Writing by the Numbers 2019: Audience and Output (and Inputs)

Chore Monkeys was published by Stage Rights in 2019

It's time for my annual summary of writing/work stats. This exercise is useful for me, personally, because it builds some accountability into a work life that doesn't have much overall structure or supervision. I also hope it's helpful for other writers by providing a glimpse into how one writer's life operates. We often either don't track what's going on, or else we keep stats as closely held secrets, because we either don't want to look like failures or else appear to be bragging. However, if we share the data widely, we all have a better sense of what's possible, or else feel less bad about how we ourselves are doing. And more data allows us to make informed choices and become better negotiators.

This year, I'm splitting my normal post into three parts, because one comprehensive data dump is too damn long. Today, I'll focus on Audience/Output/Inputs, and then over the next week, I'll write about money and time.

Theresa Nguyen The Nature Plays (Sworn to Secrecy) at Mount Auburn Cemetery

My writing/life stats for 2019 (part 1):  

Performances/Audience.
Number of Productions/Readings:  46 (43 productions, 3 readings) 

These were of 28 different plays, including 5 full-length scripts, and I'm counting The Nature Plays and The America Plays as full-length works, even though each is made of 5 separate short plays. This means I had 3 productions of full-length plays, all in Massachusetts. The one-acts and shorts were performed all over the place, including in Canada, Mexico, and 21 US states.

Number of Performances:  310.  This includes published plays. I shattered my old record of 259 from last year, thanks to Cato and Dolly running for 162 performances.

Previous Five Years productions and performances:
2018:  42 productions and readings.  259 performances.
2017:  48 total.  227 performances.
2016:  40 total. 106 performances.
2015:  49 total. 151 performances.
2014:  44 total. 123 performances.


Estimated Audience for 2019:  12,077 total. 

Previous Five Years audiences:
2018:  11,424
2017:  13,092
2016:  6,000
2015:  11,578
2014:  13,411

For published plays I estimate low--40 people/performance. I don't track plays used by students in competition, so the actual number is higher. Companies don't always give me the audience report, so I estimate the best I can.

I'm glad to see growth from last year, though it's not my best ever. My goal was 10,000, and I'm happy to have surpassed my goal.

It's worth noting that these audience numbers come from a LOT of small productions, plus some nice festivals, and three productions that I produced myself. Almost all these numbers are for short plays and one-acts. So when people ask, "why bother writing short plays?" I answer: because they reach audiences.

Reaching audiences is my most important goal and task, more than making money or getting famous--I want my work to engage with audiences. One of the best things about Plays in Place productions, especially Cato & Dolly, is that we don't just reach the usual theatre-going crowd--Cato & Dolly played to more than 4,000 people this year who randomly wandered into the Old State House off of the Freedom Trail. And they were highly engaged by the show.

Some perspective: being cautious of comparisons

It's all too human, especially for a numbers person, to want to compare how I'm doing to other writers out there. Since so few people share those numbers, it's a little hard to know. There's no doubt that high profile playwrights see much larger audiences (and make a lot more money). Lauren Gunderson gets many, many, many times more audience than I do, because she's getting regional productions all over the place. Don Zolidis is king of the educational theatre market right now, and he can see 1,000 productions at schools in a SINGLE YEAR. It's hard to even imagine how many people see Lin Manuel Miranda's work in any single week.

On the other hand, a fringe company in Boston might produce 3-4 shows and not see more than a couple thousand audience members for the whole season. And I've had years where I was lucky if a few hundred people saw my work in an entire year.

So, where do I stand, objectively, in the greater theatrical ecosystem? Hard to say. What matters is whether I'm reaching my own goals, and if I'm not, what can I do to improve next year.

Sarah Newhouse, Ken Baltin, Amanda Collins, and Robert Najarian in The America Plays (All the Broken Pieces)
at Mount Auburn Cemetery

Books sold:  35   Last year I sold 77, but I'd just released  The Secret of Spirit Lake.

