NPD | CreateTheater

The Working Playwright

by Cate Cammarata | Feb 26, 2024 | NPD, Theater, Writing Tips

(This is a new monthly column on CreateTheater.com – thank you, Melissa!)

FIND THEE A WRITER’S GROUP

When I speak with aspiring playwrights or writers of any genre, the first piece of advice I give is “join a writer’s group.” If you can’t find one, create one. A writing group has been essential to my growth as a playwright, and it will be for yours as well.

Why? Writing groups offer both a dedicated time to write and a dedicated time to present and receive feedback to your project.

The consistency of selecting and presenting a 10-12 minute section or scene of your play helps you focus on your play one scene at a time, deeply and succinctly. You see the way the scene operates in and of itself and the way it functions within the play wholistically. If you present 10-12 pages per week, within 10-12 weeks you will have detailed notes and comments that will help you edit the play, focusing on what is working and eliminating what is not working.

I have been a member of a writing group that meets once per week, for three hours, 10 months per year since 2015. That’s nine years! I’ve developed each of my plays using these methods and all of them have been presented as staged readings or productions once completed. It’s a method with proven results.

HOW: To function well, a writing group needs commitment, consistency, and structure.

Rule One:

Set and maintain a schedule and hold each other accountable for attendance whether once per week, once every two weeks or once per month. The group can’t function if no one shows up. Each member should have a project they seek to create or revise using the momentum a working group provides.
Set the length of the meeting to allow for a 10-minute check-in, followed by 20 minutes from each writer. So if your group has 4 writers, your meeting should be 1 ½ hours. If you have 8 writers, your meeting should be 3 hours.

Rule Two: Presentation and Feedback.

Set rules. Each writer can present up to ten minutes of new or revised work. The writer “casts” the players from the members or bring in actor friends. The group might invite a few actors to participate regularly—it helps them too!
After the reading of the selection, the floor is open for comments. This is not the time to rewrite the play, offer “advice” about what you would do, or talk about your own work. This is the time to tell the author what you heard and what you know from the scene. List the events and how you experienced it. What did you like. What didn’t you understand. What confused you. Don’t offer prescriptive advice.
Writers: LISTEN. Reserve the right to remain silent. This is your chance to learn about your play! This is not your time to explain the plot or answer comments.
Don’t reveal your intention. Take notes. Write down everything that is said. If one member is confused, let other members answer their questions.
At the end of the discussion, if you have one or two questions, ask them, but again, don’t explain. If you don’t get the responses you want, it’s time to rewrite and re-present until the scene works.
When people ask me a question my favorite answer is “what do you think?” They often have a response, and surprisingly, it often is the response I was hoping for.

In addition to listening to your own work and hearing responses to it, you will grow by listening to other’s work and responding to it as well. It’s all about learning and listening.

A few more things:

Don’t cancel meetings unless ALL the writers are in rehearsals or productions, which is your goal. If no one has work to present, meet ANYWAY! And use the time to write together, starting with a prompt (you can find these on the internet) and write silently for 40 minutes. You do not have to read what you wrote. Just use the time to focus on writing without interruption. Discuss the prompt, how if affected your writing, then move on.

Discuss plays that you’ve seen, plays you admire. Discuss craft. Use the time to talk about theatre. How often do you get time to do that in your life? Value it. Protect it. Use it.

Use your writing group to prepare your script BEFORE you submit or schedule a staged reading. Those steps should follow AFTER presenting and rewriting your draft within the group.

Submissions and Staged Readings will be topics for other columns, so stay tuned!

For now, keep writing!

Melissa Bell’s work has been featured in the New York Times and nominated for Best Adaptation & Modernization by New York Shakespeare, and as a Finalist for the Henley Rose Playwright Competition for LADY CAPULET. She was also awarded Honored Finalist for the Collaboration Award by the Women in Arts & Media Coalition for COURAGE. TheMelissaBell.com

Where Are We Going?

by Cate Cammarata | Feb 12, 2024 | Inspiration, NPD, Theater

How Are We Doing?

I can’t believe we’re already approaching 2025, our quarter-century mark. That’s a significant milestone in history, with enough time under our belt now to collectively look at “how we’re doing” and where we’re going.

