Ask A Literary Manager

Ever wanted to know what Literary Managers’ pet peeves are? Steven Epperson took up our interview request. It’s lengthy and very helpful. Please comment on any of the below. He may be open to more.
All italicizing is mine for ease in reading. – CMJ

Impact Theatre buttons

SE: First off, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to ask these questions. I’ve been the Literary Manager for Impact Theatre for over 5 years, and Literary Manager for The Asylum Theatre for over 7 years, and in my time reading scripts I’ve always wanted to have an opportunity to express to playwrights how they can better submit their work. This is a great idea, and I look forward to reading your blog post.

CMJ: Are there any red flags to submissions, obvious or subtle?

SE:  Yes.
Misspellings/wrong word usage in the cover letter and/or synopsis. I’ve never seen a
play that was any good when those problems happen.
Rambling cover letter/synopsis. Keep cover letters to one paragraph, keep synopsis to one page. Max. Less is more.
No cast list = a not very good play. Every single time.
Resubmitting a script that I’ve sent a rejection letter on, and sending that resubmission to the Artistic Director directly. Anything she gets, goes straight to me, and I keep records of what I’ve read and what I have/haven’t rejected. Don’t try to get around or go over the head of the person who rejected your play.
Submitting a script after a playwright has received a rejection letter from me, and
demonstrating attitude or anger in the cover letter for their new submission. There are two acceptable responses to a rejection notice: 1) “Thank you for considering my play.” 2) Nothing. I know that it stinks to get rejected. Be professional. Being difficult might feel good the moment a playwright hits that ‘Send’ button, but it will not do anybody any good at all in the long term.

Jonathan Brooks, Maria Giere Marquis, and Jai Sahai in the regional premiere of Cameron McNary's Of Dice and Men at Impact Theatre Credit: Cheshire Isaacs

CMJ: Please give an idea of the sorts of plays that immediately grab your attention, and how a submission package can accomplish that without bending the guidelines?

SE: I’m chuckling as I write my answer to your first question, because, for me, this is the
most difficult question to answer. Impact Theatre produces a huge variety of work: comedies, dramas, adaptations of classics, to name a few. We’ve never done a musical, but we’re not opposed to doing one either. (Over the past several years I’ve started reading several musicals and thought, “This might be the first Impact musical!” Then, I get to the end and I think, “Um. No.” ….  the core writing elements (story, dialogue, character development) simply weren’t up to par.  In a musical, of course there need to be good songs.  However, no matter how good the songs are, if the core elements of the writing aren’t there, the script just doesn’t work theatrically.  Again, neither I nor either of the theatre companies that I work with would be absolutely opposed to producing a musical.  However, one has not yet been submitted to us that, in my opinion, would work.)

What grabs more attention, always, is quality writing. An interesting story with well crafted characters and compelling dialogue. I realize that sounds like a cheap answer, but that is the primary thing that I look for. I don’t look for specific genres, I don’t look for comedies over dramas or vice-versa. While we try to schedule variety, Impact wouldn’t be opposed to doing a season composed entirely of comedies or dramas. Impact Theatre produces four plays a year, one of which is an adaptation of a ‘classic’ that is adapted and directed by our Artistic Director, Melissa Hillman. So, we have three production slots open each season. What do I want to go into those three slots? The three best damn scripts we have that are available to us.

Impact Theatre only produces full-length works. It’s just too difficult to find individual one-acts that can be paired together to present a cohesive night of theatre. IF a playwright wanted to submit two one-acts that they felt would work together in a single evening, I’m more than happy to take a look. However, otherwise one-acts almost always get a pass from me. IF I like the writing well enough, in the rejection letter that I send out, (and every play that I don’t pass on does get a rejection letter), I will make a point to ask if the playwright has any full-length material that they wish to submit.