Previous Five Years of book sales:
2018:  77
2017:  40+
2016:  60+
2015:  350+
2014:  78

Obviously the difference between the number of people who see my plays in a given year (more than 10,000) and the number who buy my books is pretty extreme. Part of this is because I don't spend much time marketing the books (some of which have been out for a while). Part of why I don't spend much time marketing the books is that I haven't figured out a way to do it successfully--when I do make the effort, it takes and time and money, but results in very few sales.

My sense is that part of this is because my books are not very genre-specific. And part of it is because of the huge glut of books in the marketplace right now, between traditional publishing houses, small presses, and self-published books. When Tornado Siren was first published, it got some traction, even though it was with a small press. And when I put out the ebook for it, it consistently picked up maybe a dozen ebook sales every month. The long-tail effect. But since then, because of the volume of competition, the long tail effect might still exist, but it has very little practical impact.

I'm still looking to find more readers for The Secret of Spirit Lake.

Submissions:

Total:   64 (down from 180 last year)
queries for plays:  2
play scripts submitted:  62 (Last year I sent 162)

I'd hoped to send out 170 scripts but didn't even come close. I'm always grateful that the Binge List for helps me have two months where I'm super focused on submissions, though I was deep in production during the fall Binge, so I submitted very few scripts.  Since 2013, I've been working on at least 1 commissioned piece every season, which takes up time and also alleviates some of the pressure to get super high submission numbers. 

Stephen Sampson and Marge Dunn in Cato & Dolly at Boston's Old State House

Writing output:

• Researched and wrote three new one-act site-specific plays for Mount Auburn Cemetery (all of which Plays in Place produced this year). Though they were short plays, they were research-heavy, so it took a long time to complete them.
• Wrote two new Christmas short plays. Looking forward to sending them out in 2020
• Wrote a handful of new one-minute plays, one of which will premiere in the Boston One-Minute Play Festival next week.
• Did some rewriting of my full-length play Flight, for a reading we had in NYC this summer.
• Wrote a lot in my journal.

Inputs:
Plays watched:  39 (saw 54 in 2018)
Movies/TV series watched:  30 (57 in 2018)
Plays read: 23   (17 in 2018)
Books read:  19 (18 in 2018)

My numbers for play attendance were down a lot this year, but that's mostly because I was in production pretty solidly from April through mid October. My goal remains to read a lot more plays than I do, but a big chunk of my reading time is spent on dense history books for various projects. Someday I will reach my goal of reading at least one play a week. Being on selection panels for workshops and competitions does help me read more.

Blood on the Snow will return to the Old State House in October 2020

What I Expect in 2020:

I expect a BIG dip for audience in 2020, because I've been sending fewer submissions. I have some big productions lined up for 2020, Mox Nox and Blood on the Snow, plus Moonlight Abolitionists at Mount Auburn Cemetery,  but those are likely to account for maybe 3,000 attendees. I'd need some good luck to reach my goal of 10,000.

In terms of submissions, I will focus primarily on landing more gigs for Plays in Place. However, I now have a couple unproduced short plays and a bunch of shorts that I premiered at Mount Auburn Cemetery, some of which could be produced somewhere else. Which means I will have an easier time finding suitable opps, if I have the time to send them. I'd like to reach 100 submissions for next year. But again, I currently am in conversation with more than a dozen museums about possibly hiring me and Plays in Place to create work for their sites. Not all of those will pan out, and the ones that do often take a few years to come to completion, but the impact is large for me and my ability to reach audiences.

Not sure what's on tap for 2020, in terms of writing projects. I need to rewrite one of the Mount Auburn plays, Moonlight Abolitionists, plus some of my other full-lengths need work and there might be at least one new Plays in Place project. I'm a lot less interested in writing on spec than I used to be, but I have a play or two kicking around that might find their way out.


Coming next:  Writing by the Numbers 2019: Money