Playwrights Wish List
UPDATE: As promised, I’ve taken a first pass at everyone’s suggestions — which have come via email, Twitter, and in the comments section below. I’ve also tried to break them up into categories, which is how I think it might make sense to organize them.
Please note that, as I’ve indicated below, I think all of these “wishes” warrant serious discussion and consideration. I sincerely welcome any and all thoughts about any of them.
Submissions: Nuts and Bolts
- No playwright should ever receive a rejection letter that begins with anything that resembles “Dear [INSERT NAME OF PLAYWRIGHT HERE]” or that’s addressed to the wrong person.
- No playwright should ever receive a rejection letter that includes a significant misspelling, either of the playwright’s name or the title of the play.
- Theaters, development programs, and contests should standardize on what constitutes a play sample: 10 pages, 15 pages, 20 pages. Playwrights prefer a longer sample, but standardization is of paramount importance.
- Theaters, development programs, and contests should abandon any other esoteric submission requirements: demands that several different files be combined into a single PDF, or that an extra title page be created, or that bios be limited to a random number of words. Again, a standard set of requirements should be adopted.
- No playwright should be asked for a letter of reference in support of an application or submission.
- Theaters, development programs, and contests everywhere should immediately stop asking for paper submissions; all submissions can and should be handled electronically.
- No theater, development program, or contest should ask for submission fees of any kind.
Submissions: Selection Criteria
- All submissions for development programs and contests should be blind submissions; plays should be judged on their own merits, not on any other criteria.
- All submissions for theaters should also be blind during the first round of review and selection.
- No theater, development program, or contest should inquire as to the educational status of a playwright, nor should that status ever be used as a criterion for submissions.
- Theaters should replace the “never before produced scripts only” criteria with a less restrictive “no more than two prior productions” criteria.
- Playwrights should be allowed to re-submit scripts when substantial revisions have been completed.
Submissions: Transparency
- All submissions for theaters, development programs, and contests should be as transparent as possible.
- Theaters, development programs, and contests should publish the names and bios of judges, reviewers, and script readers prior to opening submissions.
- To whatever extent possible, theaters, development programs, and contests should indicate why a given play has or has not been selected after it has received extensive consideration.
Submissions: Best Practices
- Theaters, development programs, and contests should respond to every submission. It is not acceptable to let silence stand in for a courteous rejection.
- Theaters, development programs, and contests should publish a maximum turnaround time for review of submissions and be held accountable to the dates they publish.
Nomenclature
- No more infantile language should be used to describe play development: no cradles, no incubators, no hatcheries.
- The term “emerging” (as in “she’s an emerging playwright”) should be eliminated.
General
- More playwrights should be considered for artistic director positions.
- A higher percentage of plays produced in any given geographic area should be written by playwrights who live in that geographic area than is currently the case.
- More theaters nationwide should have playwrights on staff, or at least in long-tenured resident dramatist positions.
- More theaters nationwide should add playwrights to their artistic advisory boards.
I love this discussion! Some excellent ideas on here so far and I'm sure the list will grow!
