The Playwright's Forum

NEWSLETTER

June 2010 20.3

WELCOME! FORUM 1 SUMMER SESSION!

Returning members: Adrian Verkouteren, Ted Groll, Leon Levenson, Karen Deans, Molly Schuchat, Paula Stone, James Beller, Lisa Alapick, Mary Morrow-Bax, Anne Stingle, Patricia Wolf, Paul Handy, Jack Foley, Michael Oliver, Elizabeth Bruce, Patricia Fitzgerald, Kristy Simmons, Steve Schulze, Thomas Mason, Jr., John Carter, Susan Kelly, James Del Fiore, Libby Heily, Carmen Vickers, Marmie Edwards, Margaret Van Sant, and Robert Griffin. Re-continuing members: Barbara Bellman, Clay Teunis, Ron Jones, Peter Larson, Kaitlin DeMerlis, and Karin Ringheim. New members! Anthony John Gallo, Sylvia Whitman, and Romina Nicaretta.

Active members of Forum 2 include: Sidra Rausch, Jane Ross, Tom Stephens, Richard Etchison, Arthur Luby and Jason Ford.

Worth Noting

Three playwrights who wish to hear a cold professional reading of 1/2 hour of his/her script, will have that opportunity on our first Workshop Reading, August 9th. Contact Ernie at pforum7@yahoo.com if you'd like to be one of those three playwrights.

Forum 1's Clay Teunis will see his one-man show, Harry S. Truman: The Man From Independence, commissioned by Jewell Robinson at the National Portrait Gallery, performed there on June 28th, Monday, 7 p.m. RSVP.

CAPITAL FRINGE FESTIVAL/ FORUM PARTICIPANTS

Harry Bagdasian's Comedy Academy, Fresh From the Funny Farm: Multiple Acts of Ridicule and Satire. Friday, July 9, 8 p.m., July 15, 6 p.m., July 17, noon, July 18, 11 a.m., July 24, 5:45 p.m. At The Warehouse (1019 7th Street NW, DC 20001).

Patricia Davis's Alternative Methods. "An Iraqi doctor, a young psychologist, a choice that changes lives..." Friday, July 9, 5:30 p.m., July 11, 4:15 p.m., July 16, 8:15 p.m., July 22, 6:30 p.m., July 24, 11 a.m. At Fort Fringe - the Shop (607 New York Avenue NW, DC 20009.)

Jason Ford's G-14. Directed by Alex Fraser. Saturday, July 10, 11 a.m., July 14, 7 p.m., July 18, 7:15 p.m., July 21, 8 p.m., July 24, 1 p.m. At The Clinic (1003 6th St NW, DC 20001).

Tickets can be purchased at www.capfringe.org.

Outrageous Fortune:
The Life and Times of the New American Play

by Nicki Burton

In April, I took off work and attended the New Play Talk at Woolly Mammoth Theater, sponsored by Arena Stage, in which the authors of a recent study on new American plays (Outrageous Fortune: The Life and Times of the New American Play by London, Pessner & Voss, Theatre Development Fund, 2009) discussed their findings and took questions from members of the local theatrical community. Ernie asked if I'd shape my notes for a Forum newsletter article, and having agreed to do this, I felt I ought to read the study. It was depressing because it affirms what most of us already know: it seems hopeless. Yet amid the statistics of misery gleamed a few shining nuggets of hope.

First, the economics. Playwriting is a losing proposition, even for the very successful. There's not enough money sloshing around the system, and definitely not enough of it coming the way of playwrights. The average income of professional playwrights in the four strata studied (well-established, mid-career established, emerging, and new) was $25,000-40,000. This included their day job income! Only fifteen percent of playwright income came from grants, commissions, and royalties. Of that, 3% were royalties from play production. Top earners in the $40,000 bracket might make $1,000 from royalties. The royalties system, supposed to be the core of our earnings, doesn't work.

Commissions for the playwrights, generally between 35-44 years old, averaged $3,000-5,000; only 4% of commissions exceeded $12,000. Since a play takes six months to two years to write, commission funds don't buy enough time. Grants comprise 13% of income and are generally in the $5,000-15,000 range; 18% of grants were more than $25,000. This sounded promising until we learned that the Theater Communications Group and the National Endowment for the Arts, the big grant givers, have both stopped giving individual artist grants. Ouch.