Here’s the submission package that makes me happiest: an e-mail (Impact Theatre ONLY accepts submissions that are e-mailed.) that includes: the script (you would be surprised how many playwrights forget to attach their play) in a format that my computer can work with (Microsoft Word of PDF ONLY. I’ve been receiving a lot of submissions in Word Perfect, and my computer just doesn’t know what to do with those.), a cover letter, and, if the playwright wishes to include one, a resume. For Impact Theatre submissions, that’s pretty much all one needs. One thing that I would strongly advise is that playwrights should NOT adopt a One-Size-Fits-All philosophy. Find out from each theatre company they submit to what THAT theatre company wants in their submission packages. Some of the things that I don’t care whether they’re included or not: resumes, reviews, letters of recommendation, etc., might mean an automatic rejection from other

If you don’t mind, I’ll break down each of the elements that I mentioned above. As I said, e-mail the script in a format that most computers can work with, i. e. Microsoft Word or PDF. (PDF works on pretty much every computer, so it’s a good default choice.) Submit the ENTIRE script, unless otherwise specified to only send the first 10 pages or to only submit a dialogue sample. When I say that playwrights should include a ‘cover letter’, what I really want is for them to include a ‘cover note’. That means: keep it short. I’d say one paragraph (short paragraph) max. If a playwright thinks that they need more than one paragraph in their cover letter, they really don’t. Introduce themselves, tell me the title and any recent productions of the play. A brief (BRIEF) synopsis is fine, but, keep it brief. Playwrights should keep in mind that I’m more interested in reading their play, than I am in reading their cover letters.

CMJ:  What are some immediate turn-offs in submissions?
SE: I once sat down and wrote a diatribe (it had been a long week) about the different things that playwrights do that can, and do, turn me off to their work. I won’t bore you with the whole thing, but here are the high (low) lights:

Misspelling my name in the cover letter. This happened this past week. Now, some people will say, “Why does that matter?” It matters because if a playwright can’t be bothered to spell my name right, that demonstrates a lack of interest, and a lack of attention to detail. It may also be the sign of an attitude that Impact Theatre isn’t interested in dealing with. To be blunt, it’s the best way to make a bad first impression.

Misspellings, bad grammar, wrong word usage: yes, playwrights are writing speech, and the way people, especially Americans, speak does not always follow the rules of writing. (Cause instead of because, for example.) I understand that, and I’m not trying to be the grammar/spelling police. However, having sloppy writing mechanics is unprofessional, and I’ve never, ever, read a script where the playwright had bad writing mechanics where the story and the characters themselves were well crafted. I’m not talking about the occasional typo. I’m talking about consistent, repeated errors that a professional writer should know to not do. Bottom line, it just looks bad, and I’m going to pass on a play that looks bad.

Non-standard fonts or formatting: make your writing as easy to read as possible. If I have to struggle in any way with your play, including the style in which it is presented/ written, I’m going to pass. In addition, when you e-mail a script, don’t send each scene as a separate document. Don’t have the title page and/or the cast list as a separate document. In other words: send your script as a SINGLE attachment, please. This may sound trivial, but having to constantly stop and open a new document interferes with the flow of the story, and can be aggravating.

Submissions that don’t follow stated guidelines: Read the guidelines for submissions and follow them. One of the theatre companies that I work with periodically produces a 10-minute comedy play series. When we put out a request for submissions for this 10-minute comedy play series, the avalanche of stuff that we get that is neither 10-minute nor comedy is extremely exasperating. I’ve actually seen submissions of 50 page scripts. No matter who you are, guidelines apply to you, they apply to me, they apply to anybody submitting material for anything for which guidelines are out there.

Not including a cast list, unless it’s a one-person show: I see this all the time, and I cannot understand why playwrights would not include a cast list with their scripts. As a Literary Manager, I want to focus on the story, and not have to waste time trying to figure who all these random characters are who keep on wandering in and out of the scenes.

Unnecessary/gratuitous nudity: I’m not a prude. I have no problem with nudity. (Some of my best friends have been naked.) If there’s a reason for people to be naked in your play, that’s cool. HOWEVER, if the naked person doesn’t have anything to do with the story, don’t do it. IF it is necessary to the story, and there’s a way to stage it legally, that’s one thing. Gratuitous is entirely another, and we’re not interested.

