So yesterday, I took a look at this season's outlook for new plays and Boston playwrigthts. But what about the rest of New England? Boston writers are close enough to most theatres in the rest of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine to be take part in the development and production process of their work, if their plays were being produced. Are they? How are New England playwrights faring at home, generally?
Let's take a look at how many world premieres we have, state by state:
Massachusetts:
Stoneham Theatre: none
Merrimack Repertory Theatre: 1 world premiere, The Exceptionals by Bob Clyman
Gloucester Stage Company: ? They haven't announced their season yet. They were founded by a pretty well-known playwright, so there's always hope here. (Last year they did one world premiere, of Tender by Kelly Younger, but the rest were plays that had started elsewhere.)
Williamstown Theatre Festival: 2 world premieres, Samuel J and K by Mat Smart and After the Revolution by Amy Herzog.
Berkshire Theatre Festival: 1 world premiere, No Wake by Boston-area writer Bill Donnelly.
Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater: none. (In 2008, they did four world premieres. And have a history of working with writers.)
Wellesley Summer Theatre Company: none
Connecticut:
Connecticut Repertory Theatre: none
Goodspeed Musicals: 3 world premieres, Radio Girl, book by Daniel Godlfarb,music by Henry Krieger, lyrics by Susan Birkenhead, Band Geeks, music by Mark Allen, Gaby Alter, and Tommy Newman, Lyrics by Gaby Alter and Tommy Newman, and book by Tommy Newman and Gordon Greenberg. And James and the Giant Peach, music and lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, book by Timothy Allen McDonald.
Hartford Stage: 1 world premiere, Divine Rivalry by Michael Kramer
Long Wharf Theatre: none
Seven Angels Theatre (Waterbury): 1 world premiere, Mad Bomber, book and lyrics by Charles Monagan (he lives in Waterbury, CT), music by Richard DeRosa.
Yale Repertory: 2 world premieres, We Have Always Lived in the Castle--book and lyrics by Adam Bock, music and Lyrics by Todd Almond, and Bossa Nova by my friend and fellow Rhombus member, Kirsten Greenidge (go see it).
Maine:
Portland Stage Company: 2 world premieres, Last Gas by John Cariani (who is originally from Maine, but I think he's in NYC now) and The Center of Gravity by Gregory Hischak.
The Public Theatre (Lewiston/Auburn): none
Mad Horse Theatre Company (Portland): none
New Hampshire:
Peterborough Players: none
Seacoast Repertory Theatre: 1 world premiere, Gay Bride of Frankenstein, book by Dane Leeman and Billy Butler, music and lyrics by Billy Butler (New England writers).
Rhode Island:
Trinity Repertory Company: 1 world premiere, Edgar Allan Poe by company member Stephen Thorne.
The Gamm Theatre: none
Perishable Theatre: none (they did some new one-acts in their women's festival, but I'm only looking at full-length plays for now)
Vermont:
Northern Stage: none
Vermont Stage Company: none
Weston Playhouse Theatre Company: 1 world premiere, The Oath by Gavin Broady. (Their first world premiere ever.)
To sum up: In the seasons of 24 professional theatres of various size in New England (not counting Boston), there are 16 world premieres (by 11 theatres). Quite a few musicals. Only six of the writers are from New England. Not exactly great numbers if you're a New England playwright (okay, they're kind of depressing). It'd sure be nice to see an average of at least 1 new play per theatre, and a lot stronger commitment to New England writers. (I'm not sure about where the teams from Goodspeed are from, so there could be a few more New Englanders in the mix.)
If you add the Boston numbers from yesterday's post to the mix, you get 34 professional theatres offering a total of 27 world premieres between them. Twelve of those world premieres are by local writers. That's twelve playwrights getting full-length professional productions in the entire New England region, in the next season. On the plus side (I've got to find one in there somewhere), there are smaller theatres giving playwrights a chance to get their work on stage, especially in Boston. (I'll have to figure out how many.)
It all feels like a lot to think about. As I said yesterday, there is no shortage of talented New England playwrights, writing plenty of scripts. Many of which are being staged in other cities and regions. How can we encourage more theatres to develop and produce new work by local writers?
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Daddy Where Do New Plays Come From? (New Play Ecology, part 1, Boston)
That's an excellent question, Virginia: where do new plays come from? Well, now that the upcoming seasons have been announced, we can actually start to answer that question. Since we live in Boston, let's take a look at which theatres are doing new plays here in Boston. And by new plays, I mean either world premieres or fairly new plays by Boston writers. (Recent Off Broadway hits do not count as new plays.)