The first 25 years of the twenty-first century were a difficult time to live through. Although Y2K never happened, it was a precursor of the “fake news” that would build enough momentum to destroy our trust in the media, government, medical/pharmaceutical industries, and in general all of the large institutions built in the twentieth century that told us what to believe and what to do. Unprotected, we chose instead to silo ourselves into smaller insular tribes with whom we decided to “know, like and trust” (a concept fittingly forged by various marketing strategies). Technology intensified and exponentially expanded each individual voice through social media and the internet.

The next thing to hit us (literally) was 9/11. Whatever vestige of safety and security we had in whatever institutions that were “supposed to keep us safe” were destroyed and replaced by excessive fear against the “other.” The “other” continued to be defined to be whomever didn’t look like us and believe what we believe.

Although 9/11 was an American tragedy, the reverberations were felt globally. With the increasing alacrity to hold “the other” at bay, nations globally reflected the search and destroy philosophy video game theory promoted and kept people hypnotized and in fear worldwide.

And … here we are.

Wars. Hatred. Potentially permanent climate change. Dire economic realities. Unthinkable just twenty-five years ago, democracies everywhere are being threatened with their very existence, to be replaced with autocracy and/or radical change.

Where’s the promise of freedom, prosperity and growth? Will we ever know, like and trust our neighbor again?

Fear expands exponentially, whether promoted for personal or national aims.

The Golden Age of Greece

The fifth century B.C. is known as the “Golden Age” of Greece. That classical era that established the concept of democracy in the first place also saw the birth of the drama itself as the primary offering to the god Dionysus. The Dionysian Festival is a huge part of the celebration of freedom which Athenians saw as an important feature of their democracy – the freedom to discuss new ideas and to reconceptualize established myths and stories to reflect a new “way of seeing” to the citizens gathered in the theatron (which literally means “placee for seeing”). The fledgling democracy of Athens supported this festival and the literary forms that flourished in this setting. Tragedy, in particular, was useful to the state and funded by the monied choregos, or producers, who also usually served in government or the military. As the “noble offering to the gods,” tragedy, unlike comedy, was always a primary platform to communicate the values of the polis. At least it was until the end of the fifth century, when political ineptitude, fear and corruption made the drama “dangerous” (as Plato said famously later, in the fourth century).

Dangerous? We can all agree that new ideas can be dangerous. But dangerous to whom?

Dangerous to the entrenched leaders, of course, who were the funders of the drama anyway and who subsequentially shut down the platform. When the drama returned roughly 100 years later audiences were entertained with broad, physical comedy rather than a theatre of new ideas. Audiences were entertained and distracted by the comedy, instead of being challenged with plays of new ideas. New ideas were thought to be politically dangerous to the established state and the dear leaders’ political strategies.

I think that we, now, like the Ancient Greeks, are in the transition stage from what was into what will be. We are definitely being entertained and distracted by the many “powers that be” that fund our multitude of various distractions.

All this to say that we should wake up and smell the expresso.

Where are we going?

I’m not Nosferatu. I’m a theatre maker. We reflect our times and put it onstage. But like the ancient choregos, I’m interested in putting the poetry of the present on stage to help represent and preserve the ideas of the moment in a new way.

In other words, I’m interested in helping writers craft their contemporary stories on stage to deliver a message meant for a wider platform of people to receive, understand, and to interpret in their own way. Creative expression received is dependent upon the story the receiver attributes to it; the creator has no control over the individual’s interpretation. Such is the nature of art.

And such is the usefulness and function of art in our society. Then and now. To receive new ideas in new ways, and to be open to new modes of thought and understanding.

To understand the “other’ and their world as perceived vicariously in the audience through the dramatic journey is what we do. To honestly experience theater is to experience another’s way of life, way of thinking, and another’s human journey without judgement, in reception of the ideas as they are presented. To present theater today is to challenge the audience to be open to other ways of living, thinking and being human.

Wherever this century takes us, we’re not going very far without knowing, liking and trusting the other and their human experience. Theatre arts help society develop empathy, which apparently we’re dreadfully lacking.