An overabundance of stage directions: If pressed, I’d say that this is my #1 most frustrating thing. Having line after line after line after line of stage directions interrupts the flow and rhythm that I’m trying to discern from a playwright’s writing. Trying to get into a playwright’s story, trying to find out if the playwright is creating characters with individual voices, trying to see if there is something about the writing that would be compelling on a stage all get ground to a halt when I have to constantly stop reading the dialogue and read stage directions. I think that for some people, getting the action as they see it in their mind onto the paper or the computer screen is important because those writers need to have it written out in order for them to keep what’s going on organized. I understand that, and that’s fine. For writers who need that, I would strongly suggest removing those stage directions before sending their scripts out. Having massive amounts of stage directions in one’s script does nothing to help me decipher the quality of the story that the playwright is trying to tell. If no other information gets out from this blog post, I hope this does: have as few stage directions as is possible.

Impossible or difficult to manage set designs: Most small theatre companies have neither the budget, nor the space, nor the ability to reconstruct Notre Dame Cathedral.
Most small theatre companies would struggle to reconstruct your living room. Also, recently I’ve seen a number of script in which the author wants a real automobile of whatever make/model/sort onstage. Again, most small theatre companies could not get a car into their building, much less onto their performing area. I think that the biggest failing I see from a number of playwrights is that their writing makes it appear that they don’t understand other aspects of theatre, especially when it comes to sets, props and sometimes costumes.

Writing plays set in places you’ve never been to: This is less of a problem now, but a couple of years ago its seemed like everybody and their grandmother were writing plays set in a hotel or motel or trailer park in the Mojave/Arizona/New Mexico/Texas/Mexican/California/Nevada desert. I don’t know how this happened, and I don’t know why this happened. When one is not familiar with the environment they’re writing about, it shows. That being said, ENOUGH with plays being set in New York City. Feel free to set your play in the other 99% of the country.

CMJ: Does it matter to you if playwrights have a website, Facebook, Twitter presence? How much do you want to know about the playwright themselves if you’re interested in their work?

SE: Honestly, for me, it doesn’t really matter at all. If Impact Theatre decides to produce a play, then, yes, we want to know everything we can about the playwright that we’re going to be working with. Until we’re at the point where we’re ready to begin that process, and I’m being completely honest here, it just doesn’t matter all that much to us.

Along those lines, it used to bother me when playwrights didn’t have their resumes in an easily readable format. It used to, until one day I realized that a playwright’s resume wasn’t going to be the deciding factor as to whether or not Impact Theatre produced their play, or whether or not I passed their play on up the ladder. Once I realized that, I didn’t spend a lot of time looking at playwright’s resumes. If a resume is included in a submission I’ll still LOOK at it, but it’s really more of a glance than anything else: “Let’s see, any names or places that I recognize? Yes? No? All right, time to read this play.”

CMJ: What is the process for choosing a season at your theaters, and is there any way that
playwrights can aid you in that process?

SE: The process for choosing a season at Impact Theatre is as follows: every script that is submitted, whether sent directly to me by the playwright or not, goes to me. I read every script that comes in. My job is NOT to say, “Yes.”. My job is to say, “No.”, and I say, “No.”, a lot. If I don’t say, “No.” to a script, that script is passed on to Melissa Hillman, the Artistic Director for Impact Theatre. She reviews the scripts I send her, and she will either say, “No.”, or she will put the script to the side for consideration by the entire company. Once or twice a year, more if necessary, the company will gather to read plays out loud and discuss them. The group as a whole decides what plays are being produced each season, with the exception of the one classic that we do each year. The classics are the purview of Melissa, and she selects those herself.