In particular, let's talk about large and medium-sized Boston theatres who putting on professional productions. There are smaller theatres doing new work, which is important, too, but we'll hit those another day.
Huntington Theatre Company: 2 world premieres: Vengeance is the Lord's by Bob Glaudini, and Son of the Prophet by Stephen Karam (though the fine print says "Commissioned and produced by special arrangement with Roundabout Theatre Company, and I'm not exactly sure what that means.)
American Repertory Theatre: 1 world premiere (though Ajax is a new translation...), Prometheus Bound by Steven Sater.
Those are the big guys. How about some of the mid-sized and bigger small theatres in Boston:
Lyric Stage: none
Speakeasy: none
New Rep: 1 world premiere, afterlife: a ghost story by Steve Yockey (this is a "rolling world premiere" with the National New Play Network, which means the play will be premiered by several NNPN members this year).
Boston Playwrights Theatre: (these guys always win) 3 world premieres: Five Down One Across by Michael Towers, Two Wives in India by (my pal) Leslie Harrell Dillen, and Waking the Volcano by Jon Lipsky. Two of these are Boston writers, too (Leslie abandoned us for New Mexico). I'll just highlight all the Boston writers receiving premieres (or even productions of full-length plays) (Theresa Rebeck is not a Boston writer anymore, sorry.)
Company One: 1 world premiere, on their Second Stage (you know they're getting bigger when they have a second stage), Cartoon Confessions by John Kunz and Rick Park.
Actors Shakespeare Project: 2 world premieres (both by Boston writers). Okay, I didn't expect to see them doing as many new plays by Boston writers as BPT, but they are. Their Winter Festival will feature two-week runs of The Hotel Nepenthe by John Kuntz and Living in Exile by Jon Lipsky. Both these guys seem to be about to have a pretty good season.
Central Square Theatre: 1 world premiere (though they had a good year of new plays last year), Silver Spoon by Amy Merrill and Si Kahn.
Zeitgeist Stage: none.
So, in the seasons of ten Boston theaters, we have 11 world premieres (out of more than 50 productions), though BPT skews the average a little. Of those 11 world premieres, 6 are by Boston writers (only 4 out of 10 theatres are producing work by local writers). If you take BPT out of the mix, since they exclusively produce new work by BU alums, that leaves us with 4 full-length plays written by Boston writers getting professional productions in town.
Given those numbers, you wouldn't know that we have a wealth of playwrights living in or near Boston, whose work has been widely produced. There are no full-length plays on Boston stages this season from Kirsten Greenidge, Lydia Diamond, Ronan Noone, Ken Urban, or Melinda Lopez. (or that Gabridge guy) And there are more, too. I can't list everyone, but some of these come to mind: Joyce Van Dyke, Peter Snoad, John Shea, Jacqui Parker, Kate Snodgrass, Bill Donnelley, Janet Kenney, Monica Raymond, my fellow Rhombus members--Joe Byers, Carl Danielson, Ginger Lazarus, Alexa Mavromatis. And there are scores more (who I hope will forgive me if I haven't included them in this list, including the new HPF members, whose names aren't public yet).
So what does all this mean? I'm not sure. To me, the numbers of new plays by Boston writers seem very, very low. (Imagine if only four out of ten professional theatres hired ANY local actors or directors. It's not the same, but...) Most Boston playwrights aren't getting the chances here at home to fully develop their work, and to learn by seeing how those plays succeed or fail in front of audiences.
It also shows that while Boston audiences are getting plenty of exciting imports, they're not seeing plays produced by people who live and work in their communities. And audiences are not developing relationships with local playwrights (though they do with local actors and directors)--this creation of an audience for a certain writer's plays can play an important role in the growth of a playwright, because it helps level out the hit/flop mentality that can come with the production of only a single show or two by a writer--audiences (and critics) start to follow a writer, and a two-way relationship forms and actually helps shape the work. Audiences might not love every show by that writer, but they want to see what's going to come next.
The numbers might to point to gaps in the market that could potentially be filled by new companies who have a stronger focus on new work and work by local writers. For now, Boston remains a town where exciting new work can be imported (just look at ArtsEmerson), but very little new work written by Boston writers and produced by Boston theatres gets exported to other cities. I'd sure like to see that change.
Coming next: New Play Ecology, part 2, the rest of New England)
In particular, let's talk about large and medium-sized Boston theatres who putting on professional productions. There are smaller theatres doing new work, which is important, too, but we'll hit those another day.