Perceptions of the Problem: Playwrights vs. Artistic Directors. This was the hardest part of the study to slog through. Not-for-profit institutional theaters have created layers of staffing that drive a wedge between playwrights and producers and make it harder for playwrights to reach decision-makers. The play production process profoundly alienates playwrights.

Artistic directors say it's 66% harder to produce new plays than it was ten years ago, and these numbers are from before the economic downturn. They complain about the quality of plays. About half the playwrights in the study had MFAs and were on a "professional playwright track," mostly from seven playwriting programs. Although these programs may not offer the best preparation for writing great plays, they seem to help writers network with institutional staff.

Women playwrights self-identify at lower professional levels and receive less pay. Playwrights of color don't do this but African-Americans responded to the study at half or a third less than their population would imply. Playwrights represent greater racial and ethnic diversity than theater administrators, who are mainly white men. Writers of color feel discouraged.

Everyone felt we should retire the concept of "emerging playwright" because it's meaningless. Mid-career is a crisis point for many, with playwrights leaving to teach or write for television. Television is increasingly attractive because it provides more artist fulfillment (quel irony!). Playwrights are more likely to be produced at theaters where they've been produced before and less likely to be produced at theaters where they receive readings. There's a sub-culture of confusion around "premieres." Theaters vie for premieres and cast aside second-run plays like fallen women. Playwrights feel as if they get "one shot" and are afraid to give their new plays to smaller theaters willing to produce them. Ack.

In terms of access, institutional theaters vie for plays by the same 10-20 famous playwrights. These playwrights are backed up five or six commissions deep. Institutional theaters are looking for plays by name writers that generate advance press; they want to boost their institutional egos and professional standing, and suffer from "Groupthink" about what's good.

Small performance spaces are provided for new work. Dramaturgy has been downsized too. Playwrights don't want to add characters for fear of making their play less produceable; yet artistic directors say don't want "small" plays. As an example of a trend in the size of American plays: The 1969 Tony Award winner, The Great White Hope, had 63 actors; 1970 nominee, Indians, had 47; the 1971 Trial of Catonsville 9 had 16. The 2009 winner, God of Carnage, had 4.

Depressed yet? You haven't heard about the audiences. Dwindling audiences are aging, dying, and more conservative. New audiences aren't being cultivated. Playwrights believe theaters don't develop specific audiences and that theaters get audiences used to "used" plays; theaters think that playwrights don't write for their audiences. The number of people seeing one non-musical play a year shrank over a 16-year period from 25 million to 21 million.

Theaters like subscription audiences but some question whether "the audience" really means principal donors and board members, or actual audience members. With 50% of the playwrights in the study residing in either New York or Los Angeles, most playwrights aren't local (outside of those cities) and don't know a theater's community. One fear all involved in the study shared: the theater has lost its place in our culture's imagination.

Lack of arts education in schools is partly responsible for the declining support of non-musical plays (musicals are holding steady). A veteran West Coast artistic director stated, "The decades-long erosion of arts education is creating a preponderance of 'cultural illiterates' who, unlike audiences of thirty years ago, are not predisposed to appreciate theater."

Meanwhile, theater critics have become at best "consumer reports"-type influencers, rating plays "thumbs up or thumbs down" instead of facilitating intelligent dialogue in the community about plays and the themes and forms they present. Theaters have been slow to embrace new media as a way to reach new audiences. Much of what we do in theater that's special, e.g., the rehearsal process, is kept private, which runs counter to the transparency trend in our society. Audiences want to experience the process as well as the product.

Finally, what's working well for playwrights:

Playwright residencies – playwrights finding theatrical homes.
Playwrights writing for specific audiences and ensembles, building lasting relationships.
Getting productions at small theaters, the mainstay for playwrights.
Marketing that targets niche audiences while welcoming all types of theater-goers.
Leveraging word-of-mouth publicity and social media rather than depending on reviews.
Commissions – even if not for large amounts.
Playwrights producing their own work, like 6P in Los Angeles or 13P in New York.

The Craft:
part of an interview with playwright Doug Wright

Reprinted from the March/April 2010 issue of The Dramatist, the Journal of the Dramatist Guild of America (www.dramatistsguild.com)

What do you do when you get stuck? Walk away. It took me a long time to realize that time spent away from the computer is often as valuable as time spent staring numbly at it, bereft of any useful ideas. For heaven's sake, get up!