Theatre Makes Us More Fully Human

To enjoy theatre is to understand the functions of the artist in society. To support theatre is to support those artists who sensitively create art onstage in order to reflect ourselves back to us.

Keep making theatre like the world depended on it – because it sort of does.

__________________

Up next tomorrow: Theatre kids rule the world (according to the NY Times).

Creating Theater in 2023

by Cate Cammarata | Jan 2, 2023 | Dramaturgy, NPD, Producing, Theater

A Watershed Moment

COVID-19 will prove to be the watershed moment in defining the history of the 21st century. Apart from our communal human experience of the virus and its reverberations across the human spectrum, the arts and in particular theater must learn to surf the waves of change.

Remember body surfing the waves when you were a kid? The key lesson was to learn to relax and float on the surface of the water when the wave hit. Resistance and rigidity would result in dragging you down into the undertow – not a pleasant experience.

As theatremakers, how do we relax and float in the face of the tsunami of change hitting our industry? Let me tell you what won’t work: resistance and rigidity, holding tight to the model of what was instead of facing the challenge of what is.

Facing the Wave

The way I see it, the waves of change encompass the economics of theater, audience demographics, and the need for inclusive storytelling models.

First, economically, theater’s been devastated. I’ll leave it to others to provide charts and graphs on the precise numbers, but as a broad perspective we’re facing an industry where many of our brightest and talented workers have left theater (and left NYC) because they needed to survive. Those who stayed are now faced with rising costs on everything, fewer opportunities to work and even fewer opportunities to work on projects they like. Producers and artistic directors are also facing rising costs of everything, including the realization that we must pay our artists a dignified living wage. At the top of this theater food chain, where will this funding come from? Historically artists have been funded by the government, the Church or by wealthy patrons. How’s that working out in the current climate? We must look for a broader economic baseline, much like video and film has had to do earlier. In the meantime, major non-profit arts companies like the Roundabout are making major programming cuts.

Secondly, our audiences are literally dying off. We must change our offerings to suit younger audiences (like the Met’s decision to concentrate more on contemporary work). How do we plug into current culture? By being open to younger artists and taking their creative expression seriously, and being open to embrace the change that’s already here. If art reflects the culture that creates it, we marginalize any artist at our own risk. Remember when Off-Broadway used to be a place for experimentation and risk-taking? Where is that place now (other than TikTok)?

Finally, as times change the way we tell stories must also change. We know that the use of technology has changed the way we process events and tell them. The dramatic imagination is more cinematic and visual than ever before, and it intrinsically changes our storytelling structure. As an industry we must make way for more inclusive storytelling models, not just in terms of whose story we’re telling (although we definitely need more non-western, non-Anglo-centric perspectives) but how we’re presenting these stories. We must allow ourselves space to think outside the proscenium. People today crave experiences where they are immersed in an environment where they retain agency, much along the lines of the interactive video games they grew up with. I’m not saying that we should all follow the Sleep No More model, but marketers around the world have become aware that designing and staging experiences heightens economic value and customer satisfaction. If we want audiences to crave theatre, we have to provide those theatrical experiences in innovative and compelling ways.

Keep Your Eye on the Current

Just as you would never body surf without checking the weather beforehand (at least, not as an adult), so should you understand the cultural and economic currents of the moment. I’m concentrating on smaller cast sizes, deepening audience’ engagement and clarifying the emotional journey. No matter what the story, I’m remembering that essentially theatrical experiences are about the audience’s encounter with the story.

Above all, remember that this moment too will pass. Enjoy the ride and let your audiences do the same.

Schedule 10 Tasks to Get Produced

by Cate Cammarata | Sep 12, 2022 | NPD, Pitching, Theater, Virtual Promotion

Success is a Choice

Following up on last week’s blog, I want to reiterate the above: SUCCESS IS A CHOICE.

Do you want to be a successful playwright? Then hang out with successful playwrights. Put yourself in the company of producers and artistic directors – then make friends with them. I encourage everyone to network both online and in person as much as possible.

Do what winners do and you will be a winner as well.

Wait! You say you do that, and you’re still not being produced? Is there anything else?