Huntington Theatre Company: 2 world premieres: Vengeance is the Lord's by Bob Glaudini, and Son of the Prophet by Stephen Karam (though the fine print says "Commissioned and produced by special arrangement with Roundabout Theatre Company, and I'm not exactly sure what that means.)
American Repertory Theatre: 1 world premiere (though Ajax is a new translation...), Prometheus Bound by Steven Sater.
Those are the big guys. How about some of the mid-sized and bigger small theatres in Boston:
Lyric Stage: none
Speakeasy: none
New Rep: 1 world premiere, afterlife: a ghost story by Steve Yockey (this is a "rolling world premiere" with the National New Play Network, which means the play will be premiered by several NNPN members this year).
Boston Playwrights Theatre: (these guys always win) 3 world premieres: Five Down One Across by Michael Towers, Two Wives in India by (my pal) Leslie Harrell Dillen, and Waking the Volcano by Jon Lipsky. Two of these are Boston writers, too (Leslie abandoned us for New Mexico). I'll just highlight all the Boston writers receiving premieres (or even productions of full-length plays) (Theresa Rebeck is not a Boston writer anymore, sorry.)
Company One: 1 world premiere, on their Second Stage (you know they're getting bigger when they have a second stage), Cartoon Confessions by John Kunz and Rick Park.
Actors Shakespeare Project: 2 world premieres (both by Boston writers). Okay, I didn't expect to see them doing as many new plays by Boston writers as BPT, but they are. Their Winter Festival will feature two-week runs of The Hotel Nepenthe by John Kuntz and Living in Exile by Jon Lipsky. Both these guys seem to be about to have a pretty good season.
Central Square Theatre: 1 world premiere (though they had a good year of new plays last year), Silver Spoon by Amy Merrill and Si Kahn.
Zeitgeist Stage: none.
So, in the seasons of ten Boston theaters, we have 11 world premieres (out of more than 50 productions), though BPT skews the average a little. Of those 11 world premieres, 6 are by Boston writers (only 4 out of 10 theatres are producing work by local writers). If you take BPT out of the mix, since they exclusively produce new work by BU alums, that leaves us with 4 full-length plays written by Boston writers getting professional productions in town.
Given those numbers, you wouldn't know that we have a wealth of playwrights living in or near Boston, whose work has been widely produced. There are no full-length plays on Boston stages this season from Kirsten Greenidge, Lydia Diamond, Ronan Noone, Ken Urban, or Melinda Lopez. (or that Gabridge guy) And there are more, too. I can't list everyone, but some of these come to mind: Joyce Van Dyke, Peter Snoad, John Shea, Jacqui Parker, Kate Snodgrass, Bill Donnelley, Janet Kenney, Monica Raymond, my fellow Rhombus members--Joe Byers, Carl Danielson, Ginger Lazarus, Alexa Mavromatis. And there are scores more (who I hope will forgive me if I haven't included them in this list, including the new HPF members, whose names aren't public yet).
So what does all this mean? I'm not sure. To me, the numbers of new plays by Boston writers seem very, very low. (Imagine if only four out of ten professional theatres hired ANY local actors or directors. It's not the same, but...) Most Boston playwrights aren't getting the chances here at home to fully develop their work, and to learn by seeing how those plays succeed or fail in front of audiences.
It also shows that while Boston audiences are getting plenty of exciting imports, they're not seeing plays produced by people who live and work in their communities. And audiences are not developing relationships with local playwrights (though they do with local actors and directors)--this creation of an audience for a certain writer's plays can play an important role in the growth of a playwright, because it helps level out the hit/flop mentality that can come with the production of only a single show or two by a writer--audiences (and critics) start to follow a writer, and a two-way relationship forms and actually helps shape the work. Audiences might not love every show by that writer, but they want to see what's going to come next.
The numbers might to point to gaps in the market that could potentially be filled by new companies who have a stronger focus on new work and work by local writers. For now, Boston remains a town where exciting new work can be imported (just look at ArtsEmerson), but very little new work written by Boston writers and produced by Boston theatres gets exported to other cities. I'd sure like to see that change.
Coming next: New Play Ecology, part 2, the rest of New England)
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Video with tips on how to market your book (from me, Trisha Gura, and Sarah Smith)
A couple years ago, a bunch of Brookline writers got together and started the Brookline Authors Group. It's since cooled down (everyone got busy with other stuff), but for while we put together some good programming. Especially good, I thought, was a series called Brookline Writes, filmed by Brookline Access Television (Jonatha Ceely helped run things, and Polly Hogan was the host).
