Playwright gets a small surprise. Is this a trend?

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Last week I got a check in the mail from a theater in Los Angeles. I had written the check myself; it was the submission fee to their one-act play contest. They were refunding the submission fee to me – though they were accepting the script for consideration. I was momentarily floored. Then, I realized that as the editor of this here magazine, I had a perfect cover to write and ask them, Why the heck would you do that? That’s never happened before. (See their reply below.) Of course, I was thinking a little bit about Polly Carl’s “Script Work” essay and her points about ethical theater administration. I was also thinking about Melanie Marnich, a Minnesota playwright (born and bred), who ranted to me one day over coffee about her first production at the famous, and large, Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago. Apparently, all the other artists got paid – real union wages – except her, the playwright. She was just supposed to be happy that they were doing her play. “Never doing that again!” she yelled. . . Now she’s living in California, writing for HBO’s Big Love – so maybe there is such a thing as karma. Speaking of karma, I also couldn’t help but think about the fact that, as a playwright, I generally don’t send to contests or theaters that have submission fees. Copying scripts, putting scripts in the mail, sending scripts to 5, 10, 15, 20 different theaters and contests as often as possible is already just too damn expensive. But, even more important to me: I freakin’ hate sending scripts off to random literary offices. I’ve been around enough theaters and served on enough to panels to know that, of the tons of the scripts that come in, the odds are higher than you think that either a) Your script got lost. b) It got read by the volunteer usher who really thought it would be cool to read scripts and is just kind of tickled they were looking for volunteers but doesn’t know anything about how difficult picturing a play on stage from the text on the page can be and didn’t really understand what all the weird formatting was about anyway. Or c) A contest is announced as a way to build awareness for the theater – and sometimes submission fees – but 6 out of 8 or 8 out of 10 or 5 out of all 5 slots are already filled up with people who are known personally in some way by the theater company. Look, I don’t blame anyone for this. We all prefer to work with people we know. I certainly do too. And a lot of scripts can be painful to read. The good ones look on the surface exactly the same as the bad ones, so they can easily get lost. Plus, I understand that just by getting my name on their desk a few times, I become more “known” personally to these companies. Sometimes think I should just stamp my name on a bunch of sheets of paper and send that to the literary office. I’ll save on postage, and the “getting to know” process will be the same. After the third submission of name-stamped sheets, they’ll finally send me a letter acknowledging my existence as a playwright and saying that, “While this play doesn’t fit our theater, we’re eager to see what you’re working on next.” I’ll send them my name one more time, and then on the fifth or sixth round, I’ll actually start sending scripts with plays on them. . . O, I wish. For all these reasons, and probably a few more that I should talk to a therapist about, I don’t usually submit to places that have submission fees. – I’m certainly not going to pay for that kind of generalized humliation. – On the other hand, life is too short - and life in the theater too absurd – to have hard and fast rules about anything, and the Attic Theatre in Los Angeles has been doing a one-act festival for a long time. I figured they might be worth a try once. So – every once in a while – I make an exception and send a check. To have it bounce back to me – in a good way! My, my. What’s going on here? I had to ask. From Jaime Gray, Literary Manager, Attic Theatre:
Dear Alan Our One-Act Marathon has charged an admission fee since its inception nearly 20 years ago. This fee, in part, helped fund the productions of the finalists selected in the contest. In the last few years, however, we have been working to expand our event. In doing so, we have announced our contest to playwriting organizations and numerous college and university programs. Our response from many of these groups was mixed. Several organizations refused to announce the contest to their members because their policy is NOT to support events which charge playwrights an admission fee. Directors of university programs agreed to share the information with their students, but they did so apprehensively, warning us that they discourage students from paying to have their work considered. These responses are what ultimately convinced us to eliminate the fee. The argument is sound; writers are already offering our company a significant service in providing their work for our consideration -- work which will ultimately be the product that draws patrons to our theatre. Therefore, in the spirit of improving and expanding an already successful tradition at the Attic, we eliminated the fee. Our hope is that this step will raise the visibility of our event and draw not just more playwrights, but a broader variety of playwrights. Most notably, members of one of our local organizations, the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights (ALAP), are entering our One-Act Marathon for the first time ever! In the past, the ALAP has refused to support our event because we charged an admission fee. I hope you find this information useful. I'm very interested in learning how other organizations have managed to fund their events in a case like this one. Our company is anxiously waiting to find out if we receive the grant funding that will replace those administrative fees in helping to produce our event!
Could this be a trend? Ethical treatments of playwrights? Putting your money where your mouth is when you talk about how much the American theater is built on the backs of good playwrights? Can anyone else point us toward other examples of new, improved policies toward writers? At the very least, this is a good example of the fact that sticking to your guns because you believe in a principle, as the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights did, can actually lead to real change. . . It just may take 19 years.
Alan M. Berks

Alan M. Berks is a Minneapolis-based writer whose plays have been seen in New York, Chicago, Phoenix, Indianapolis, San Francisco, and around the Twin Cities. He helped create Thirst Theater a while back. Now, he’s the co-founder of this here magazine. He’s also written Almost Exactly Like Us, How to Cheat, 3 Parts Dead, Goats, and more.