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

Publishing seminar with Abbie Van Nostrand of Samuel French, Deborah Hartnett of MTI, Music Theatre International, and Ron Pullins of Focus Publishing

Selection:
Focus: He has a list in mind what he wants to do and is interested in the changing theatre scene – acting, directing. “We sell people, not books.”  Doesn’t publish plays…except the dead ones. 

MTI: Publishes plays from Broadway, off-Broadway, sometimes a show in the Midwest.  Junior program, deliver “musical in a box.”  High school and middle school kids can keep the scripts.  Like to have a range of things for customers: large and small musicals.  They have almost 400 shows in the catalogue. 

French: publish and license straight and musical plays.  45K titles either archived or in print.  The last 4-5 years, seeking keeping authors happy, but looking for emerging and early career playwright.  Stats: Look at what theatres are doing, playing it safe.  Theatres are closing, cutting back on seasons, those that are doing the best are playing it safe.  They’re pushing their authors, finding the right theatre for the right show.  They’re pulling back on acquisitions.  They’re still actively seeing everything in NY, going to Humana, they get agent author submission, and website queries.  Check the website for updates.  But the reality is that the parameters are shrinking.

About Kitty Felde

Award-winning public radio journalist, writer, and TEDx speaker Kitty Felde hosts the Book Club for Kids podcast, named by The Times of London as one of the top 10 kidcasts in the world. The Los Angeles native created the Washington bureau for Southern California Public Radio and covered Capitol Hill for nearly a decade, explaining how government works to grownups. Now she explains it to kids in a series of mystery novels and podcasts called The Fina Mendoza Mysteries. Kitty was named LA Radio Journalist of the Year three times by the LA Press Club and the Society of Professional Journalists.