Yes. Commit to taking ACTION.

Schedule Time to Submit Your Plays

You can’t say you’re doing everything unless you are doing the following on a regular routine basis:

Join the Dramatist Guild and look over their submission calendar weekly
Subscribe to Play Submissions Helper. Check it weekly as well.
Join the Playwright Binge email group at playwrightbinge@groups.io. Read the emails.
Set a goal of _____ submissions each week/month (the number must be realistic for you)
Make it your business to achieve that goal weekly.

As a successful playwright you must find time in your day to both write new work and promote your existing scripts as much as possible, on a regular routine basis that works for you.

Make a plan. If you schedule time to do this routinely, chances are that you will.

Create Systems to Make Life Easier

I organize all of my work in Dropbox. You may prefer Google Drive, hard-drive files on your laptop, or some other organizing tool that I’m not aware of. Just make it work for you.

Set up online files for each play to submit:
- Text of your script as a pdf
- Blind copy of your script as a pdf
- Your bio (both long and short)
- Production History
- Previous director bios and cast rosters
- Set and Production Requirements
- Casting Breakdown
- MP3 files (if a musical)
- Possibly short samples of your script (add when a theater requests your first 20 pages, for example)
- Photos
- Reviews, Recommendations and Testimonials
- Awards, grants and sponsorships
- Recordings of readings, cabarets, concerts and showcases (add full-length and edited versions)
- Sizzle Reel
- Marketing graphics: logos, marketing copy, etc.
- Legal Paperwork (contracts, LOAs, publishing documents, etc.)
Create a Submission Tracking Sheet for each play (excel)
- Dates of submission
- Theater
- Contact Information
- Track communications and replies
Create a Productions Tracking Sheet to track productions in excel
- Production Dates
- Theaters
- Producers and Artistic Directors
- Contact Sheet listing creative team, producing team and cast

As you add to your information, keep it ready and accessible in your online folder to make future submissions as easy – just reach into the file and attach the documents to the submission.

Licensing Your Script

Regular licensing agreements were typically after an Off-Broadway run or a NYC non-profit run. You should still submit to the major licensing houses. Below is from an article written by Kaelyn Barron:

Concord Theatricals and Playscripts Inc. accept submissions from agents or literary managers only.

However, you could also try to self-publish through Kindle Direct or promoting your script through ACCT (American Association of Community Theaters). You should definitely also join the New Play Exchange and create an author page for yourself and your plays to be discovered by regional theaters and others.

Always Be Pitching

Where else can your plays be constantly pitching themselves?

YouTube promos on your own channel
Your Website
Social Media accounts

Submit your work everywhere. Memorize your pitch and network.

If you’re a writer, you write. But you also must promote.

Hey, if it were easy everyone would do it. I hope this helps!

Should You Produce Your Own Play?

by Cate Cammarata | Aug 30, 2022 | New Musical Development, NPD, Producing, Theater

Should you produce your own show?

That depends. Is your show ready for a full production? (Check out my latest blog posts to answer that question.)

If, after much careful thought and input from trusted professionals around you, you determine that your show is ready for a full production in front of paying audiences, then you must honestly assess your own capabilities as a potential producer. The basic question question to ask is, “Am I ready to raise money to put my show on stage?”

If the answer is a “not in this lifetime” no and you don’t have a rich uncle to help, then you must

a) play the submit game to submit your play everywhere,
b) promote the assets that you have online to create an email list of an engaged demographic, and
c) network extensively to interest potential theaters and producers to produce it for you.

But guess what? B & C are the steps you must take to raise money as a self-producing playwright anyway, and A is a strategy I advise every writer to take even if they have the money to produce the show themselves. This is sometimes a very long game; often writers get tired of waiting. To “jump start” the process many start to consider producing the show themselves. At least it’s an action that they can make happen; it beats the passivity of waiting [endlessly] for someone else to produce it.

So it seems that the journey ends the same way; only the timelines are different. Kuddos to you if you’ve written enough plays and have submitted often enough to have many plays being developed simultaneously in different places. You’re a rockstar writer, and everyone wants to be like you.