Do you have any thoughts or advice about dialogue? When I teach, I always go ballistic when a student criticizes a fellow writer's dialogue with the damning line, "Real people don't talk that way." If you want to hear the way real people talk, take a ride on the subway. Grab a bite at the nearest fast food restaurant. Go to a stadium, a dinner party, or an airport. Don't go to the theatre. If you want to see heightened language employed for dramatic effect, then by all means, go see a play. Dialogue in the theatre should be more than mere conversation; it should be music.

Do you have any particular principles or practices about character or character development? Characters in plays, more often than not, are defined by what they do; the action they commit.

Forum Online

Our website is undergoing an updating of its "Links" section, by our Internet assistant Alexis Clements, eliminating those which are now obsolete, adding those which are new to us and useful. Suggestions for new links? please let us know: Ernie at pforum7@yahoo.com.

Forum 2 Schedule

June 16   Round Table discussion
June 30   Round Table discussion
July 14   Round Table discussion
July 28   Round Table discussion

All meetings are at 7 p.m., Wednesday evenings, at St. Mary's Armenian Church, D.C.

Reading Schedule

Public.

June 7   And Seem A Saint... by Larry Sifford. Directed by Kathryn Kelley. 7 p.m. Monday. Round House Theatre's Education Center/Silver Spring.

June 21   Images from a Darkened Classroom by Michael Oliver. Directed by Bernie Cohen. 7 p.m. Monday. St. John’s Episcopal Church/Norwood Parish, Chevy Chase.

June 28   Paul Gonzalves On The Road by Art Luby. Directed by Andy Wasserich. 7 p.m. Monday. MetroStage/Alexandria.

In-House.

July 19   LaDanse by Carmen Vickers. Directed by Dorothy Neumann. 7 p.m. Monday. St. Mary's Armenian Church, D.C.

July 26   The Real Thing and The Marriages, adaptations of Henry James short stories, by Bari Biern. Directed by Laura Giannarelli. 7 p.m. Monday. Twinbrook Community Center, Rockville.

Aug 9   Workshop Reading Series #1. Cold readings of three script excerpts. Directed by Mary Suib. 7 p.m. Monday.

Kvelling
Pronounced exactly as it's spelled. Yiddish: to gush, to swell. Here is where you will find tidbits about Forum members and Associate members. Good things that have happened to our colleagues inside and outside the Playwrights Forum neighborhood. Send all kvelling directly to the Playwrights Forum at pforum7@yahoo.com.

The Forum's Bob Griffin will see his short play You Can Bank On It published in the next issue of Eleven Eleven Literary Journal.

Forum 1's Barry Weinberg was notified that his play End Papers has been selected by the Reston Community Theatre as one of ten plays to be read this season. His reading is June 5th.

Forum 1's Patricia Wolf has been selected to participate in the Kennedy Center's Intensive Playwriting Workshop this summer.

Forum 2's Allyson Currin had her play, Benched, along with occasional Forum member Kristen DeWulf's play Leto Legend, given public readings by the Hub Theatre, at the Greater Reston Arts Center, as part of the "Virginia Celebrates Women in the Arts," in May.

Forum 2's Michael Stang had three of his short plays, all comedies, presented at the Beth Tfiloh School, performed by high school students. Meantime, another of his plays, At the Allergist, will be one of 30 one-minute plays presented at Spare Change Theatre, NYC as part of its New York Minute Festival, June 4-5.

Forum 1's Margaret Van Sant, as a producer, is bringing a new play to the Tennessee Williams Festival in September, and presenting her own First Women's International Theatre Festival in October.

An article about Forum 1's Paula Stone's newest play Woo Is Me was publishing in Washington Window, volume 81, #3, May-June '10 issue. Meantime, four of her short playlets were chosen to be in the Greenbelt Arts Center Local Playwrights Festival June 11-13, directed by Mary Suib.

Rich Amada's play The Judicial Murder of Mrs. Surratt, developed in Forum 2, made the finals of the FutureFest National Playwriting Competition, one of six from 400 entries. He'll be flown out to Dayton, Ohio for the event and a performance.

Forum 1's Libby Heily's short play Suicide Bombers joined Michael Stang's CSI Australia and another in an evening of staged readings by The Fridge Theatre Company, DC. in May.

Keith Donaldson's newest novel, Rude Awakenings, named Finalist in the Mystery Category of the 2010 Next Generation Indie Book Awards.

Forum 2's Jane Ross presented a scene from her play about the Bronte sisters, Tracking Angel as the centerpiece of the Victoria Day Jubilee Tea at the Bethesda Library on May 23rd. It was directed by Jean Harrison.