Two of the shows we focused on marketing, and I was one of the guests, along with Trisha Gura and Sarah Smith. Trisha and Sarah are a lot more experienced than I am (so really pay attention to what they say), but I'd had some useful experience with smaller publishers and a lot of hands-on marketing (and spend a lot of time thinking about ways to market plays and books).
For some reason (maybe building the new gorgeous studios), it took Forever for these videos to finally be posted online. But I just discovered today that they're now available. So check them out.
If you have a novel coming out soon, you might want to check these out.
Here's part 1:
http://batv.org/streaming-video/ondemand/writes-4
and here's part 2:
http://batv.org/streaming-video/ondemand/writes-5
I hope they're helpful.
Two of the shows we focused on marketing, and I was one of the guests, along with Trisha Gura and Sarah Smith. Trisha and Sarah are a lot more experienced than I am (so really pay attention to what they say), but I'd had some useful experience with smaller publishers and a lot of hands-on marketing (and spend a lot of time thinking about ways to market plays and books).
For some reason (maybe building the new gorgeous studios), it took Forever for these videos to finally be posted online. But I just discovered today that they're now available. So check them out.
If you have a novel coming out soon, you might want to check these out.
Here's part 1:
http://batv.org/streaming-video/ondemand/writes-4
and here's part 2:
http://batv.org/streaming-video/ondemand/writes-5
I hope they're helpful.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
TCG's list of 2010-11 most produced playwrights
In their upcoming American Theatre season preview issue, TCG will list the top ten playwrights being produced by TCG-member theatres this upcoming season. They are:
1. Patrick Barlow: 26 productions
2. Tracy Letts: 20
3. Sarah Ruhl: 19
4. Lynn Nottage: 17
5. August Wilson: 17
6. Annie Baker: 17
7. Tennessee Williams: 15
8. Steven Dietz: 15
9. Edward Albee: 15
10. George Bernard Shaw: 13
My first question was--who is Patrick Barlow? Turns out he wrote the adaptation Alfred Hitchcock's 39 Steps (duh), which played in Boston in 2007, and now is all over the place. Good for him.
Sarah Ruhl's play, In The Next Room (The Vibrator Play) opens this weekend here in Boston (I'm going to see it Saturday), at Lyric Stage. Lynn Nottage's Ruined will be at the Huntington this season. Three of Annie Baker's productions will be done here in Boston, starting October, in a nice collaborative effort between the Huntington, Speakeasy, and Company One.
It's been a while since I've seen a Steve Dietz play--I wonder when we'll next see him in Boston?
Someday, this is a list where I'd love to see my name. A man can dream, right? (I'd sure love to see another Boston playwright on that list, too.)
Speaking of playwrights that I'd like to see on this list, on poking around the TCG site, I also saw the list of 2010 Edgerton Foundation New American Play Awards, and I happened to see that my friend and fellow Rhombus playwright, Kirsten Greenidge, won one of the awards, which will support her upcoming production of Bossa Nova at Yale Repertory. Way to go Kirsten! (She's much too modest to actually mention this to anyone herself.) (Keep watching that top ten list for Kirsten's name someday...)
1. Patrick Barlow: 26 productions
2. Tracy Letts: 20
3. Sarah Ruhl: 19
4. Lynn Nottage: 17
5. August Wilson: 17
6. Annie Baker: 17
7. Tennessee Williams: 15
8. Steven Dietz: 15
9. Edward Albee: 15
10. George Bernard Shaw: 13
My first question was--who is Patrick Barlow? Turns out he wrote the adaptation Alfred Hitchcock's 39 Steps (duh), which played in Boston in 2007, and now is all over the place. Good for him.
Sarah Ruhl's play, In The Next Room (The Vibrator Play) opens this weekend here in Boston (I'm going to see it Saturday), at Lyric Stage. Lynn Nottage's Ruined will be at the Huntington this season. Three of Annie Baker's productions will be done here in Boston, starting October, in a nice collaborative effort between the Huntington, Speakeasy, and Company One.
It's been a while since I've seen a Steve Dietz play--I wonder when we'll next see him in Boston?
Someday, this is a list where I'd love to see my name. A man can dream, right? (I'd sure love to see another Boston playwright on that list, too.)
