Friday, August 06, 2004

 

Write Me

Here's the letter, following from this post. I think it's polite and respectful. Suggestions and comments much appreciated, before I drop it in the mail on Monday.



August 6, 2004
Michael J. Fusco
Executive Producer


Dear Mr. Fusco:

SUBJECT: 2005 PLAYWRIGHTS FESTIVAL

Recently I came across the announcement for your 2005 Playwrights Festival. While I applaud your effort to bring new plays to an audience, your requirements for submission give me pause. I would like to ask you a few questions about them.

As I'm sure you're aware, a twenty dollar submission fee is well above the standard. Coupled with the costs of postage for three scripts, this means that playwrights will be spending between thirty and forty dollars to apply to your festival. Many playwrights, including myself, are curious as to what expenses such fees could be covering.

In addition, you require a written waiver for all royalties associated with the production. Writers often waive royalties at the beginning of their careers, but they generally do this only when they are actively associated with the producing entity. In other words, in exchange for free-and-clear production rights to the play, the company guarantees the writer artistic input and a physical presence at rehearsal. Is your festival making that offer? If so, what travel, accommodations and/or stipend to you provide to participating playwrights that do not live in your area? If not, what else are you offering in exchange for one of the playwright's most valuable assets (right of first production)?

Some writers will accept a small "token royalty" from financially limited companies, rather than the standard rate. Many playwrights -- including me -- consider the token royalty to be a sign of respect for the hard work we put into a script. I would like to know if your board ever discussed this option.

Perhaps your board justifies these fees because it presides over a small company with a limited budget, and there are costs associated with seeking scripts. I understand how difficult the economics of theatre production are nowadays. However, since there is a financial burden associated with the search for plays, isn't there also a financial burden associated with the search for actors? Do you also require actors auditioning for your company to pay an audition fee?

As you know, The Dramatists Guild of America is the only professional association for playwrights, composers, and lyricists. It advances the interests of writers in this country. Are you aware that the Guild currently instructs its members not to participate with festivals and companies that require excessive fees? It seems to me that, if you were to discontinue the fee requirement, you would increase the number of submitting playwrights, and have a greater chance of receiving high-quality submissions.

I am a struggling playwright. I do not have the clout of Wendy Wasserstien or Tony Kushner. I admit that I may not understand your side of the story entirely. It's because of this that I write to you, in an effort to understand. As you must know, without plays, there would be very little else to put on your stage. If plays are something you need, it is difficult for me to comprehend why the financial burdens of your company should fall on the men and women who craft what you require. In the spirit of open and respectful dialogue, I invite you to respond to my letter.

In summary, my questions are:

1. What specific expenses are these fees covering?


2. Are you offering playwrights travel, housing, and/or a stipend in order to attend your festival? If not, are you offering anything else in exchange for the right of first production?


3. Did your board ever consider offering a token royalty to participating playwrights?


4. Do you require your actors to pay a fee to audition?


5. Are you aware that The Dramatists Guild currently instructs its membership not to participate in festivals with excessive submission fees?


6. If theaters need plays to put on stage, why does the burden of the search for plays fall on the wallets of the playwrights?

I write this letter both for my own edification and for my friends who are also playwrights. These issues are part of an ongoing discussion we have. You can read about it -- and respond -- at my website: http://www.dantrujillo.com/blog. If you choose to respond by snail mail, I ask permission to share your letter, in order to further the discussion.

Thank you for your time. I look forward to your response.

Best Regards,
Dan Trujillo



cc: M. Schacherbauer, Artistic Director
D. Browell, President

posted by Dan 2:10 PM
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Thursday, August 05, 2004

 

Have You Met the Ex?

WARNING: Hot, throbbing theatre-theory follows. For those not inclined toward that, here's a picture of a man in a dog suit.



The characters collide. They wrap themselves up in an escalating struggle. How will they resolve their conflict? Who wins? Who loses? I don't know, but this arbitrary godhead that just wandered on stage does! Or this messenger from the king! Or this violent act of nature! With a flick of the wrist, he/she/it sorts it all out. Everybody's problems are resolved, one way or another. For those of you who never took a theatre-weenie class, that's Deus Ex Machina. You might know it by its street name, "God In The Machine."

It's an arbitrary device that appears at the climax of the play. It resolves the story so the characters don't have to. It pisses audiences off. It makes directors cringe, and every playwright I know apoplectic. Naturally, I have a crush on it.

It's so offensive to our sensibilities, in a way that nudity and vulgarity just aren't anymore. It's just so damn disappointing. It feels like the writer bailed out on his or her job. It feels like all the activity we've been watching was essentially pointless, because some Holy Schmoe or Royal Personage could have solved it all if they'd walked in two hours earlier. People who know nothing of dramaturgy, theatre history, and don't give a damn what antistrophe is get mad when the Deus Ex rears its head.