In terms of the selection process described above, there’s not anything playwrights can do to influence that in and of itself. What playwrights CAN do is: be patient. Be patient because the one area where I’m lacking is in figuring out a way to communicate with playwrights when their play gets moved up the ladder instead of being rejected. I’ve tried multiple times, but I have a hard time composing a letter that says, “We like your play, but we’re NOT promising to produce it, and we might not, but we might, so . . . thanks!”, in 1-2 paragraphs. Part of the problem may be that I’m overthinking it, and that’s my issue. Anyway, be patient. If a playwright doesn’t hear back from Impact Theatre regarding their play, it’s a case of no news is not necessarily bad news.

CMJ: Steven added this after I asked a follow-up question:

SE: If you don’t mind, one thing that I forgot to mention was the environments that theatre companies produce in.  I think the space(s) that theatre companies stage their productions in is not often considered by playwrights when they are writing scripts.  The majority of plays that I see are written for proscenium style theatres, while most small theatre companies (I don’t have statistics at hand to verify this, but Melissa Hillman, the Artistic Director for Impact has talked about this a number of times, and I take her at her word.), produce plays in some variation of ‘black box’ spaces.  For example, Impact Theatre currently stages our shows in the basement of a pizza parlor.  With an 8′ high ceiling.  This means that no matter how hard we tried it would simply be impossible to stage a play in which having a two or more level set was required.  (Unless we cast the show entirely with Ewoks, and that would bring up a whole other set of issues.)  Impact has passed on at least three scripts that we really, REALLY wanted to produce, but couldn’t due to the particular restrictions of our theatre.  Now, I am NOT expecting all playwrights to have, or request, floor plans or scale drawings of the the theatres they’re going to submit plays to before they begin writing.  What I am suggesting is that playwrights be more open to creating plays that can be staged in ways that are more flexible than only in a proscenium theatre.  Doing so give both sides what they want:  it gives theatre companies more plays to select from, and it gives playwrights more potential venues in which to have their plays produced.

CMJ: Many thanks to Steven for his time, and please do comment with questions below. I’m working on some other Literary Managers and hope to give all playwrights a larger perspective on the people reading and accepting/rejecting their work.

Writing here, writing there – by Kitty Felde

It was nice to have two complete weeks in Maine, sitting by a lake, listening to the loons, dodging a hurricane, picking tomatoes and beans from the garden, drinking wine, swimming every morning, and writing. And writing.

What a blessing to not have to ‘feed the beast’ as we say in news, always on the lookout for a story, trying to catch up with a story you should have reported yesterday, making calls for tomorrow’s story. And squeezing in maybe 90 minutes of writing time on exactly what YOU want to write.

I’m in LA this week for a grammar school reunion (!) and a check in with the home office, but haven’t typed a word. But I will. I have five characters bugging me to tell the rest of their story. They get so impatient! They don’t understand that it’s important for the writer to visit her favorite farmers market where “industry” folks talk shop as they wait for their breakfast burrito, where she’ll run into an old friend having a tough year, and where finally, she’ll come home with heirloom tomatoes and peaches and basil for a family party on Labor Day. Those characters don’t understand why the writer needs a nap or needs to get her nails done for that grammar school reunion. They keep saying, “what about OUR reunion?”

Okay, guys. One quick nap and I’ll be back at the keyboards. Promise.

Stitching a play together – by Kitty Felde

I am finding a relationship between my twin passions: playwriting and sewing. One involves visual puzzle pieces that are stitched together. The other involves character puzzles and pattern pieces of plot.

I came to Maine earlier this month to puzzle out act two of my LA riots/Kenya play, not to sew. But that sewing side of my brain started calling me. It might just be the need to do something creative using my hands, not a keyboard

So I started reading sewing blogs. And fell in love with this one: a British gal who does amazing things with thrift store finds.

http://charityshopchic.wordpress.com/

She gives herself permission to take things apart, discard what’s soiled or not needed, and create something fun and new. It’s that giving yourself permission that’s so important.

And by the way, it also sent me out to the local Goodwill where I spent $20 on five garments that I’ve totally taking apart! (at night, of course, AFTER my writing day…)

Writing lessons from young adult literature – by Kitty Felde

There’s a wonderful quote in Lisa Scottoline’s review of the new novel “Plugged” by Eoin Colfer. She says, “like any great fictional character, he is what he does.” Boy, is that true for drama!