Speaking of playwrights that I'd like to see on this list, on poking around the TCG site, I also saw the list of 2010 Edgerton Foundation New American Play Awards, and I happened to see that my friend and fellow Rhombus playwright, Kirsten Greenidge, won one of the awards, which will support her upcoming production of Bossa Nova at Yale Repertory. Way to go Kirsten! (She's much too modest to actually mention this to anyone herself.) (Keep watching that top ten list for Kirsten's name someday...)
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Ten Years in Boston, Part 2 (productions)
Okay, so I've written a bunch of work in the ten years I've been in Boston (see Part 1). How have I been doing in terms of actually reaching an audience? Has Boston been a good place for me, in terms of writing career?
When I arrived in 2000, I'd spent the previous three years without being part of any specific theatrical community (I was in Kansas City for one year and Champaign, IL, for two years). I was starting to make some connections to Chicago, but only lightly when we left. I'd been working pretty hard on getting books published.
Being here didn't seem to be a plus or minus, when it came to getting my books published. The agent I'd had was unable to sell my pseudo-memoir about race in America. He wasn't interested in my novel. I started writing more plays and a screenplay (heaven forbid I should fully make use of an opportunity like having an actual agent) (I might have learned my lesson, by the way). I did ultimately end up finding a small publisher for my novel, Tornado Siren, in 2006. It was not a bestseller, and I was not catapulted to fame and fortune. And now I have just found an agent again, so book-wise, it seems like a reasonably good decade. With any luck the next one will be even better. Maybe a lot better.
Theatre-wise, I arrived knowing no one. I was pretty lucky to find the playwrights group, Write On, where I met some terrific writers, actors, and directors. After a year or two I had my first Boston production of a short play, thanks to CentaStage, Christmas Breaks, which was very well-received .
By 2003, I'd realized how much I missed my Chameleon Stage theatre (that I'd co-founded) in Denver, and helped start a group in Boston, Rhombus, that functioned to develop scripts in much the same way (we're still going strong). Around the same time, I also started the on-line Playwright Submission Binge (which now has almost 600 members, worldwide) to help make the business-end chores a little more fun, and a lot easier.
In terms of productions of full-length plays, my ten years in Boston have been a bit of a disappointment. I've only had two full-length plays produced in Boston in that time, both in 2005--Blinders by Out of the Blue and Pieces of Whitey by Rough and Tumble. I had tremendously good experiences with both productions, but there haven't been others to follow. I've had readings of three other full-length plays here, Hearing Voices by CentaStage, Constant State of Panic by Boston Playwrights Theatre, and Fire on Earth by the Huntington.
In comparison, in my seven years in Denver, I had full productions of four full-length plays (The Split, The Marmotville Chronicles, Reading the Mind of God, Blinders), plus readings of Armageddon is Late and Never Say Die.
In some ways, this disparity is a result of a shifting theatrical landscape nationally--space was harder to come by everywhere in the 2000s (the real estate boom was deathly for small and mid-sized theatres), as were productions. And also the result of a contraction in the Boston theatrical landscape for the production of full-length plays. The ART and Huntington have big budgets, but look more nationally for scripts than to Boston writers, though the Huntington Playwriting Fellows program is offering important support to writers, and I'm very lucky to be part of it this year. But the odds of a Fellow getting an actual mainstage production are still pretty slim.
CentaStage no longer stages very many full-length plays. Boston Theatre Works is defunct. Speakeasy, the Lyric, and New Rep are not exactly presenting scads of new plays by local writers (if any). Boston Playwrights Theatre does excellent new work (and I'm grateful for my reading there this spring), but at the moment, they're limited to doing full productions by BU grads. Company One and Central Square Theatre seem to offer the best, mid-size opportunity for Boston playwrights to see their work fully staged (am I missing someone?), but they've only got so many slots. There are a bunch of very small theatres who are doing some new work, but their resources are very limited. They lack the ability to sort through submissions from writers. Some are doing readings of new plays, and some are staging them. But it helps if you're actually a member of one of these small companies (which is fair enough). There are lots of nice spaces at the local universities, but I don't see many local, non-affiliated playwrights having productions in them (I hope that can change).
This lack of full-length, full productions is hard on playwrights, because we need a lot more chances to get our work completely on its feet, and for it to have the chance to succeed or fail. I'd like to be getting a lot more opportunity to fail, but the climate here isn't as supportive of failure as it needs to be. If a writer wants to grow, he or she needs to not feel so precious about every play that hits the stage. Staged readings are nice, but it's actual productions that tell you what works and what doesn't. If I only have two full-length plays fully staged in ten years, I'm going to want them to be well-loved and successful. If I had five or six performed, I'd have room for more failure (as well as fantastic success). And that's a good thing.