Ah, when I see it, how it makes me mourn the lost potential of a play. "Here we had a chance to examine human nature, and it all got thrown away because the writer didn't allow human nature to reveal itself at the most crucial moment," I shake my head sadly. "What a waste."

It makes me think of things like this:

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- A small plane crashed into a house near Austin and burst into flames Tuesday, killing at least six people, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

All six were aboard the plane, and no one was believed to be hurt inside the home, FAA spokesman John Clabes said.

All those people on that plane had issues in need of reconciling. Well, they're reconciled now, but good.

A few of you can probably guess that I just saw a batch of Greek Tragedy. My friends at Imua! just produced The Greeks, a seven-hour, ten-play cycle of Greek tragedy, about 80% of which is by Euripides, the most cynical -- and, to some, the most "modern" -- of the Big Three of Greek Tragedy.

A quick rundown of Euripides' aesthetic: His plot structures were wild and haphazard. His heroes, gods and kings were often fools and monsters. His characters seem to struggle through an amoral, indifferent universe. They question the very existence of gods...but then, out of nowhere, gods appear, not only confirming their existence, but that they have a notion of justice (albeit a strange one) and a (somewhat careless) interest in mortal affairs. This absurd juxtaposition seems more akin to Sartre's The Flies or Shaw's St. Joan than it does to Aeschylus.

His use of the Deus Ex Machina is always a sticking point in production. The question directors always end up asking is, "How do I get the audience to swallow this?" I say, "Don't." I say, "Let them choke on it." That's the point. And I say this as a man who chokes every time the Deus Ex shows up.

Life, some have told me, is action. When circumstances reveal my actions as pointless or absurd, where does this leave me? Should I surrender to nihilism? How can I live with that?

In Andromache, Euripides poses these questions. It begins with an injustice. A jealous wife is about to butcher a slave woman and her son. An aging hero, Peleus, saves mother and child. He is a man of action. He believes in the power of honorable deeds. How is he rewarded for his heroism? Minutes later, he finds out that his grandson has been murdered by strangers in his house. He curses the gods, and is about to kill himself, when his long-missing wife, Thetis, appears. Thetis is an immortal, a sea-nymph. She dispenses the fates of the other characters according to the will of Zeus, then takes Peleus off to live on Mount Olympus for an eternity of hot nymph-love. He leaves the stage urging the other characters to trust Zeus, because Father Knows Best.

After seeing this, my first thought was, "That was silly."

Of course it was silly. I was watching a man who believed himself to be master of events try to make sense of his universe when he learns that his mastery is illusory. He plays the game of life, because he is a man and that's what men do. The universe deals him a bad hand, and he believes men are helpless because the gods are unjust. Then he draws an ace, and he believes that the gods are fair and kind and wise, and sorry Andromache that you're still a slave, and sorry Orestes that you're still insane, and bummer grandson about you being dead and all, but the missus and I have to go knock knees now.

Hilarious. And yet, it grated as I watched it. It wasn't as if I didn't get an insight into his character, because I did. I think I even got an insight into human nature in general. But the sense of disappointment, the sense that the play has ripped me off, pervaded. Why?

I leave this posed question for all, for the moment. More later.

posted by Dan 1:37 PM
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Wednesday, August 04, 2004

 

I'll Just Be Stupid In The Corner

The number of smart people I know always impresses me. They make me feel like a simple lad who just wants to sing to the sheep and flirt with the farm girls, or the other way around maybe.

Agree or disagree with George's arguments for the small theatre, his essays are fish for the brain.

If you haven't checked out Mac's latest installment on the director/playwright relationship, go now.

Isaac Butler gives the skinny on the Lincoln Center Directors Lab. His entry makes me look forward to grad school this fall at NYU. It also makes me want to drink a lot.

By the way, Isaac's recent guest blogger Abe Goldfarb got mad because I threw sand in his face. A throwaway joke implied that, given the opportunity, he'd direct George Bush's Nude Klansical exactly the way he wouldn't want to direct it, if the money was right. That's not what I meant. What I meant was: he eats babies and old women.

UPDATE: Also, I've been missing Brian Flemming's insights into new media and politics, but he's been busy on a new project that looks to be ready for release in about four days. I'm amped.

posted by Dan 12:55 PM
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Tuesday, August 03, 2004

 

Please explain, please explain, only humans can explain...

Be honest with me, friends. Am I deluded about the unscrupulousness of hefty play submission fees?

I've written on this issue before, and I admit I got a little hot. In that case, I thought I'd found a particularly egregious example, an extreme to chastise. Through that chastisement, I hoped to shed light on lesser infractions.

Turns out that case was neither unique nor extreme.

The Curtain Players of Galena, OH, ask twenty dollars to submit your play for their new play festival. In addition, they want a waiver of any royalties. In exchange, you the playwright receive a maximum three-weekend performance. I saw this and I nearly choked on my coffee.

