What defines an “open submission” policy?

In recent years the O’Neill Conference has taken to sending out an email to all the playwrights around the world who’ve ever submitted to them since they first began keeping track of such things. The content is usually essentially the same: a simple reminder that it’s that time of year again–time to print 3 copies of your best full-length, time to create a special title page with your name blotted out, time to recycle the sentiments of all the other statements of purpose from all the other years into something vaguely “fresh” and, of course, time to write a check for $35, made payable to you-know-who.

This year, however, something seems to have changed. Or so it seemed to the countless playwrights who spontaneously erupted into a cyber chorus of complaint heard on theatre blogs here, there and everywhere. What had changed, exactly? Maybe nothing. Maybe only tone. Or maybe, as it seemed to some of those from whom I received emails over the past week, a line had been crossed.

Here’s a quote from the email that’s particularly striking:

The O’Neill’s Open Submission process is unique in the field of developing works for the stage, requiring neither agent submission nor previous experience. This commitment to a truly democratic process has led to great discoveries of new artists and works, now iconic in American theater.

It is an open secret in the theatre world that of the dozen or so slots available each July, all but two or three are spoken for long before the first $35 check has cleared. Established producers with major clout routinely lobby the upper echelons of the O’Neill staff for a slot in what has become to new plays what Sundance is to independent film—a ravenously scrutinized stepping stone on the path to commercial success.

The question we ought to be asking ourselves as writers is not why the organizers of such events continue to allow them to be hijacked by commercial interests and veer off course from their original mission. No. I say, the question we ought to be asking is, how long are we going to allow ourselves to be complicit in the charade? If the O’Neill wants to be the launching pad for the next season of commercially produced new work, then they should say so. And, instead of turning to impoverished writers for $35 a piece, they ought to be charging the producers a hefty placement fee.

The reason this will never occur is simple and can be summed up in one word: grants. As long as the O’Neill succeeds in casting itself as a uniquely “democratic” task force bent on a mission of uncovering the as-yet-undiscovered talent of the unknown playwright, the grant money on which they depend will continue to flow.

And speaking of grants, shouldn’t that $35 be tax-deductible?

REMARKS BY THE FIRST LADY
BEFORE PERFORMANCE AT PITTSBURGH CAPA HIGH SCHOOL

Pittsburgh CAPA High School
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

11:34 A.M. EDT

MRS. OBAMA:  Good morning!  (Applause.)  How are you all doing today?

AUDIENCE:  Good!

MRS. OBAMA:  This has been a great morning for us.  Don’t we think, my fellow spouses?  What do we think of these students?  (Applause.)  Bravo!

Thank you so much, Melissa, thank you for that wonderful introduction, thank you for introducing my fellow spouses.  And Melissa, thank you for your tireless work, your inspired leadership, and your unflagging devotion to the students here at CAPA.  You have every reason to be proud.

It is such a pleasure to be here.  I mean, it is more than a pleasure to be here.  I have been looking forward to this day the entire week.  So have my colleagues, as well.  So it is thrill — I am thrilled, and to welcome our distinguished guests from all around the world.  You can literally say that the world is watching you all today.  (Laughter.)  That’s a good thing.  And we’re here as we celebrate some of America’s most gifted performers and some of the hottest up-and-coming young talents in our nation.  That would be you.  (Applause.)

I want to start by recognizing one of the country’s greatest composers — and I know as students of the arts and music, you’ve heard of this gentleman, Marvin Hamlisch, who also happens to be one of the few people probably in the history of this country to have won an Emmy, a Tony, a Grammy and an Oscar.  Now, that’s pretty good.  (Laughter.)  And he’s been working with the students here today to put on the fabulous show that we’re going to see, so we want to thank him for his generosity.  (Applause.)

And I want to honor Gregory Lehane — a widely recognized director and a professor at Carnegie Mellon University — for giving his time to help direct today’s performances.  Let us give a hand to Mr. Gregory Lehane.  Thank you so much.  (Applause.)

And I also want to express my gratitude to the renowned artists who have given their time to come today to be a part of this performance — some of my very favorites.  Sara Bareilles.  I have to say, she is on my iPod. (Laughter.)  She has gotten me through many a day with “Gravity” and “Love Song.”  I love her.  (Laughter.)  Yo-Yo Ma.  You know, what more is there to say?  (Applause.)  And another one of my favorites, Trisha Yearwood.  So I’m just excited as you all.  (Laughter.)

And finally, I want to thank the marvelous young people — oh, all of you — who performed for us today who will be singing and dancing and playing music for us today in this performance and during this morning.  You brought tears to our eyes.  It means so much to see such talent on display.

As my good friend, Carla Sarkozy, said, you know, in America, you know, here you have people who can sing, and they can dance, and they can act.  Now, she said in France it’s not often that you get all of those wrapped in one.  But she said there’s something unique about America’s talents where it’s just so natural to see all of that talent on display.  So you all should be so very proud.