Despite the shortage of opportunities for full-length plays, there are plenty of places to get short plays on stage. I've been extremely fortunate in my time in Boston to have had a lot of short plays produced. I've been in the Boston Theatre Marathon seven times, which has given me the opportunity to work with a bunch of companies, all in a pretty low-risk environment. (Thanks, Kate!) Since I've been in Boston, I've worked with at least 18 New England theatre companies. They are:
When I arrived in 2000, I'd spent the previous three years without being part of any specific theatrical community (I was in Kansas City for one year and Champaign, IL, for two years). I was starting to make some connections to Chicago, but only lightly when we left. I'd been working pretty hard on getting books published.
Being here didn't seem to be a plus or minus, when it came to getting my books published. The agent I'd had was unable to sell my pseudo-memoir about race in America. He wasn't interested in my novel. I started writing more plays and a screenplay (heaven forbid I should fully make use of an opportunity like having an actual agent) (I might have learned my lesson, by the way). I did ultimately end up finding a small publisher for my novel, Tornado Siren, in 2006. It was not a bestseller, and I was not catapulted to fame and fortune. And now I have just found an agent again, so book-wise, it seems like a reasonably good decade. With any luck the next one will be even better. Maybe a lot better.
Theatre-wise, I arrived knowing no one. I was pretty lucky to find the playwrights group, Write On, where I met some terrific writers, actors, and directors. After a year or two I had my first Boston production of a short play, thanks to CentaStage, Christmas Breaks, which was very well-received .
By 2003, I'd realized how much I missed my Chameleon Stage theatre (that I'd co-founded) in Denver, and helped start a group in Boston, Rhombus, that functioned to develop scripts in much the same way (we're still going strong). Around the same time, I also started the on-line Playwright Submission Binge (which now has almost 600 members, worldwide) to help make the business-end chores a little more fun, and a lot easier.
In terms of productions of full-length plays, my ten years in Boston have been a bit of a disappointment. I've only had two full-length plays produced in Boston in that time, both in 2005--Blinders by Out of the Blue and Pieces of Whitey by Rough and Tumble. I had tremendously good experiences with both productions, but there haven't been others to follow. I've had readings of three other full-length plays here, Hearing Voices by CentaStage, Constant State of Panic by Boston Playwrights Theatre, and Fire on Earth by the Huntington.
In comparison, in my seven years in Denver, I had full productions of four full-length plays (The Split, The Marmotville Chronicles, Reading the Mind of God, Blinders), plus readings of Armageddon is Late and Never Say Die.
In some ways, this disparity is a result of a shifting theatrical landscape nationally--space was harder to come by everywhere in the 2000s (the real estate boom was deathly for small and mid-sized theatres), as were productions. And also the result of a contraction in the Boston theatrical landscape for the production of full-length plays. The ART and Huntington have big budgets, but look more nationally for scripts than to Boston writers, though the Huntington Playwriting Fellows program is offering important support to writers, and I'm very lucky to be part of it this year. But the odds of a Fellow getting an actual mainstage production are still pretty slim.
CentaStage no longer stages very many full-length plays. Boston Theatre Works is defunct. Speakeasy, the Lyric, and New Rep are not exactly presenting scads of new plays by local writers (if any). Boston Playwrights Theatre does excellent new work (and I'm grateful for my reading there this spring), but at the moment, they're limited to doing full productions by BU grads. Company One and Central Square Theatre seem to offer the best, mid-size opportunity for Boston playwrights to see their work fully staged (am I missing someone?), but they've only got so many slots. There are a bunch of very small theatres who are doing some new work, but their resources are very limited. They lack the ability to sort through submissions from writers. Some are doing readings of new plays, and some are staging them. But it helps if you're actually a member of one of these small companies (which is fair enough). There are lots of nice spaces at the local universities, but I don't see many local, non-affiliated playwrights having productions in them (I hope that can change).
This lack of full-length, full productions is hard on playwrights, because we need a lot more chances to get our work completely on its feet, and for it to have the chance to succeed or fail. I'd like to be getting a lot more opportunity to fail, but the climate here isn't as supportive of failure as it needs to be. If a writer wants to grow, he or she needs to not feel so precious about every play that hits the stage. Staged readings are nice, but it's actual productions that tell you what works and what doesn't. If I only have two full-length plays fully staged in ten years, I'm going to want them to be well-loved and successful. If I had five or six performed, I'd have room for more failure (as well as fantastic success). And that's a good thing.