But it's entirely possible that I'm deluded. I've been deluded about things in the past. Naïve. Ignorant. And I'm certain that I have values that I hold to be worthy that are not, and notions that I believe true that are false. I'm no genius, no law. I'm not The Stone Tablets, here. I'm just a simple, confused human being.

But I find the demand for $20.00 from every playwright who wishes to submit to their festival to be abhorrent. I think it's morally bankrupt for a theater company to follow this demand with a further demand that the playwright waive any right to royalties. The combination of the two is so disturbing that I feel like my head is going to split open. "In exchange for twenty dollars, we will consider not paying you for your work."

I don't mind waiving royalties at this point, because I would just like my play produced. That's a big concession. As many of you know, theatre companies won't accept previously produced plays for new play festivals, even if the previous production was in Bumscrantz, South Nowhere. Giving up the only card I posess (right of first production) is a huge compromise. But to ask for free-and-clear rights to my play and twenty dollars, with a promise of a production of uncertain value in return?

Maybe I'm missing something.

When I produced Lil' Pervs in February, I paid the writers. I couldn't imagine not paying the writers. I'm just one guy, without the resources of the Ohio Community Theatre Association or the New Albany Arts Council. It was just me. Those I could bring along for the love of theatre, and me. That's it. And I still paid them. People I didn't have to pay, I paid, because they were giving me their services in exchange.

Am I deluded about the exchange of money for services rendered?

I wanted to talk about the function of Deus Ex Machina today, not this garbage again. But I need help, because I must be deluded, because I can't imagine how good, decent Midwestern theatre people could justify this practice to themselves. I feel like I'm missing some key fact, because based on what's on the table now, this appears to me to be wrong, wrong, wrong.

They ask for three copies of the script, so this fee can't offset the Kinkos costs. The site boasts of near-capacity houses, so it can't be to compensate for a lack of interest. Is it for bolstering the production budget? Is it to purchase gin? What am I missing?

I'm writing another letter. I'm sending these people my questions. I'll be nice, because I try to be a nice guy. Treat me with respect, and I'll give you the same.

If you represent this theater company, and you've found this site by googling the name or something, please send me an email outlining your reasons for this fee. Explain why you coupled it with a demand for waiver of royalties. If you're nice, I'll be nice, even if I disagree with you.

I'll post a copy of my letter when I send it.

And if anyone out there thinks I'm deluded about this issue, please tell me how. Because I hate thinking I'm the online equivalent of the guy who thinks that tinfoil keeps the signals out.

posted by Dan 1:16 PM
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Monday, August 02, 2004

 

Quarter Tank

Is it possible to run out of writer juice?

Do you even believe there is such a thing as "writer juice?"

I keep telling my wife that I take so long in the shower because I'm trying to squeeze out some more writer juice. HO YACHAAA OWWW!!!

Seriously, about the writer juice...I've always thought that "writer's block" was just another way of saying "I don't have the craft to help me clean house when inspiration won't get out of bed." If you're not writing, start. If you're not happy with what you're writing, that's different. Artistic dissatisfaction is normal, even healthy.

A friend once told me she had The Block. She said she just plain ran out of writer juice. There must be a zillion exercises that will tap whole new springs of writer juice, I replied. She said she didn't like exercises because they didn't feel organic. I thought, "Why, because a computer is doing the writing?" I bit my tongue, though. Arrogance is one of my sins.

If inspiration fails, I say kick-start it. Writers with real writing jobs don't come in to work every day with a hopped-up muse talking in their ear.

However, I do believe that periods of R&R are important. Time to think, to read, to replenish the...writer juice. Do I contradict myself? I've always thought that people use Whitman's Motto too much as a cop-out -- an excuse to leave assumptions unexamined. Yet, I find that describing my current creative state as one in need of refueling. Let's call it not so much writer's block, since I could and would write, but a desire for a period to collect my energy, for the effort of NYU grad school ahead.

That's where I find myself, as I declare that I'm not going to do any playwriting for a month. I know, Alert CNN. But this is big for me.

The last time I went on hiatus, it was not because of block (though lazily I called it that) but because I lacked the craft necessary to fix and finish plays. I'm hoping an insidious form of procrastination isn't prompting this decision. Dramacking will begin with the school year in September, when I'll have to put out more material than I ever have before. Hopefully, I'll have the juice.

I intend to keep writing here, but I will devote my playwriting time to cleaning and gussying my office. The place where the magic happens should have a sense of magic to it, after all. I'm sick of coming in there to work, and thinking, "What a dump." Double the shame, because I'm lucky enough to have an office.

After that, I'll devote whatever time remains to house projects. That way, when it's December and my wife wonders why she bothered marrying this absent man, I can leave her a note saying, "But honey, I repainted the kitchen!"

posted by Dan 1:48 PM
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