Now, there are a number of reasons why I personally wanted to come and bring our international visitors here to CAPA this morning.

We’re here because I wanted to introduce them to some of America’s finest, most creative, most accomplished young people.  I wanted to come here because I wanted to showcase the value of arts education — and you put that on display.  That fact that it gives the chance to our young people to discover their voices and to develop their talents, this should be an opportunity that is available for every single child in this nation and quite frankly around the world.

And I wanted to come here because this school embodies the belief that President Obama and I share — and that is the arts aren’t just a nice thing to do if you have a little time, right?  It’s not just a hobby, although it can be a very good hobby.  It shouldn’t be something you do just because you can afford it.

We believe strongly that the arts aren’t somehow an “extra” part of our national life, but instead we feel that the arts are at the heart of our national life.  It is through our music, our literature, our art, drama and dance that we tell the story of our past and we express our hopes for the future.  Our artists challenge our assumptions in ways that many cannot and do not.  They expand our understandings, and push us to view our world in new and very unexpected ways.

And most of all, the arts have the power to connect us to each other throughout nations.  It’s something that we tend to share with one another as spouses.  When we go to other countries, there’s a common theme — that we share our music, we share our dance, we share our culture — because it reminds us that our world here in America is not so distant from other cultures and worlds around the globe.

It’s what happens when a country music star like Trisha Yearwood performs in Italy, and students here at CAPA study Italian Renaissance art.  Or when Sara Bareilles draws inspiration from an Icelandic singer named Bjork or a Jamaican singer named Bob Marley.  Or when Yo-Yo Ma, born in Paris to Chinese parents, promotes the music of Kazakhstan and Brazil, and Israel, and Egypt and more — and goes on to become one of the most beloved American artists of all time.

It’s through this constant exchange — this process of taking and giving, this process of borrowing and creating — that we learn from each other and we inspire each other.  It is a form of diplomacy in which we can all take part.  I think Yo-Yo Ma put it best when he said, “When you learn something from people or from a culture, you accept it as a gift, and it is your lifelong commitment to preserve that gift and to build on that gift.”

And that is what we’re doing here today.  We’re presenting the gifts of these wonderful American artists to our friends from all around the world.  And these artists are passing on the gift of their magnificent example to these young people who are here today, studying in this school — showing them that if they dream big enough, and work hard enough, and believe in themselves, that they can do and achieve some uncommon things in their lifetime.

That is the core of my mission as First Lady — to share the gifts that come with life in the White House with many of our young people as I possibly can find.  That’s why I’ve worked to make the White House a showcase of America’s rich cultural life.  We have held country music celebrations, and jazz performances, and I think we held the very first poetry jam that has ever happened in the White House.

And we’ve done a lot more.  And we’ve done it by also inviting young people from around the local community to take part in these activities, because the truth is, is that even though many of these kids are living in Washington, D.C. and in cities across the country, just minutes away from the centers of culture and power and prestige, many of them feel like these resources are really miles away, very far beyond their reach.  That’s something that I felt growing up.

And my husband and I are determined to help to bridge that distance.  It is critical that we begin to bridge that distance.  We want to show these young people that they have a place in our world, in our museums, our theaters, our concert halls.  And most importantly we want these people to know that they have a place in our White House.  We want them to experience the richness of our nation’s cultural heritage, one on one, up close and personal, not on TV.  We want to show them that they can have a future in the arts community — whether it’s a hobby, or a profession, or simply as an appreciative observer.

And that’s what so many of you here at CAPA have been doing here in Pittsburgh, as well — playing music for local senior citizens and elementary schools; and designing murals to beautify neighborhoods — using your talents to lift up others.

In the end, those efforts, and the performances we’re enjoying today, and the work these artists do every day here in America and around the world — all of that reminds us of a simple truth:  that both individually and collectively, we all have a stake in the arts, every single one of us.

And you don’t need to be rich or powerful to lift your voice in song or get out of your seat and shake your groove thing.  (Laughter.)  You don’t need to be a Van Gogh to paint a picture, or a Maya Angelou to write a poem.  You don’t need a Grammy or an Oscar or an Emmy to make your work on the cultural life of your community or your country a valuable one.

And to people who might not speak a single word of the same language, who might not have a single shared experience, might still be drawn together when their hearts are lifted by the notes of a song, or their souls are stirred by a vision on a canvas.

That is the power of the arts — to remind us of what we each have to offer, and what we all have in common; to help us understand our history and imagine our future; to give us hope in the moments of struggle; and to bring us together when nothing else will.  That is what we celebrate here today.

And it is now my great pleasure to turn this microphone back over to your principal, Melissa, and let the performances begin.