Despite the shortage of opportunities for full-length plays, there are plenty of places to get short plays on stage. I've been extremely fortunate in my time in Boston to have had a lot of short plays produced. I've been in the Boston Theatre Marathon seven times, which has given me the opportunity to work with a bunch of companies, all in a pretty low-risk environment. (Thanks, Kate!) Since I've been in Boston, I've worked with at least 18 New England theatre companies. They are:
Actors Refuge Repertory Theatre
Another Country Productions
Boston Playwrights Theatre
CentaStage
Cotuit Center for the Arts (Cape Cod)
Devanaughn Theatre
Fort Point Theatre Channel
Hit and Run Theatre (Salem)
Huntington Theatre Company
Independent Drama Society
Mill 6 Theatre Collaborative
Out of the Blue
Rough and Tumble
South City Theatre
TYG Productions
Underground Railway Theatre
Wellesley Summer Theatre
Yellow Taxi (New Hampshire)
and I've had a blast.
Some companies I've worked with multiple times, too, which has been great. For me, and probably for many other playwrights, it's my dream to work with one company and one or two directors, on a long-term basis, so we really get to know each other and can drive the quality of the work to a whole new level.
I think there's lot of room for Boston to grow, in terms of it being a good place for playwrights. As a board member of StageSource, I'm trying to encourage that to happen. I think Rhombus is a tool that helps nudge things in the right direction.
The proper response for any playwright who complains about not getting enough productions is to start a theatre company, but I've already done that in other cities (New York and Denver),and I don't have the time, energy, or money at the moment. (Not that I'm still not tempted sometimes.) Whining is not particularly useful as a strategy (despite the frequency with which it's employed).
I feel like after ten years, I've become a part of the Boston theatre community--I know scores and scores of actors and directors and producers and designers and writers, so the years feel well spent. I hope the next ten years brings lots more local productions, and that I do ultimately find a long-term theatrical home, where I get a chance to play with my friends, on my full-length plays, with ample chances to both succeed and fail. I'm starting to form some promising relationships with a few directors, and theatres, that could end up being just what I need to improve more as a writer and reach broader audiences. We'll see.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Ten Years in Boston, Part 1 (output)
Ten years ago, I moved to Boston. My wife, Tracy, had landed an exciting job in her new career (moving from corporate engineer/manager to academic librarian). We arrived with some trepidation, a white couple with two black kids--a kindergartner and a 6-month old baby--moving to a city with a tough racial past. And we were buying a condo in a mostly black neighborhood in Roxbury (which would be something new for all of us). We had very little money and no contacts or friends in the area.
In the decade prior to arriving in Boston, we'd lived in 5 houses in Colorado (where we spent 7 years), Missouri, and Illinois. Anyone would have been surprised to find us still in Boston in 2010.
But here we still are (though we've lived in three different houses since we've been here). Ten years seems like a good point to reflect on how I've been doing, writing-wise, since I've been here. Plus, I enjoy making lists and counting things, so this provides a good excuse for doing both.
Since 2000, here's what I've written:
3 full-length plays: Pieces of Whitey, Constant State of Panic, and Fire on Earth. Two of these have been produced, all have had readings and workshops.
4 one-act plays: The Light Collectors, The Next Big Thing, Reassembling Sasha, and The Sky is Falling. All have been produced, three are published.
21 ten-minute plays:
In the decade prior to arriving in Boston, we'd lived in 5 houses in Colorado (where we spent 7 years), Missouri, and Illinois. Anyone would have been surprised to find us still in Boston in 2010.
But here we still are (though we've lived in three different houses since we've been here). Ten years seems like a good point to reflect on how I've been doing, writing-wise, since I've been here. Plus, I enjoy making lists and counting things, so this provides a good excuse for doing both.
Since 2000, here's what I've written:
3 full-length plays: Pieces of Whitey, Constant State of Panic, and Fire on Earth. Two of these have been produced, all have had readings and workshops.
4 one-act plays: The Light Collectors, The Next Big Thing, Reassembling Sasha, and The Sky is Falling. All have been produced, three are published.