I’m as guilty as most, my characters do more talking than doing. Not to say they need to scale mountains and fight wizards onstage. But they need to constantly be doing something emotionally. What do they want and what are they doing to get it?

I know Eoin Colfer’s work from his young adult novels. We read ”Artemis Fowl” in my Book Club of the Air for Young Adults, a show that ran on LA Cable 36 where a trio of middle schoolers discuss YA literature. (http://la36.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=26&clip_id=1000Great fun.) In “Artemis,” Colfer’s characters were always DOING something. But he also created an entire universe, with its own rules and villains and quests.

I really like YA literature. David Almond’s “Skellig” is one of my favorites. He creates a character in a ramshackle garage that may be a cranky old man. Or an owl. Or a bird. Or something else. The young hero of the story keeps the creature alive with beer and take-out Chinese food. He decides he HAS to as his way of keeping his prematurely born little sister alive. Such invention! A real page-turner! And full of rich, emotional depth.

Which makes me think about expanding my universe of writing inspirations. I read and see as many plays as I can every month. But rarely am I truly blown away, transported to a really imaginative place where I cry and laugh and am haunted by words and images for days. That happens often when I’m reading YA literature. Why is this? Is it because YA books are short, to the point, aimed at an audience that demands to be wowed, an audience whose raging hormones make emotional outbursts a daily fact of life? That’s what I want to capture and put onstage.
Which is why I’m heading over to the YA section of the library to see what’s new.

Hurricanes and other natural disasters by Kitty Felde

I’m a southern California girl. I know earthquakes and brush fires. I don’t know hurricanes.

But I was up in Maine for two blissful weeks of vacation – nothing but reading, eating, swimming in a lake, sitting, and writing. I’m working on rewriting act two of a play that’s been haunting me for ten years. More on that later in the week. But we were supposed to drive back south to DC on Saturday. That didn’t happen, thanks to Irene.

Friday was an absolutely perfect day! Warm temperatures, blue skies, you could smell the pine trees. The sun glistened on the lake. Hard to imagine the storm coming. By Saturday, you had this feeling you should be DOING something. Preparing somehow. So I drove into town to buy a battery for the flashlight and a power converter to run my laptop from the car’s cigarette lighter. (A true writer: can’t live without her laptop!) I made soup and chocolate pudding – to nourish the soul. We put away the plastic lawn furniture and took down the hanging plants and wind chimes. And we waited. And waited.

Finally, Irene arrived Sunday morning, first with rain, then with wind, then with wind and rain, and finally, just a bit more wind. Inland Maine got hit hard. We spent the day with friends, eating pasta and playing Crazy Eights.
It’s a nice metaphor for playwriting: that big idea that grows and grows, both scaring you to death and exciting something deep inside you. It takes its dear, sweet time developing, moving slowly towards you. You spend your time preparing – research, note cards, writing in longhand, making notes to yourself on the Iphone, freewriting – doing SOMETHING until it arrives. And then it does – you’re in the midst of the writing, full of excitement and terror. That new play makes you feel ALIVE! And then, all too soon, it’s over. It gets produced or a reading and your emotional brain is already preparing for the next creative storm.

Perhaps the National Hurricane Center can help me with titles when I sit down to write my next “hurricane.”

Go-Go-Gadget Brain

I drove home from rehearsal last night, my brain firing off lists like nobody’s business – Program, DVD, Certificates, Monk’s, Forks, Fruit, Sound, Tech (!), Blog, Blog, Blog…

So I got home and stuffed my mouth with a ChocoTaco and set down to tidy up a few things on that list before my lids revolted and permanently shut down for the night, in the hopes that I could get a handle on it all somehow…

What is it that drives me to continually engineer means to be busy?  I look around at my “Civilian” friends who have their evenings free to eat at the table, watch t.v. and help the kids with their homework and I think “Am I just crazy?”