So thank you all for having us here.  (Applause.)  Good luck to you all.  Work very hard.  Study.  Listen to your parents and your teachers.  Take care.  (Applause.)

By Anne Hamilton, Archiving Supervisor

Now it’s easier than ever to find valuable, archived articles at thelooponline.net

Major categories include: Articles, Bragging Writes, Corrections, Events, Featured Submission Opportunities, Loop News, Mailbox, New Members, Rants, Scribbles, and Short Plays. Gary’s Scribbles column is also be listed by date – what an invaluable resource!

This summer, our archival team has been taking issues in the old pdf format and posting them on the newly-designed website. Our newest feature is tagging, which allows you to search for articles and plays according to author name, title, subject, and other key words. Four or five tags are highlighted directly beneath the end of the article.

For instance, “WeGoCentric”, about self-producing in Chicago, has the following tags: Chicago Theatre, Dramatists Guild, Self-Producing, and WeGoCentric

Click on any one of the tags, and you’ll find a list of postings dealing with that topic. You can also search by author.

Our next phase will include creation of a Table of Contents for your convenience.

Our team includes: Webmaster Dewey Davis-Thompson and interns Louisa Balch, Justin Schwartz, and Samantha Sembler. Stay tuned for a short profile of these marvelous interns, whom I discovered in my dramaturgy class at Muhlenberg College this spring.

Happy Looping!

I have been a playwright for over thirty years with some successes and many failures. I have always felt at the mercy of theatre companies, submitting scripts and then waiting . . . and hoping . . . and waiting . . . and . . .self-doubting . . . and, well, you get the idea.

I thought many times — who is going to come to my aid? What theatre is going to say, “We love your musical!” Where was my Angel (who, I fantasized I would somehow meet at a party) who would (after I charmed her and explained my musical) say,  “Here’s $1,000,000 to produce your show!” Yeah, sure, all of this could happen. And I could win the Lottery, too. The odds are about the same.

I live in Chicago. The Windy City has a thriving theatrical community and literally hundreds and hundreds of talented playwrights call it home.

Companies such as Chicago Dramatists, Theatre Building Chicago, and others provide a fabulous service, supporting playwrights through classes, readings, and production opportunities. But due to budgets, staffing, space and time, these opportunities have limitations. There is a shortage of opportunities and a wealth of very good, if not experienced, playwrights in this town. For every opportunity, there are ten playwrights who believe they deserve that chance. And they are right. Here are excerpts from an article written by Gary Garrison, Creative Director of the Dramatists’ Guild of America, discussing self-production with a group of dramatists in Seattle in 2008:

“. . . Guild members quickly articulated a common concern . . . dramatists can’t get produced in their own backyards.”

“What was extraordinary . . . was the almost instant call — by representatives of three large theatres . . . for playwrights to stop focusing on something that’s probably not going to happen for a variety of predominantly economic reasons, and instead to channel that passion and energy to either co-producing . . . or self-producing.”

“. . . there was something empowering in dramatists realizing that if they want their stories told to a local audience, they’d most likely have to figure out for themselves how best to do that. And they should. They should figure it out because every voice should be heard, and every story desperately needs to be told.”

So, how do playwrights who have a finished piece, either a play or a musical, get their play from the page to the stage? I faced this very situation in the fall of 2007 when I finished the first draft for musical, Song-Poems Wanted! The Musical. Although I was a member of Theatre Building Chicago’s Musical Theatre Workshop, we had missed the deadline for submission to their 2008 Stages Festival. And though I knew the show had potential, I wasn’t very optimistic that it would be chosen for one of the Monday Night

Readings at TBC (there are only 8 each year) for the 2008-2009 year. At that time Chicago Dramatists didn’t support the development of musicals.

I had a choice. I could wait a year or try the traditional submission route (which basically still takes a year or more to come to fruition, if it ever does) or I could take the bull by the horns and force the development of this show. I knew the show needed to go through the development process (table readings, public readings, workshops) for it to become polished.

Self-production. Self-promotion. Those were the answers I discussed. In order to achieve what I wanted to do without waiting in a long line, I was determined to do it myself. Fortunately, with a background as an actor, director, producer, I had self-produced my own works in the past.

So I took the leap of faith, put almost ten-thousand dollars of my own money into developing the show, and as a result it will be presented at the Stages Festival, Theatre Building Chicago on August 22^nd and 23^rd, 2009. And this is just the beginning of the process of obtaining a commercially viable production of the show.

I wanted to share my experience with other writers, so I formed WeGoCentric, the Writers’ Entrepreneurial Group of Chicago in May. The Mission of WeGoCentric is to assist writers to become entrepreneurs by helping them self-produce, self-promote and self-publish their plays and musicals.

Think of yourself, the playwright part of you, as a business. Of course you are an artist, too. But for most artists, to be fulfilled, your art needs to be exposed to the public.