21 ten-minute plays:
Christmas Flight
Confirmed Sighting
Counting Rita
Den of Iniquity
Escape to Wonderland
Flight
Flying the Friendly Skies
Insomnia
Invisible Husband
Measuring Matthew
Out of Time
Perfect Vision
Phoenix Funeral Draft 3
Pumpkin Patch
Quiet
Recognition
Schedule Meisters
Ship of Fools
Special Education
Stick up for Mars
Stop Rain
1 feature-length screenplay: The Three Great Loves of Christopher J. Tomaski (an adaptation of my one-act play. Never produced, but it won a couple hundred bucks in a national competition)
2 novels: Moving (A Life in Boxes); Buried Treasure.
2 non-fiction book proposals
I'm always trying to figure out if I'm working hard enough, being sufficiently productive. This list seems like a pretty long list, but it is over a period of ten years. Five full-length works in ten years isn't bad, but it's not exactly speedy (from 1990-2000, I wrote 7 full-length plays, 1 novel, and 4 screenplays). Though twenty ten-minute plays should be worth at least a full-length play or two.
In my defense, I'd like to add that during the past ten years, I was also pretty busy being a stay-at-home dad for two kids, with no money for daycare or babysitters. And I also moved a couple times, fixed up a house, coached some soccer, ran and started some gardens, etc., etc..
I've also gone back and forth between writing books and writing plays, which has been great fun, but also can kind of slow down the whole process (and career). When I arrived in Boston, I'd been away from Denver for 3 years, which had been an important theatrical home for me. I'd written a novel (which wasn't published until 2006) and found an agent for a non-fiction book, semi-memoir about race in America. I was still working in theatre and trying to work in film, but most of my energy had been spent on books, though I was researching for a play on illiam Tyndale and the creation of the English Bible (starting the germ of a play that has ended up becoming Fire on Earth, ten years later).
Now that the kids are older and both in school, despite a zillion other obligations, I feel like my writing pace is getting closer to what I'd like it to be. I'm happiest when I feel like I'm being productive and both starting and finishing projects that are reaching audiences. It's been a good ten years here, a productive decade. I'm confident the next one will be just as fruitful, or more so.
(next: Ten Year in Boston, productions and publications--has Boston been a good spot for my career?)
Monday, September 6, 2010
time to apply for the MCC playwriting fellowship
This morning I put together my application for the Massachusetts Cultural Council playwriting fellowship. The deadline is September 20 (the big prize for a handful of winners is $7,500, with additional $500 for finalists). I'd sure like to get this one, but I've never even been a finalist (this is my fourth time applying, because it's only available every two years). Maybe this can be my year. (I have several friends who have won in the past.)
The thing I dislike most about this fellowship is that the application only allows you to submit 30 pages. I don't see how the judges are supposed to tell much about quality of playwriting from a 30-page sample. I could see the usefulness of a two-tiered system, where they first look at resumes and sample pages and then request entire scripts. It just doesn't make sense to give away that much money just by reading a couple ten-minute plays or the first third of a full-length play.
I'm always left with the dilemma--do I submit one half-hour one-act, or three ten-minute plays, or the first 30 pages of a full-length? I've tried it all different ways, never with any luck. This time I'm going back to a 30-page section from a full-length play (Constant State of Panic), but I do so with some trepidation.
In my ideal world (probably theirs, too), the MCC would give away more money ($12,000 to each winner, at least), and would look at complete full-length scripts. I'd also like them to consider the role of the applicants in the Massachusetts theatrical community--what has the applicant done to help improve the climate for new work and for playwrights in Massachusetts?
But they're not asking me how to run things, and I don't see them getting more money (I'm grateful they're in business at all, given the current economic climate). For now, I'll just keep my fingers crossed.
The thing I dislike most about this fellowship is that the application only allows you to submit 30 pages. I don't see how the judges are supposed to tell much about quality of playwriting from a 30-page sample. I could see the usefulness of a two-tiered system, where they first look at resumes and sample pages and then request entire scripts. It just doesn't make sense to give away that much money just by reading a couple ten-minute plays or the first third of a full-length play.
I'm always left with the dilemma--do I submit one half-hour one-act, or three ten-minute plays, or the first 30 pages of a full-length? I've tried it all different ways, never with any luck. This time I'm going back to a 30-page section from a full-length play (Constant State of Panic), but I do so with some trepidation.
In my ideal world (probably theirs, too), the MCC would give away more money ($12,000 to each winner, at least), and would look at complete full-length scripts. I'd also like them to consider the role of the applicants in the Massachusetts theatrical community--what has the applicant done to help improve the climate for new work and for playwrights in Massachusetts?
But they're not asking me how to run things, and I don't see them getting more money (I'm grateful they're in business at all, given the current economic climate). For now, I'll just keep my fingers crossed.
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