Or is it part of the artist’s path that s/he may not be satisfied until her/his work is out there… in the world… making some kind of imprint…

I woke up this morning after dreams about tornados and long, treacherous hallways (thank you subconscious) with that list-making brain already back in full gear, and noticed -forming at the bottom of that list – were fresh thoughts about the next big “What if…” project.

Umm, I might be obsessed.

Which may be why I’m so tired.

See, I started LittleBlackDressINK out of my frustration with waiting… it felt like, as a playwright, I was always waiting for a reading, or a production – and (to be honest) although readings are fun, I’ve had about all of them I can cheer about and now just experience them as the observational meet and greets they mostly are – for very rarely does it seem the reading is being held to weigh in on possible production.  (If you haven’t read Outrageous Fortune yet, they talk extensively about the realities of what many of us call “Development Hell” and it’s seriously fascinating to hear from both other playwrights AND theatre companies on this subject)

Which isn’t to say that I don’t enjoy readings – I do, I do.  I just attend them with my writing ears on and little expectation beyond some new business cards in my pocket and rewrites on my mind.

Meanwhile, I’m hungry for stage time.

So it seemed the obvious step to carve some out for myself.

Yet… the hat-juggling of working a “real” job, plus producing/directing a show, plus the numerous other projects I have running simultaneously (I’m in the midst of managing some theatrical marketing for an upcoming event and I edit two other blogs) does make me wonder when I’ll tire of this circus life and…

…Settle down?

(shiver)

Doesn’t it manifest a “Throw in the Towel” type vibe when you read that?

But will I ever be able to truly support myself on my writing alone?

Will I ever be able to truly be satisfied with a teaching gig and some writing time in the summer?

Will things change when I finally tie my wagon to another’s and start popping out tots of my own?

Or am I too hard wired for motion?  Too geared for hurdle-jumping, to ever truly slow down to a snails pace, and get back to just “Waiting”?

It’s probabaly all a little too much to be thinking about at the moment- I’ve got a mountain of things to check off that list today and scant time for little else – but still, it lingers…

It lingers along with loud dreams of the next “What if?”

~Tiffany Antone

Words, words; rolling…

Someone once said to me – well, alright, actually it’s been said to me many a time but I remember quite clearly at least the first time I heard it – that I write “with a lot of rhythm.”  At the time I think I nodded dumbly, and tried to feel good about what seemed to be a compliment but was something I hadn’t really thought all that much about as I wrote… it seemed strange to receive a compliment on something that I had no awareness of.

They were right of course… as I listened to the actors digging into and discovering the play, there was an amazing sense of rhythm and musicality to the language of the piece, and now I realize that the rhythm of a word or a combination of words has a lot to do with whether or not I’ll use it/them (or opt for silence) in my work.

Word selection, it would seem, has become as as serious for me as selecting the right wine, your child’s name, or which freeway to take during rush hour…

In other words, I take it pretty damn serious, but I also try to maintain a healthy sense of humor.

Because I have yet to meet an actor who hasn’t had to (on occasion) rearrange some portion of my text to suit his/her mouth.

Now, I used to act, and so I understand that sometimes getting your brain to remember a line that has been composed in such a way as to feel as comfortable in your mouth as a cheese grater, can be damn near impossible.  I understand that sometimes an actor winds up spitting out the subtext of a line or some mutant hybrid instead of the original…

And as a playwright who understands actors but who is still a pretty persnickety wordsmith, I’ve learned to pick my battles on which lines are truly crucial to the rhythm of the thing and which can survive a few… abuses.

But I still wonder if, although they are treating the play with much reverence and care, an actor realizes the value of the words themselves (and their order) to the playwright… or if it is only I that see them as a magical, swelling, and lyrical recipe that must be said in the correct order and pairings, lest they loose their power and cast (instead) only a murkish sort-of spell…

And now I’m in the unique position of directing my own play for the Dirty Laundry fest, and I’m battling with myself on the merit of nit-picking vs. focusing on the cohesive whole…

That said, when I find myself bristling and silently screaming inside at some liberty taken with my text, I take a breath and gently task the actor with getting it right, even if we have to work the beat several times or break down the text line by line to get their brains to accept it as written rather than letting them put it in their own words.  It’s avery interesting internal battle indeed to juggle egos (theirs and mine) with productivity and specificity.