Think of WeGoCentric as a business-to-business, service-based company, with writers paying fees for the services they desire to achieve those goals.

WeGoCentric hopes to become a bridge that will take your work from the page to the stage and lead you closer to a legitimate production of your play or musical.  We encourage writers to be entrepreneurs and to further their work via alternative methods.

WeGoCentric provides writers with a safe and trusted support system (typically provided by a theatre company) by connecting them with producers, directors, actors and support people who know how to develop and produce new plays.

We hope to create a level of artistic trust so that you know your play will receive the attention it needs. We help writers produce table readings, public readings, and workshops of their plays and musicals. We help writers format their plays correctly, write synopses and cover letters for the submission process, and we even provide help with the actual submission process. We also develop web pages for writers and their plays. In the future, we hope to originate creative and cost effective ways of promoting new work to theatres across the country.

But by no means is WeGoCentric the only outlet for playwrights to move their projects forward. Here a few other suggestions. First, every playwright who has a play finished needs to join the Dramatist’s Guild of America. Period. That’s the first $95 you should invest. The membership provides so many benefits and the Chicago branch is strong and growing under the guidance of Doug Post. By attending the meetings and participating in the group discussions, you might find a writers’ cooperative that you could join (or form) that supports new work. Second, explore Chicago Dramatist’s and Theatre Building Chicago’s programs and find out how you can take advantage of the classes and developmental processes offered. Both programs have allowed members to self-produce shows using their facility within the last year. There are no guarantees, but at least there are opportunities. Third, find a theatre that you feel is perfect for your play, and be realistic. If you are a novice playwright, the chances of the Goodman producing your work are very, very slim. So find a smaller theatre whose mission statement resonates with your play, and vice versa. Then focus on seeing their shows, making contacts and maybe even volunteering, just to get your foot in the door and your name known.

There is no question that playwrights will self-produce and self-promote more and more as theatre companies offer fewer and fewer opportunities. The only question is how to do so without falling prey to the “vanity production” syndrome. Russ Tutterow of Chicago Dramatists says, “. . . if the production is good, no one cares who produced it. If it is bad, and it was produced by the author, then it’s a vanity production.”

So how do you make sure your self-production is one of the good ones and not one of the vanity productions? Let’s assume you have a finished first draft of a play or musical. That doesn’t mean it is ready for Broadway. I don’t care if you are Stephen Sondheim or Edward Albee. It needs to go through a developmental process before it is time for serious money to be invested. The process can be shortened with experience, but for less experienced playwrights, it might goes like this:  Finished first draft, followed by a dramaturg or a director reading and commentary and evaluation, followed by rewrites, followed by a table reading with a few friends and mentors, followed by evaluation, followed by rewrites, followed by a table reading (this time using actors who are age appropriate, etc.), followed by evaluation, followed by rewrites, followed a public reading, hopefully in front of 100 or less audience members that represent the audience you are hoping to attract (i.e. not just friends and family).

By this point, the writer should have worked most of the bugs out of the script and the public reading will allow an audience’s reactions to “tell” the writer if the play is communicating what the playwright thought it was. If positive, their response will excite the playwright to move ahead with the project and find a way to take the next step. If not, it may be time to move on to another project. And at least the writer didn’t put his work in front of a paying audience and critics, spending thousands of dollars to find out that his or her play needs more work.

If you are a playwright, good luck and good fortune, for it can pay off, artistically and financially. But it doesn’t just happen. Angels are few and far between. At least I know I’ve never met mine. If you want your play to move forward, you are going to have to play an active role in its development.

For more information about writer support groups and self-production, take a look at these websites:  WeGoCentric, http://www.WeGoCentric.com. You can visit the Dramatist’s Guild of America at http://www.dramatistsguild.com and ask for information about the Chicago area meetings. Contact Chicago Dramatists at http://www.chicagodramatists.org, and Theatre Building Chicago at http://theatrebuildingchicago.org.

THE ART OF COMMUNICATION

by

Daniel Damiano

These days, it seems as if Beckett may be the most referenced playwright in any language.  Yet one observation I have made, amidst the bevy of tributes, is that there is a certain unbridled relish in depicting Beckett as a control freak with regard to his work.  After all, how dare an author specify that he wants his play set where he set it within his text?  How dare he want a man play a man, a woman play a woman, a tree play a tree? I bring this up because, lately, I have had reason to wonder what playwrights, who are not Mr. Beckett, have to do to secure that their play be performed according to their desires, aside from what is conveyed in the text?

