THE PLAYWRIGHT’S DILEMMA: AN OP-ED
by John Mc Donnell Tierney - December 5, 2022
A “dilemma” describes a situation where a difficult choice has to be made between two or more alternatives, especially equally undesirable ones.
I know a lot of playwrights. I’ve directed a lot of “scenes” and “pages” of works in development. And, in my experience, virtually all playwrights seem to have one thing in common- the desire (wish, hope) to see their plays produced. For me, as a playwright, a work is not complete until it has been experienced by other human beings, the more the better. In other words, we need an audience. And to gain an audience, we must have our plays produced. And, to have our plays produced, we must find a producer or do it ourselves.
And that, dear friends and fellow playwrights, is the “dilemma.”
The Playwright’s Dilemma: facing two “equally undesirable” alternatives:
the arduous process of submitting or the arduous process of self-producing.
After I have tried out scenes with my on-line groups; after I have held table-reads and staged-readings; after I have worked and re-worked a script; and, after I am thoroughly satisfied that my play is “ready;” then what? The “Playwright’s Dilemma,” facing two “equally undesirable” alternatives: begin the arduous process of “submitting,” or begin the arduous process of “self-producing.”
In my experience, most playwrights are optimists. We feel good about our work and it is so easy to imagine that other folks (producers, directors, etc.) will feel good about our work as well. It’s easy to imagine our play opening at the community theater, or the regional professional stage, or...be still my heart...on Broadway! And so, we do the arduous work.
What work? You may ask. Well, first you have to search for submission opportunities (aka “Opps”) that fit your play. Once you’ve identified potential Opps, you have to prepare your play for submission, and here’s where the “arduous” part comes in. Different Opps will ask for different things, frequently specifying a wide range of different submission requirements: formatting, number of pages, number of words, anonymous or not; the list goes on! The result is that every submission becomes a unique project, and frequently a time-consuming project. Many Opps will also require a fee to apply - I’ve seen fees as low as $5.00 and high as $100.00! And, if that’s not enough, even after we have done our due-diligence, submitted our plays as instructed, and paid the “reading fees,” we then have to wait, sometimes for months, before we hear from Opps, if we hear from them at all.
No matter how great our play is; the odds of getting
our play produced by someone else are enormous!
When we submit, we enter a buyer’s market. As playwrights, we are the “sellers.” In my experience, there are way more sellers than there are buyers. I’ve seen Opps that limit the number of submissions to “the first 300...500...1000” plays received! I recently submitted to a “500” limit Opp two days after it was posted and it was already closed. My point is no matter how great our play is; we are facing enormous odds: 300 to 1; 500 to 1, 1000 to 1, or more?
Sometimes it feels like I might as well just stuff my play into a bottle
and toss it in the ocean hoping a big-time producer will find it on a beach!
All that said, I still submit...a lot. I do have a $10.00 limit on fees, and then only when an Opp looks like a particularly good fit. I have submitted my shows hundreds of times to “good-fit” Opps, and, I have been fortunate to have had submissions lead to an Off-Broadway run (2019) and performances in three major festivals: N.Y. Theater Festival (2019), Atlanta Fringe Festival (2020), and Rogue Theater Festival (2022). Not a very good track record, four “successes” out hundreds of “attempts.” Nevertheless, I will still do it, the optimist in me figuring that sooner-or-later somebody is going to recognize a brilliant script when they see it! So, I’ll keep tossing those bottles in the ocean as I join legions of optimistic playwrights waiting. In the meantime, however, as we wait, what can we do?
We may be “sellers,” but we are not competitors!
Well, we can continue to participate in our on-line groups as we work to develop our art and craft, but that, in my experience, usually does not lead to production...just better playwriting. This brings us back to our dilemma. But...is this “dilemma” really a binary choice? Are there really only two “equally undesirable” alternatives: the arduous process of “submitting,” or the arduous process of “self-producing?” Now, it would be great if that were a rhetorical question, but it’s not. I don’t have a brilliant answer. Maybe throwing bottles in the ocean is the best strategy. But, maybe not. And so, I am suggesting that we, as a community of playwrights, try to find ways to support each other in our individual quests to bring our plays to life. We may be sellers, but we are not competitors. We are not selling the same thing; our works are unique. No two plays are the exactly the same just as no two playwrights are exactly the same.
John McDonnell Tierney
Heath, Massachusetts
December 5, 2022