On submitting scripts

One of the biggest challenges for playwrights is figuring out who to send their scripts to. Having done this for a while, I’m temped to say, send it to people you know, don’t bother with anybody else. It’s consistent with my experience. I once sent out a script I wrote -- and a very popular one, one that has been praised by the New Yorker and the New York Times -- to every single theater in America that seemed appropriate. I included its production history, its plaudits, and links back to my Web page, where potential producers could see the whole play as a Flash video. I would guess I sent it to three dozen theaters. It cost me a small fortune in stamps. I heard back from one theater: Thanks, no. From the rest, silence. I don’t imagine this is uncommon, but David Lindsay-Abaire says you should just send your scripts out, just keep sending them, again and again and again. It’s what he did, and he has a Pulitzer, so I defer to his judgement. However, there are some theaters I think I can safely say that you shouldn’t bother with. They’re going to claim that they are interested in reading new scripts, but that’s not true, not entirely. Sure, they’ll look at anything sent by an established playwright, or anything that comes from an agent. But if you’re like most American playwrights -- unagented and mostly unknown -- they’re going to throw your script on their transom heap and never get around to reading what you send in. Here’s a few things to look out for: 1. They don’t have a literary department. Unless you’re directed to send your script directly to a titled employee who is part of a literary department -- even a one-person literary department -- there is a good chance the theater has nobody specific reading new scripts. They may use volunteers to do it, which is a risky proposition, because those volunteers may not be especially good readers, and they may infrequently be available. The theater may just leave it up to the artistic staff to read the script, when they get around to it. And they probably won’t get around to it. 2. They tell you it will take a year to get back to you. It’s especially bad when they also don’t accept simultaneous submissions. This means they are asking you to take your work off the market for a year, until they finally get around to reading it. And they won’t get around to it. 3. They don’t produce new plays, Take a look at their past few seasons, or their upcoming season. Do you see any new work produced, or work by a new playwright? No? Then there is almost no chance they’re going to do your piece, even if they accept submissions. If you write short fiction as well as plays, as I do, the contrast between the submissions process is stark. Magazines that publish new work have an online submission form, detail explicitly how they want their stories submitted, tell you approximately how long it will take to get back to you (usually a few months), tell you how much you can expect to get paid, and tell you approximately how long it will take for your piece to get published. And once you submit you will, in general, get an email saying that your submission has been received. I have never seen a theater website that does this, except with playwrighting contests and conferences. Most theaters still only accept printed plays, which is ridiculous. Most do not have a submission process listed on their web site, and, if they do, it will be stingy with details. And there is a reason for that: Most American theaters, whatever they claim, are actually not interested in producing new work. There are some that do look at new work, and actually produce some of it. Stick with those theaters. Don’t bother with the others. You’re wasting your time and money. I’d say you’re wasting their time as well, but I don’t actually believe they spend much time on your script. Only about as long as it takes to put it on top of a filing cabinet and forget about it.