The obvious answer would seem to be – communication.  Yes, a lovely thought, so long as it were a commodity that was existent in all playwright/director relationships. When it is not, however, the question then becomes, “Does a playwright, regardless of being provided a formal contract by the producing theatre company, need to write up a disclaimer with every play that has been selected for production?”  In other words, does a playwright need to specify that a director and/or producer must consult him/her regarding any alterations of character gender, age, time period, setting, etc? Of course, this answer is usually assumed by playwrights and, in that assumption, it would seem superfluous to make such a demand in writing.  Yet, sometimes, especially when a playwright is unable to attend rehearsals, communication with the author may not be a priority to a director, particularly an inexperienced one.

In a few cases, I have actually had to seek out a director or, failing to have his or her contact info, have e-mailed the producer requesting that my assigned director contact me, kindly stating that I would so enjoy speaking with him or her about…my play!  With regards to the latter, I have heard responses ranging from, “Yes, he or she will be in touch with you soon,” to the absurdly, “Well, directors here are only told to contact playwrights if they have questions.”  What the f&c%?  Of course, my response to the latter –and very real- statement was one that ultimately resulted in a quick response from my director anyway.  Is this an obsessive playwright?  I don’t think so.  It is simply my emphatic right to want to be involved.  After all, we are playwrights and, as such, what atrocity have we committed other than provide a theatre company with another reason to exist?

In truth, I for one love working with directors and know when to get out of the way when necessary.  However, I am here and, at least in the beginning, strongly encourage a line of communication with my directors, making sure that we share a mutual understanding of the play. And if they have questions, hey, guess what?  Here I am.  Ask me, please!  I‘d LOVE to help.  My play is not a Jeopardy question that you must answer alone.

Theatre is, without question, a collaborative art and I am thrilled to be a part of the collaboration, even from afar.

That said, this article was inspired by a recent incident with regards to a one act of mine which was not only offered a production, but was the recipient of a nice little award and cash prize from an out-of-town theatre company who, for this article, will remain nameless.

Well, first things first; yes, the check cleared.  However, the incident in question was one of a certain liberty taken in the casting of a male actor in a distinctly female role.   Not only that, but I did not hear about this change until the first call I received from my director…when she was already a week into rehearsal!  After receiving her voicemail message, I promptly called back and, as diplomatically as possible, conveyed my displeasure in no uncertain terms. I also stated that this was an egregious breech of trust, to which my director could only respond with repeated apologies, while also stressing to me that the choice was not one of the experimental nature, but was in the interest of the play.  In essence, she stated that the “feminine male” cast was head and shoulders above the other actual women who had also read for the role.

Incidentally, the play consists solely of 4 women, and now was to be played by 3 women and 1 man (as a woman).  I should also mention that this is a drawing room comedy set in 18^th century England, so it was not quite as jarring as if this were, say, a woman in 21^st Century New Jersey.  When you take into account grander costumes and make-up, this can be masked fairly well.  And it actually was, according to a video of rehearsals to which I was privy.

Still, I stated to both my director and to the company’s artistic director, who also besieged me with apologies, that if this were in New York (my home base), if this were a full-length of mine, or if this were being performed for a considerable run and was likely to be reviewed, I would have legally denied them the rights.   Yet, in the end, I did elect to have them go forward with the understanding that there would be no text changes and that the gender miscasting would not impede the content of the play.  They swore that the play would be produced faithfully.

Obviously, the situation did not have to get to this point.  I didn’t need to feel this sense of betrayal, even if there was no malicious intent.   It was simply a case of a theatre company feeling that their producing my work was all the communication that was necessary.

It wasn’t.

Since I raised this issue with just a few fellow playwrights, I quickly became informed of incidents where their plays, unbeknownst to them, had had whole scenes cut, characters omitted, lines rewritten–changes that would send many of us to the nearest cardiologist.

And in most cases, they discovered these changes when they came into town for a performance after being unable to attend rehearsals, or by friends or family members who had attended a performance in their stead.

It can certainly be argued that, even in the age of the internet, we do take a certain risk when sending our plays out of state and are not provided with a formal contract that protects us. This is especially true if, due to fiscal concerns, we cannot attend most rehearsals or even catch a performance.  But in no way does this mean that we are foregoing our right to have our plays performed as written. And, most importantly, in no way should a director or producer, regardless of contract, assume our trust.  That is, of course, unless we have specifically signed away our right to be consulted.

So what’s the solution?  Communication, mutual honesty and a collective desire to serve the play that we, as playwrights, have created.

I don’t think that’s asking too much.

Congratulations to Anne Hamilton, our Loop Archives Coodinator.  Anne will be interviewed on a national radio program on the topic of USING THE ARTS TO HEAL on June 11th.

Read her article from Page and Stage called Healing with Playwrighting

By: Anne M. Hamilton, M.F.A.
This month marks the thirtieth anniversary of my best friend  Curtis’ death in a car accident.  The loss was one of the most significant events in my life, and I’m sure that it helped influence me to be an artist.  I’ve been writing a play named ANOTHER WHITE SHIRT about four women who have lost their men accidentally or suddenly.