However, I say whenever you can to “choose yourself” and go for it – but educate yourself first to NOT fall into the common money traps that take advantage of novice playwrights and line others’ pockets with your good money. Be wary when others want to “produce your show” without giving you the majority of the ticketing revenue or offering you a “theater space” without walking you step by step along the process to actually put on a full production. I’ve seen this happen to too many writers over the past many years. I’m tired of it, and angry that other ‘theater professionals’ are so ready to take advantage of those trying to get their plays onstage.

More on this later. First, a brief overview of the common ways most writers self-produce.

Showcases, Fringes and Festivals

Showcases were originally a term that meant a developmental production that independent writers or actors would stage to promote their work and get seen by agents, producers or directors – they would “showcase” themselves. The various Fringe Festivals and other theater festivals that now exist across the globe are producing entities where clusters of “showcases” can produce collaboratively and share expenses of venue rentals, marketing expenses and audience engagement.

Most Fringes and theater festivals can be a useful place to produce a new play or musical that’s in development; many things can only be learned when you put the work in front of an audience. Usually the expense is less than the cost of producing a showcase yourself; however, be aware that you probably will have to do everything yourself.

Reason to produce in a festival: to invite audiences into a performance to learn how they react, with the highest quality production elements that you can afford.

The AEA Showcase Code

If you are thinking of producing a showcase, you will want to consider the highest level of production that you can afford, in terms of set, lights, sound and talent (designers, director and actors). To cast union (Actor’s Equity Association) actors, you will be asked to comply with the AEA Showcase Code.

Showcases are relatively “cheap” to produce. The Equity Showcase total budget is limited to $35,000, although that doesn’t include the cost of the venue and rehearsal space rentals. There is a limit of 12 performances over a period of four consecutive weeks, and there may not be more than one two-performance day per week. Rehearsals are not to exceed a total of 128 hours scheduled over a maximum of five consecutive weeks, limited to 32 hours a week, no more than six hours/day except during the final week of rehearsal when the director may schedule three eight-hour days. Musical productions may use 5 additional hours for learning music during the first or second week of rehearsal.

The most important point is that no person engaged in any creative capacity for any Code production receive more remuneration than any AEA member.

I like to produce Showcase productions with the goals I would use for a Workshop production – that is, to use production elements to further the storyline and to illuminate character. The good thing is that you will be learning AND receiving some income from ticket sales. Make sure that you include a link in the program for a survey or other way the audience can communicate with you about what they thought after the show.

If you can afford to pay extra to video a performance, do so. Check with Equity for up-to-date rules on this. If you have a non-union cast, think about livestreaming a production as well. A two- or three-camera shoot will allow you to keep an archival recording to send to interested theaters or producers, allow you footage to edit into a sizzle reel or producer pitch, and to re-purpose into content on your YouTube channel or website. What counts today are digital assets that can work to pitch your play or musical 24/7 online, and sharing your clips to interest people to follow you or sign up to your newsletter.

Fringes & Festivals are coordinated by other entities that help get your work onstage. The world’s biggest Fringe Festival is the Edinburgh Fringe in Scotland, followed by the Adelaide Fringe Festival in Australia. In the United States, Festival participants are always on a Showcase Code (if you want to cast union actors), so make sure you apply at least three weeks before you open (the earlier the better).

As a participant in a Fringe or any festival, always make sure you understand the production rules and values behind the festival before signing on. Read the fine print and make sure you understand every detail. Ask for clarification if you don’t.

Better yet, do your due diligence before signing up. Make sure the festival has a good reputation – good enough to bring in audiences. YOUR audiences.

CABARET, VIRTUAL AND MORE

Alternatives to a showcase production are available, The most common are the cabaret (or concert reading) for musicals, or virtual productions (that are honestly more like films) that are created for plays.

Cabarets are useful for musicals – especially when the music is great, but the book needs work. Cabaret performances may also be livestreamed (and ticketed) and recorded without charge, with the permissions of the actors. Like showcases, cabaret readings and performances can be saved as archival videos, or edited and uploaded to YouTube and shared on your website.