And it’s taught me a lot about balancing expectations with function as well.

However, just because it might be fun to compare notes, here are my top three pet peeves in the line department:

• Don’t start every line with “Look” or “But” or “Well”… This is an actor trick that I DESPISE…  Either they get stuck and need a second to recall the line,  or they don’t quite understand the transition that brought them there so they add a beat of their own wordage to “help” themselves with, and if left unchecked it turns the whole thing into a play about humming and hawing.
• Don’t reduce poetry to “comfortable” language…  Sometimes an actor will come across a more complex line than they themselves would use and instead of mastering it, they alter it to suit their tongues.  ”I left to fetch flowers” becomes “I went to get flowers” and I sit there and bemoan the lost mood of the line and silently curse the actor for their clumsy murder of my alliterative text, even though the same basic point has been made.  To me, the care I take in selecting my words mean the difference between craftsmanship and an “anyone can write a play” vibe.  There is very little in my characters mouths that I didn’t put there carefully and with specific intent.
• Don’t blast through beats.  I use a lot of beats in my plays.  I hate when actors (or directors) try to fly through them – even if a director decides a “Beat” need not be illustrated on stage with time, they risk missing important shifts in power, emotion, intent, thought, etc. if they don’t take the time to ask “Why is the playwright adding a beat here between these lines?  What happens for the characters in this moment?”

~Tiffany

Crazy Schemes Produced

So, I’m a pretty active person, playwright, and dreamer… I like to keep busy and I like to feel productive.  I think it’s one of the reasons I was SO excited about the LAFPI starting up… I mean, a group of kick-ass playwrights all working towards gender parity in theater?  AND we get to have fun mixers and support each other and address important issues in theater?

Count me IN!

And over the past year (+) I’ve been super happy to see all the strides we’ve made – the very important LAFPI study helmed by the amazing Miss Ella Martin, the Women on the Fringe work that honored theatres who produce female playwrights, and the all encouraging and inspiring support that this site has offered for countless other female playwrights who want to get involved and join the revolution.

It’s been amazing.

But I’ve been watching a lot of it from AZ – where I’m now stationed – and I’ve been ants-in-my-pants-to-the-extreme for more ground-work than I can actually do from afar…

Until I realized that my new stomping grounds include an amazing community theatre and quite a few talented and accomplished female playwrights of its own…

And then I realized that I could support female playwrights by actually producing them.

So I started up Little Black Dress INK (www.LittleBlackDressINK.org), sent out invitations to some awesomely talented women, had a thrilling meeting with the head of the theatre here who said “YES!” to my crazy scheme, and got the ball rolling…

Now, a few months later, I find myself in the home stretch of a most passionate project:  Dirty Laundry, a ten minute play fest benefitting the Prescott Area Women’s Shelter and including plays from 9 awesome female playwrights!  There are also 7 female directors helming each of the plays, and a WAY talented team of actors bringing these plays to life.

So that ants in the pants feeling I was complaining about?  It’s settled down a little bit, appeased that I’m making something happen instead of waiting for it to come to me…

And isn’t that what the LAFPI is all about?

Becoming an “Instigator” is a call to arms!  All it takes is some daring, some passion, some wild-eyed-scheming, and a shared vision.

I might be one tired puppy at the end of this week, but I will be sleeping happy

~Tiffany

Day Two: Playwrights in Mind: A National Conversation – part two

Todd London of New Dramatists gave the keynote address on Friday, on “After Outrageous Fortune.”
Here’s some excerpts: “We are perhaps a roomful of anachronisms, relying on outdated views of time and space.”