Some losses happen in fatal accidents and some through illness. The play started when I wrote a monologue featuring a character named Mary, a teenager who is modeled after me. Mary, too, has lost her best friend in a car accident, and in the scene she visits his gravesite and talks to him. She expresses feelings of helplessness, anger, fear of the future, and a quiet desperation now magnified by this sudden loss. When my friend Curtis died in 1979, my emotions became frozen. Although I was suffering turmoil, I also walked around in a state of numbness. After studying playwrighting and dramaturgy at Columbia University, I gained the tools to express many things – the emotions in a deeply dramatic situation, the process involved in building or tearing apart relationships, and the incremental steps to maintaining stability despite unexpected situations.

I used ANOTHER WHITE SHIRT’s writing process to pull long-buried feelings out of myself, and to move thoroughly through the particulars of my loss. By actively engaging my deepest emotions – and fears – I found that I had not lost love, but had gained it by actively continuing to find my place in the world. I encourage anyone to try her hand at writing plays. We all made up stories as kids, and most of us know how to tell a good story. Just take some time, go into a quiet room, and imagine a scene in your head. Then write it down. During the writing and production process, I’m sure the playwright gains more insight and benefit than anyone, even the director, actors or audience. The play has had two readings at Julia’s Reading Room, a program of the League of Professional Theatre Women, and it is close to completion. I have also been promised a development workshop in NYC early next year.

ANOTHER WHITE SHIRT is ultimately about healing – about moving through the process of grief until the mind, body, and mind/heart can stabilize and reach some sense of acceptance of the present and hope for the future.

To read Mary’s monologue, please visit my web column at http://opentohope.com/hope/dealing-with-grief/grief-anddepression/how-grief-movesthrough-the-body/

Anne Hamilton, principal of Hamilton Dramaturgy, has eighteen years of experience in the professional theatre in New York City, across the nation, and internationally. STAGE DIRECTIONS magazine named her a trailblazer in her field. She is an award-winning Columbia  University graduate and will serve as Dramaturg for the New Voices student play festival at Muhlenberg College in October.

Please visit Anne’s website at www.hamiltonlit.com.
Email:hamiltonlit@gmail.com, Phone: 215-536-1074.

By Les Hunter

Leslie Harrell Dillen in STEPMOTHER IN A SARI at Jackson Rep

Unbelievably, the entrance line to Queens Theatre in the Park snaked out the door, around the corner and down the hall. For a hot new production in Manhattan this would have been expected. But for an on-book reading of a new play by a relatively unknown playwright, on a Saturday night in, of all places, Queens?

Welcome to the new theater scene in Queens, NY, where, from Long Island City to Corona, professional theater with a strong interest in both community engagement and new play development is flourishing. With five recently formed companies producing nearly 20 major productions this season alone, Queens is looking more and more like a thriving regional theater scene, right in Broadway’s own backyard.

Carl Kissin in NO SOLO MIO at Jackson Rep

As late as 1996, the only professional groups in Queens were Black Spectrum and the Thalia Spanish Theatre, two companies still going strong and producing work specifically catering to the black and Hispanic communities, respectively. “When we started Queens Theatre in the Park, (in 1997) there were virtually no professional theaters in Queens. Now fortunately, there’s more,” says Rob Urbanti, Director of New Play Development at Queens Theatre in the Park, or “QTIP,” as it is lovingly referred to by thespians on the scene.

QTIP, by far the largest of the new theaters, is housed in a lavish new 23 million dollar performing arts center. The Flushing Meadows facility operates a 4 million dollar a year budget, showcasing dance and music, as well as old and new plays. Their two new play development series, “Immigrant Voices Project” and “Plays a Mother Would Love” dedicate workshops and development to several new scripts a year, culminating in public readings. QTIP is currently interested in letters of inquiry, and does not accept unsolicited scripts outright. More information can be found at http://www.queenstheatre.org

Across the borough, The Chocolate Factory, which opened in 2001 in Long Island City, has become a theatrical hothouse of new plays and performance art, attracting a hip, young crowd and rave reviews. Their recent “Redevelop (Death Valley)” comments on commercial development in LIC. (http://chocolatefactorytheater.org/)

Astoria Performing Arts Center (APAC), which supplies a robust community arts program in conjunction with main stage shows, also opened in 2001. “You have to come in with an attitude of loving where you are, appreciating where you are,” says Astoria Performing Arts Center Executive Director Taryn Drongowski. Aside from their main stage productions, APAC works with the Astoria community through a number of theater workshops and classes specifically for Queens residents. Their new play development series, “15/20” looks for new plays to eventually produce, though they don’t yet take open submissions. (http://www.apacny.org/)