Get Help

There are a few online communities where you can find your “tribe” and learn and grow by joining in. The best way to learn is to watch others. There is an investment cost, of course. If you’re interested in joining CreateTheater’s Experts Theater Company (ETC), our resident theater company, we’re opening our doors for registration in September.

Email me at cate@CreateTheater.com and we’ll get you off to a good start. Schedule a free 15 minute consultation here.

Are You Getting the Most from Your Readings?

by Cate Cammarata | Aug 22, 2022 | Dramaturgy, New Musical Development, NPD

Now that you know to go virtual (check out my last blog post here) do you know the steps of development? Are you making the most out of your readings?

As a professional theater maker, you need to know what must happen at each step of your script’s developmental journey, and how to get the right audience into the [virtual] room.

What’s the Goal?

If you don’t know the goal, any step will take you there – but you’ll spend way too much money trying to figure it out if you don’t plan out a strategy at the very beginning.

Know your goals before taking the first step, but also know the NEXT step before planning this one.

Usually a table reading is a good first step. It is necessary to “hear” your play read by others, and listen to the feedback afterward. Does it “work”? What are some specific questions that you have – can your readers help you with them? At this stage you’re checking for resonance and engagement. Resist the temptation to listen to each piece of “advice” unless at least three people comment on the same thing, and do a quick “gut check” to see if you agree with them. Important: record the feedback to analyze later.

What would be the next step after this? Another table reading to see if the changes made the script better.

Staged Readings

Staged readings can take place online or in person. Zoom readings are more efficient (and cheaper) and have the added convenience of assembling a team from around the world. If you have a “star” actor or director, this is a good choice, and your online reading should be recorded and shared for archival purposes (more on that later). Check with your AEA representative first regarding union rules of recording readings, since they may have changed.

For musicals, edited staged readings that include prerecorded songs are best. Make sure that you have permission to add your video clips to your website, social media and YouTube accounts.

Sometimes it’s best to produce an in person staged reading. Online readings are tricky for scripts that require a lot of physical comedy and/or lots of physical action. An in person staged reading can make your musical come to life if you arrange your music stands in groups that accommodate “blocking” and can even convey a sense of movement that approximates choreography. Also, for musicals it’s often easier for audiences to feel for the protagonist when they’re “live” (physically in the same room) than when distanced over the internet. However, because of the much greater expense you should only plan an in person staged reading when you’re sure your script “works” by testing it over a few zoom readings.

Plan for this at least four months ahead, as planning is critical. Casting, reserving studio/theatre space, and cultivating the right audience to show up is critical! Don’t underestimate the amount of time, promotion and expense that this may entail. It’s best if you have an interested producing partner (theater, producer, relative) to share the burdens of planning and expenses.

Common goals for a staged reading are:

Find out something about the script, music, dance ( the performative elements)
Promote your show for a higher level of audience (producers, ADs, possible investors)
Use the reading to get a better sizzle reel to show off your work online (YouTube, website, social media)
Use the reading as a chance to “test out” a director or lead actor to see if you want to include them on your ongoing team or to see if they “get” your work,

Do NOT plan a staged reading if your show needs editing or if you know there are still “problems.” An in person reading should only be used if you think your show is “good to go” and want to get it in front on influential people. Otherwise, stick to table reads, where the real work can be done.

Don’t forget to engage a videographer to record your reading for archival purposes! It will help you move to the “next step.”

Final Developmental Readings

Do the best quality staged reading you can afford when you believe you are ready to be produced. After the “29-hour” staged readings above, AEA tiers are used for the development of new works (especially musicals) usually prior to an intended planned production. These tier agreements replace what used to be called the Staged Reading Contract, the Developmental Lab and the Workshop agreements. Although these readings are pricey, they allow for video recordings. Usually these Tier AEA readings would only be held if there is a production already in the works, with a commercial producer or regional theater taking the lead.

This is the top of the development chain, and it means your next step is a full production. Although plays may also use the tiers, I find that they are more useful in the development of new musicals.

New plays are new musicals that are not represented by a commercial producer or a regional theater may still move on to a full production, but these are usually developmental productions like those using an AEA Showcase Code and/or those shows in a Festival.

More on Showcases and Festivals next week!

Have questions? Comment below!

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