New Dramatists is in a Lutheran church in Manhattan. It used to house a soup kitchen and thrift store in the early 1900’s. It’s now a soup kitchen for playwrights. The altar is a writing area. The thrift store is a theatre space. The soup kitchen is a library. That library contains a stage manager’s copy of an August Wilson play called “Millhand’s Cast Bucket” – now known as “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.”

“What a difference a play makes” is a song title suggested by Marsha Norman for an event celebrating the career of Horton Foote. They didn’t use the song, but the phrase stuck in London’s brain. Do plays really make a difference? To whom? Do they still? London says he’s a rabbi in a church for playwrights, constantly questioning his faith.

Horton Foote tried to stop time by remembering. Had so much been written about such a small space of real estate? Nothing can be lost as long as there are artists to write it down. But is it possible plays themselves are disappearing?

Robert Anderson had a note taped to his typewriter: nobody asked you to be a playwright. You write the plays no one asked you to write, that no one may ever produce, cultivate a garden that no one may ever wander with you. The world has no intention of meeting you where you live. Even the American Theatre doesn’t want to meet playwrights where they live. No sustainable structure that will last over time to provide a dignified life for playwrights. Theatres are concerned with pleasing an older, more conservative audience – or perhaps just the theatre’s “assets” – large donors. And audiences for straight plays are dropping every year.

Think about O’Neill. When it came to style, he tried everything. Think about how that would have played today. How could he have wrestled with scale, the years of internal struggle that separated early work and later? Where would Clifford Odets or Edward Albee or Horton Foote be without their theatres?

But London says there’s a “weird seismic shift.” The Guild will permanently fund the “Lily” awards. Arena Stage is providing its five resident playwrights with salaries, offices, and health insurance. Two separate black play festivals launched in a single year because of the “convenings” gathering at Arena this year. Money is appearing for second productions. TCG is holding national conversations on the individual artist. “The ground on which you stand is shifting.”

London says think of asking August Wilson what he was working on – a ten page cycle, performed in every theatre in the country. Will statistics keep it down? “Attention must be paid.” Think of the sweep and magnitude of his Century Cycle. “The highest possibility of human life.”

Where do we look for inspiration? London says he looks to playwrights. When you stare at a thing, it grows larger – a face, a flower, a play. We stare at plays and the machine of culture grows quiet. And the play speaks. The institutional theatre isn’t evil. It’s misguided.

“Your example is in you alone and you together: a community of writers.” Don’t be plagued by bitterness. It has killed more poets. Don’t be bitter. Or envious, which fuels that bitterness.

You have each other. You have power. Just use it.

Stones in the Garden…

I’ve always wanted a garden even though I don’t know much about growing things.  I have destroyed a rubber plant twice and they’re supposed to be hard to kill.  I keep thinking that if I have a designated place for plants, they will grow well with water, air and soil and maybe a few stones here and there.  Certain plants need more or less sun than others.  I don’t know the exact planting season for each plant – hope it is on the package of seeds.  What I do know, is the smell and feel of good soil, played in enough of it as a child while digging up ant hills and worms.  I could always find at least one worm under a dug up stone.  The worms were always found in the best part of the soil.  Why did I spend so much time in dirt?  Feeding the pet ants of course!  Yeah, yeah, they didn’t know they were our pets but me and my big brother visited them all summer long with crumbs and water and ice cream so they were “pets.”  And, if we were careful, we could see the tunnels virtually intact once we started the excavation.

The observation and excavation skills I learned those summers work well when I’m writing or collecting moments for my writing.  I have to see the inner workings of things mainly because I believe there is a reason for everything and what’s on the inside affects your outside world more than you know.  So, when I say “does not cry” it is because I am hinting at a backstory to that character not trying to direct the actor.  I am lifting stones to get to the worm-filled soil.  My mother used to tell me that the worms made the soil good; at first sight a worm can appear to be an icky thing but ultimately the icky-ness is what enriches the soil or story…  The simple smell of it is as wonderful as spring rain on pavement and the feel of it in the hands always takes me back to the beginning of things…the place of possibility…