The Queens Players, whose work mainly focuses on new interpretations of old classics, opened its LIC doors in 2005 (http://www.thequeensplayers.com). While Jackson Rep, the most recent addition to the scene, is located in Jackson Heights and looks to create new work that engages their diverse community. “Jackson Rep is a company that tries to connect to the cultural and geographical climate of the neighborhood,” says Ari Laura Kreith, Artistic Director of Jackson Rep, whose two new shows “Stepmother in A Sari,” and “No Solo Mio,” which were developed in conjunction with the theater, open in late April and hope to draw in both the local Indian and Hispanic populations. “We’re looking to create opportunities for local writers and artists,” notes Kreith. (http://www.jacksonrep.org)

Community engagement may be one of the reasons these theaters are thriving. “You have to be invested in the neighborhood,” observes Drongowski. “When you have a place where, you are as interested in your audience as you hope they are in your shows, then you have a more dynamic experience.”

“It’s important to connect specifically to neighborhoods,” agrees Angel Gil Orrios at Thalia Spanish Theatre, but he also attributes the sustainability of theater in Queens to cooperation between theater companies, “We don’t like trying to compete for funding with other theaters, that’s why we like to build coalitions.” Drongowski agrees, “There’s this great spirit of non-competition here. It’s an understanding that a great theater scene in Queens is one that we will all benefit from. We’re trying to make going to theater a habit.”

Rob Urbanti, at QTIP, on the other hand, has another reason why theater here is on the rise, and one that portends great hope for the future, “The theater scene has grown here because people in Queens support theater in Queens.”

by Monica Bauer

After reading Gary Garrison’s helpful letter to anyone in love with a playwright, I decided to try my hand at the letter we’ve all composed in our heads a million times; the “Dear Director” letter.

Dear Director:
Thanks for agreeing to direct my play. I hope you’re doing it because you love it. If you don’t love it, pass on it. Don’t sign on just because you think you can improve the writing. That means you don’t like what’s there, but have another play you’d like to write on top of it, the way artists in the Renaissance would paint over a picture to save the expense of starting over on a fresh canvass. That is every playwright’s secret fear.

This doesn’t mean you have to love every single word and remain silent during the process. I want your collaborative smarts, but I want them on the side of the play I am trying to write. Feel free to ask questions about the parts of the play you do not love. Questions are lovely, because they imply we are in this together. You ask, I’ll try to answer. And sometimes your questions will be so good that I find myself re-thinking the weak spots and creating spine where there had been only soggy mush. I don’t resent you for asking questions! I’d much rather have you ask the question than read that question in twelve-point type in a review! When you ask and we talk, we are both doing our job, which is to make the play better than I imagined, and better than if you re-wrote it yourself!

The most important thing in any relationship is honesty. I can smell condescension a mile away, and nothing kills collaboration faster. So don’t try to flatter or finesse me, putting off my questions and dodging my phone calls, all the while telling me that you think I’m more talented than Sarah Ruhl or Neil LaBute. This is sadly common in the  theater, but let’s not let it spoil the work we do together,

I promise to consider every single suggestion you bring my way with an open mind and a spirit of collaboration. But if you don’t bring the suggestion to me first, and instead cut lines or change stage directions in wild ways as part of your “vision”, don’t be surprised if I either pull my play, and/or tell all my playwriting friends to avoid you like the plague.

We all have stories of being mis-directed. My personal favorite was the time I wrote a funny ballad about a man saying goodbye to his cat, only to discover on opening night the director literally stopped the show before the song could begin, while the stage manager slowly walked a real live cat onto the stage, forcing the poor actor to sing to a living, breathing, shedding 40-pound tabby. Sigh.

Please understand the shoes I stand in. You are looking at work that may have been in my hard drive for five or ten years, in ten or fifty different versions. Most of my life as an emerging playwright has been spent looking at variations of the phrase “no thanks.” Readings, workshops, and especially full productions are rarer than a Republican at a Dixie Chicks concert. So my natural tendency is to say “yes, sir”, and “yes ma’am”. and when asked to jump, ask “how high”?

But if I go into that default mode that says “okay” too quickly, it’s part of your job to look me in the eye, smile, and ask “Are you sure”?

It’s hard to trust my baby with a stranger, so let’s have a beer or a coffee together. Let’s spend some time talking about our favorite plays and productions. Let’s spend some time talking about our favorite pets, or the best place to eat sushi in Manhattan. Let’s laugh together at something. And after that, let’s talk about ground rules: how you like to work in rehearsal, how I like to work in rehearsal; what I can be persuaded to change, and what I think is necessary for the work to remain my work.

I’ll treat you the way I want to be treated, not gossip with the cast behind your back or dig my heels in when a change would improve things just to show I’ve got control. I’ll work hard at being a grown-up, and you should, too. And if things work out, maybe we can have one of those great collaborations that span decades, where we finish each-others sentences like an old married couple–or at the very least, say nice things about each other afterwards, and mean them.

