ACHTUNG!

If you're a playwright or care about the birth and life of new plays, you HAVE to read the recent posts at Parabasis. Check it out....

here

Here's some of the meat:

Theaters:

--Consider themselves one flop away from folding

The following statistics are self-reported, and are probably somewhat skewed due to the selection-bias of the survey (i.e. they only surveyed theaters that produced new plays):
-- New plays account for 45.6% of offerings on our stages
-- 23.8% are world premieres
-- Fewer than 2 shows a season are 2nd productions

--Prevalent emphasis on world premieres are helping to strangle the new play system

--1 in 5 theaters regularly seek new plays that have already premiered

--As a result: the writer/agent want to get as big a world premiere as possible if they want the play to have a future life. This drives them back into the big institutions that they find problematic in the first place

--Culturally specific theaters have to compete with large theaters for multi-cultural grants and frequently become "farm teams" for the artists who will be included in the "multi-cultural" slot at larger theaters

--Expectations have been downsized. Small spaces, small casts.

ACCESS:
--How do plays move through theaters? How do good theaters shepherd this process?

--Lack of Artistic Director access is frequently discussed. It is playwrights' biggest perceived problem

--Pass-blocking of admin staff, particularly lit depts.

--Most ADs agree that access is the key... so... "how can writers + ADs build relationships?"

--How much do agents help? (this part is tricky, data-wise, i'm gonna try to get it right):
-62% of playwrights had at least 1 play produced from direct submission to theater.
-83% have had 0-1 produced from agent submission
-Only roughly 5 agents are well regarded

--55% of playwrights think formal difficulty is the thing that is most likely to sink their plays

--ADs, on the other hand, rank cost and production demands as highest factor

--"Everyone wants the same 10-20 playwrights, and those writers are backed up with commissions"

Portland Theatre Opportunity

I received the following from the inimitable Sha Sha Sassone of The Bluestockings....


Portland Dramatists Workshop is returning!

You're invited to come enjoy and participate in the inaugural meeting of

What: The Bluestockings' Portland Dramatists Workshop

When: On-going Saturday afternoons, beginning May 10, 2008

Time: 2:00 p.m.

Where: Robie's Deli & More
6504 SE Foster Road
Portland, OR 97206
503) 788-7704

How: Every Saturday afternoon, whomever is interested will meet at Robie's at
2:00 p.m. for a reading of a previously-chosen local playwright's play-in-progress. After the play has been read once, everyone there will be asked for feedback. The playwright then has the option to make some changes, tweak this and that, and ask the actors to read it again. More discussion can then ensue. This is a workshopping format, very informal, and, hopefully, creative and fun.

Who's up first? PDW's Artistic Director Sha Sha has first dibsies. Her one-act play, "Kama Sutra Sundays" will be workshopped May 10th.

Interested in participating as a playwright, actor, or director? Come on out and talk to us on Saturday. We are looking forward to seeing former PDW friends again as well as meeting new dramatists!!!
The fabulous Bluestockings....

Fire on the Horizon

Leave it to Robert Brustein to mix it up and take no prisoners in the ongoing new play development/prodution debate. This from the current edition of American Theatre:

It's not that there are no playwrights in this country--I think there are more playwrights in this country of high quality than ever before in my memory. They just don't have a place to have their plays produced. Broadway has turned away from them altogether, as has even the resident theatre movement, which is no longer supported by the National Endowment for the Arts or the Ford Foundation or the Rockefeller Foundation.... Therefore, [the resident theatres] have begun to turn themselves into commercial producing organizations. And they're putting on things that have been successful elsewhere and ot taking chances on the new. As a result we have succeeded ourselves out of existence, I think.

Which is enough of a shot across the bow, but Brustein can't help himeself; he goes on to say:

And if that playwright does write that play, he or she is told, "We'll give you a reading, a workshop, another reading, another workshop." They never get productions. Richard Nelson wrote a very inflammatory speech about this recently, in which he complained that the playwright is always being helped to write his play by dramaturgs and by artistic directors, but he or she is never allowed to put the play on.

Ahh. I can't help it: I love the guy. Makes me feel better about the stack of rejections on my desk too.