Questions…

So I submitted a play. Woo hoo. I sent in my play after a whirlwind writing session. Didn’t re-read. Just hit the page count required for a 10-minute play, print in PDF and uploaded it to the submission site. What the heck was I thinking?!?

Well, I was thinking. “woohoo, finished a complete thought!” I didn’t think I’d get chosen (which I don’t know if I have yet, but I seriously doubt it). I just wanted to present an alternate point of view from a rarely talked about group of people. They haven’t announced the chosen plays yet but after some discussion with another writer, I realized my error. I didn’t consider the group of actors who would be reading it. So now should I consider where I’m submitting it to and who will be reading it based on their acting company?

Should I consider this when I name my characters? Will that affect the reviewers who simply skim the piles of scripts they get? So if you have a character named Chris, how will your reader view them at first? Male or female? If you have 4 characters, one is named Nancy, the others Ned, George and Chris (sorry, I was watching a Nancy Drew marathon). So looking at that, how are the gender roles divided between the cast? If you had to make a split-second decision looking at just names you may say 3 male roles. But in reality, it isn’t. My script had 2 she/her roles, 1 he/him role and the last character was listed as they/them. Ugh. So where does this leave me?

I also love the idea of submitting for a theme. It gives me focus and the desire to write a new work instead of trying to adapt an existing script. OMG, and that’s another thing. How do you even do that? If I have a script and want to submit it to a particular event that has a given set of guidelines. How do I get this across and say “Yes, my play meets your theme”. If they can’t see it while reading my play, is it not all lost? The interpretation of my play is now dependent upon someone else’s understanding of the world and should I think of these things while I’m writing? or just write? I usually just write. But writing for a specific theme is so much more fun.

But ultimately. Ugh.