By Maureen Kane Berg

Hey Susan – Congratulations on your instantaneous success!–after just 47 years of living and 35 years of singing!  Now, could you please get out of my head?  My own dream is incompatible with spending my days watching your video on YouTube over and over again.  I want to stop googling your name to read articles like “What If Susan Boyle Couldn’t Sing?” or to watch interviews of you on Britain’s  ITV. (Will she get that makeover? Amanda advises against it.)  I want to stop laughing with superiority at the out-of-date tallies of your YouTube viewing numbers – the news clips cannot be posted quickly enough:  “Over ten million?” – Give me a break, it’s already over 12 million.  “More than 20 million?”  That is so two days ago.  (And when I happen upon an early report that mentions something paltry like 2.5 million viewings, it seems terribly quaint in a cute Scottish village sort of way.)

But most of all, I want to stop looking up the video of you singing “I Dreamed A Dream” from Les Miserables on Britain’s Got Talent.  I want to stop checking, before I click on it, to be sure it is the full 7:31 minute video, in order to get the impact of the belittling introductions, the smirking teenagers, the smug judges, and  your hip-rolling defiance to their reaction to your age. (47!?   Horrors!  Ironically, my exact age.)  I want to stop following your victory march through the song:  Cheers at the end of your first line!  Simon’s eyebrows raising, and Amanda’s jaw dropping!  Here comes the end of the second line, and Piers is clapping and smiling with a tear in his eye; Simon flashes his state-of-the-art dental perfection; and the audience is on its feet!  The bridge goes up the scale to that climactic note, and the roof blows off the auditorium!  Amanda stands to clap, showing off her slim figured, non-Susan Boylishness.  Simon rests his chin in his hands with his elbows propped on the table, for all the world like Judy Garland singing to Clark Gable.

I want to stop craving the judges’ awestruck admiration tinged with disbelieving condescension and your endearingly awkward gestures of victory upon getting three “yeses.”  I want to stop remembering the details of your performance so well that I can describe them in detail to my husband on our evening walk or write them from memory in this confession of obsession.

I want to get the endless loop of that song out of my head.  But when you move, smiling, into the ending:  “I dreamed a dream what life would be, so different from this hell I’m living,. . . but life has killed the dream I dreamed,” the combined poignancy and irony are irresistible.  Poignancy because you lived 47 years with an unfulfilled dream and we can all see sadly why “no one ever gave you the chance,” as you told an eye-rolling Simon before you began.  Irony because as you sing this final line, “life is giving you the dream back” in the most dramatic way possible.  Recording contracts and Oprah appearances are headed your way.  You have an agent!  An agent!
My voice is never going to bring down the house, but I write musical theater.  My first musical did get into a small theater and it did have a successful run of four sold-out performances. But that was over a year ago, and to build on that I have to write the next one and hope for, . . . maybe six performances?  I have limited time between caring for two kids and compensating for my lack of income by doing most everything around the house.  I CAN’T SPEND THAT TIME REPEATEDLY WATCHING 7:31 MINUTE VIDEOS AND DREAMING OF OVERNIGHT SUCCESS.  (It’s like trying to achieve riches by buying lottery tickets instead of putting the $5.00 in the bank daily, except even less likely to succeed.)

So, Susan Boyle – I banish you from my head.  That is, until your next performance on Britain’s Got Talent (…on May 23, 2009. It’s on my calendar).

Excerpts from recent postings on the dramaturgy message board in which dramaturgs try to explain just what it is they do.

From Sydney Cheek O’Donnell, Dramaturg and Head of Theatre Studies at the University of Utah: “I think that we get into the problem of the “intentional fallacy” if we think of ourselves as somehow trying to realize a playwright’s “vision”–it assumes that the author is the source of all possible meaning. Indeed, there are many texts (canonical and not) that need to be challenged. And, as you point out, there may be no single “playwright” in collaboratively created performances. I think of myself more as an advocate for the audience than the playwright.  Or perhaps more precisely as an advocate for the *text in performance*–I am an advocate for a dialectical process of meaning-making among people, including the artists and the audience.”

Almost as good is this gem from one Robert Neblett who accords our scripts the lofty status of “the primary reference point for discussion”: “I see my role as a bridge/mediator between the text, artists, and audience, collaborating with a wide variety of individuals to make sure that what makes its way to the stage in the production is the best representation of both the text’s literary and performative potential.  This does not necessarily mean that the written text possesses ultimate primacy or authority but it is always the primary reference point for discussion.”

Amid phrases such as “dialectical process of meaning-making” and “performative potential”, I was grateful that Melissa Cooper provided this bit of clarity: “So a dramaturg’s work is to understand the writer’s vision can be a part of the development of a piece that reacts against that vision.”