2010-02-28 17:38:31
I have several reactions to Terry Teachout’s illuminating piece “America’s Favorite Plays” (Wall Street Journal, 01/09/10). My first is how it blasts conventional wisdom among theater cognoscenti; namely that American theaters nationwide are rather conservative in putting on new work. Although, I hear that complaint less in Philadelphia than in other cities, the view that our theaters consistently ignore new playwrights is a notion that passes for thought among “theater people.”
Speaking as a playwright, I can only say “Huzzah!” This really is an encouraging thing to hear and makes one think that the odds aren’t so long, after all.
Second, Teachout’s list of the 11 most-performed-plays in the last decade contains mostly quality writing which says a great deal about the intelligence and the sophistication of our general theater audience. Americans ain’t afraid of subtle, difficult, or challenging material—they simply want it to be good. Compared to movies and other forms of entertainment, theater cannot offer the soporific of over-the-top-special effects or a perpetual bombardment of stimuli. The stage can only offer a story. And if the players tell it well then isn’t it reassuring t that such a medium can still compete with movies, television, the Internet, and hand-held games?
I’m not so sanguine about other observations made from Teachout’s article. Two items come to mind: a) heavily produced plays have limited casts and b) the dearth of black and Latino authors in the 76 most frequently staged plays.
As Mr. Teachout writes,
“The lesson is clear: If you want to write a smart, serious play that has a halfway decent chance
of getting produced, keep the cast as small as possible.”
One might rephrase the sentence thusly: “…keep the cost as small as possible.” Cast impacts cost and often in a way that precludes a production from making money or reaching break-even. Theaters have to watch the bottom line as much as publicly traded companies. But I wonder…how much does cast size impact a show’s profitability? Is it the prime determinant? Is there a cut-off and if so, what is it? Are there ways to ameliorate this? These questions are worthy of pursuit. I’m sure our members would like to know.
Lastly, one can only look at the number of minority writers in Teachout’s list with dismay. While it bears mentioning that a full third of the 76 most frequently performed plays in the prior 10 years were penned by women, the lack of representation by black and Latino writers remains a concern. That raises a number of questions too—most significantly…why? And then…what can be done about it?
For my own part, I would like to see more diversity in PDC’s membership. I’m acutely galled that the PDC cannot attract more black authors in a city whose population is 43% African-American. Speaking as the Center's Board Chair, there is work to do there…
Comments:
Richard Kotulski said on 2010-02-13:
You're absolutely right when you talk about keeping costs low. Sometimes theatres that would absolutely love to do a show are prevented from producing it because the cast is too large. Paying actors is incredibly expensive. The average LORT regional theatre pays about $10,000 for each actor it hires. If your cast size is 3, that's $30,000. If you cast size is 12 then it's $120,000--and that's just the cost of paying actors. Once you factor in training all those cats for your show, the gallons of blood, and the rotating, expanding set that's required to fulfill the vision of your show and you're looking at production costs of half a million dollars. There are very few theatres out there that do not care about these costs.
This is one of the big reasons that small cast plays are so popular. The most produced show last year was Peter Sinn Nachtrieb's Boom. It was a three character play.
Food for thought....
Writing Anonymous Theatre
by Valdemar Zialcita
posted: 2010-02-28 17:22:38
Below is an overview. Comments and suggestions are welcome, especially from the writers who had been involved this year, along with any audience members. We aim to revise our approach to this concept, then create another brand-new play for Anonymous Theatre again next year.
As many of you know, this year was the first in which we staged an original play for Anonymous Theatre, a play written, appropriately enough, anonymously. That is to say that the play was first drafted by a group of playwrights, each contributing a section of the play, each working with the full draft of the play up to the point where they were to pick up the story thread and continue writing, and each writing without knopwledge of the identities of their fellow writers. Thanks to Greg Romero for suggesting that we take on this experiment, as well as to Richard Kotulski, the Godfather of AT, for seconding and encouraging the idea.
I served as the dramaturg. Once it was agreed that we, the playwrights of PDC, would create this year's play, it was I who suggested we adopt Tennessee Williams as our model and muse. I suggested Williams because I figured that he offered us such a distinctive voice that it would be easier for a diverse range of playwrights to adapt to that style, and thereby harmonize with each other.
It was also I who chose and approached individual playwrights to seek their contributions to the work. Four considerations, beyond the reciprocated interest of the writers I approached, directed my recruitment efforts:
. 1) I personally enjoyed the writing of the playwright in question.
. 2) I believed the writer had sufficient knowledge of the work of Tennessee Williams that they could somehow adapt to his style and spirit.
. 3) I believed the writer would be comfortable working within the unusual boundaries and challenges of this experiment.
. 4) I wanted to recruit from both longstanding members and those who had joined PDC more recently.
The writing process actually began last winter, after the new year. I believed that, under ideal circumstances, four months should have been enough time to create a first draft, allow time for one or two rewrites, then deliver a sufficiently polished script to a director for casting purposes, even allowing time to tweak the script after casting had been completed. The aim was to be able to begin "rehearsal" of the play no later than June 1st, aiming for a performance date that had not yet been determined, but that could take place at any time in July.
Individual playwrights were instructed to write within a flexible envelope: around ten pages, more if they felt so inspired, fewer if that was their inclination, writing within a timeframe of about a week, longer if they needed, shorter if they could manage. Writers were informed that they should follow the style and/or spirit of Tennessee Williams. They were asked to contribute anywhere from one to four new characters within the section they were writing, in the interest of distributing actor entrances throughout the eventual performance. Finally, writers were asked not to reveal their participation in AT, leaving that revelation to the end of the performance.
====
Now that Anonymous Theatre 2009 is behind us, I can tell you that we've learned a great deal about what to anticipate for the future. Without going into great detail, I can cite several lessons learned.
=> Four months proved to be a tight timeframe for creating a script this way.
=> It was more difficult than anticipated for the writers, working within these constraints, to create a first draft that could conceivably hold together as if it was one work.
=> Although we felt comfortable in principle with the notion that the play didn't need to be good as long as it was fun, we ultimately couldn't help worrying about the overall quality of the script.
The script went through three rewrites instead of the anticipated one or two, with the final version showing significant changes compared to the first draft. Serious cuts were made, perfectly good lines and characters were rewritten or eliminated, and the writing process extended through the month of June almost to July. Fortunately, this year's director, Dan Student, good-naturedly rose to the added challenge of the time crunch we placed on him.
The feedback we've received from audience members has been mostly positive, and we did raise funds that will support PDC programming in many important ways. That said, if anyone reading this overview can offer constructive feedback, either as a comment here or in an e-mail to me or to Richard, it would be much appreciated. Any questions are welcome as well.
Wally Zialcita
executive director, PDC
Comments: