Making Money as a Playwright Part 1

by Cate Cammarata | Nov 4, 2024 | Business, NPD

How Do Playwrights Make Money?

The playwright Robert Anderson famously said in the late 50’s early 60’s that “one can make a killing in the theatre, but not a living.” The late Tim Kelly, a very prolific playwright for the school and community theater markets who passed away in 1997, published over 350 plays in his life, and would have about 6,000 performances of his plays every year, all over the world. His pieces were translated into dozens of languages. He adopted Anderson’s quote and paraphrased it for the amateur theater market: “You can make a living, but you can’t make a killing”.

Most active writers, including playwrights, have an academic affiliation, which pays the bills. To get your play produced, which if it’s an OK play is relatively easier, by far the best way to do it is to be around people who make theatre: actors, directors, producers. If you can get them to read your play and they like it, there’s a chance they may produce it.

Overall, while making a living as a playwright is possible, it often requires a combination of talent, perseverance, and strategic career choices.

And you will most often need another form of income (or a supportive spouse or other family member) in order to continue with playwriting. You may not make a living with this art form, but it can be fulfilling in many other ways.

Playwrights can make money through various channels, including:

Royalties: Playwrights typically earn royalties from productions of their plays. This is a percentage of the ticket sales or a fixed fee paid by theaters for the rights to perform the work.
Licensing Fees: When theaters want to stage a play, they must pay a licensing fee to the playwright or their representative. This can include fees for amateur and professional productions.
Grants and Fellowships: Many playwrights apply for grants and fellowships from arts organizations, foundations, and government bodies that support the arts. These can provide financial support for writing new works.
Publishing: Playwrights can earn money by publishing their scripts. Some publishers pay upfront fees or royalties for published plays.
Film and Television Adaptations: If a playwright’s work is adapted into a film or television show, they may receive a fee for the adaptation rights and possibly ongoing royalties from the production.
Collaborations and Commissions: Playwrights may be commissioned to write new works for specific theaters or projects, which can provide a guaranteed income.
Teaching and Workshops: Many playwrights supplement their income by teaching playwriting or conducting workshops, sharing their expertise with aspiring writers.
Options: Producers give playwrights an option when they decide to produce their work. (There will be a time limit on the option.)
Producing Their Own Work: Some playwrights take on the role of producer for their own plays, allowing them to retain a larger share of the profits.

Overall, the income of a playwright can vary significantly based on the success of their works, the demand for their plays, and their ability to navigate the industry.

So how do playwrights for the amateur markets make money? Simple— volume. The more productions, the more performances, the more money. So, how do you get more productions?

Your Website and Play Catalog

You simply must have more than one play that’s ready to be produced. When you’ve finished one play, start the next one.

That being said, this is easier for playwrights than musical theatre teams, but the same volume is suggested for musicals as well. If you want to make money writing plays, you simply must have many different plays, in many different formats (full length, one acts, 10 minute plays, etc.)

The easiest way to increase your writing output is to join a writer’s group. One of the best things that a writers’ group can give you is a deadline. When you’re regularly meeting with a community of writers, you challenge yourself to continually bring new work to the group, and to continue to write. If you’re not in a writers’ group, I’d recommend finding other external deadlines, whether they’re playwriting awards or theatre submissions windows. Whatever it is, find a deadline (with a realistic timeframe) so that there is somewhere you have to send a finished play to in a specific time frame (no matter what state your script is in).

Which brings us neatly onto our next step: share the play.

Share Your Play With Those You Trust

Once you’ve written your play, it’s time to share it beyond your writing group. Have friends in for a “pizza reading.” Ask people you trust to sit in a Zoom reading and discuss it afterwards. Continue to write and rewrite, addressing common feedback responses. (Usually I advise writers to listen carefully to feedback, and notice when the same note is given more than once. Usually you should address it when it is mentioned twice. To those comments that sound like the audience member is trying to rewrite your play, a good phrase to remember is, “Hmmm, interesting. I’ll think about that.”)

Especially if you’re writing a new musical, plan a 29-hour Industry Reading. Make sure to record it using the highest tech standards you can afford (especially if you believe the work is ready for important industry people to see). This is a ten times more important if you’re holding your reading anywhere outside New York.

You learn so much about what needs to change in your play when you’re collaborating with a director and/or dramaturg, and when you hear it read by actors. The rewrites carried out on the play during the rehearsed reading process is an instrumental step towards it eventually being staged.

When you feel your script is ready to be produced, submit the new play to calls for submissions, to literary departments near you, to directors you know., etc. Send it out far and wide.

The important thing about sharing your work is it increases your chances of it getting produced. Someone might love it.

This feels like it has a lot to do with luck. It does. But realize that you can help create your own luck by:

Writing a play that’s true to your artistic voice.
Sharing it far and wide and then using feedback to develop it
If a theatre shows interest in it, doing your very best to prove that you can deliver.

Remember, you get paid per performance, so you have to find someone to produce your play or musical.

(Part 2 is coming next week…)

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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).

5 Top Takeaways from the “How to Write a Musical” Workshop

by Cate Cammarata | Nov 1, 2019 | Dramaturgy, Musicals, Producing, Theater, Writing Tips

The World & The Want

Yesterday I taught my favorite workshop, the “How to Write a Musical That Works” Workshop through Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) in NYC. Along with the Executive Director Bob Ost and a stellar panel composed of Dramaturg/Producer Ken Cerniglia (Disney Theatricals, Hadestown), Tony Award winning Director/Lyricist Richard Maltby Jr. (Ain’t Misbehavin’, Fosse, Big, Miss Saigon), Kleban and Larsen Award winning Librettist and Lyricist Cheryl Davis (Barnstormer, Maid’s Door) and former Artistic Coordinator of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, Skip Kennon (Herringbone, Don Juan DeMarco, Time and Again), we hosted seven new musicals as they presented select song-scene presentations from their projects.

In this safe incubator environment, the teams came from all over – New England, Atlanta, Upstate NY, Long Island – to participate in our workshop and solicit feedback about their early developmental work. Some of the songs had just been writen the week before; most had never been performed.

This is a three part Workshop, roughly divided into the “beginning,” “middle,” and “ending” of a script. This first Workshop, “The World and The Want,” spoke about the need for clarity in your storytelling in the very beginning of your script and the presentation of the “I Want” song.

Everyone had surprises that day. One person learned that her beginning to her musical didn’t work at all – she is headed back to the drawing board with lots of ideas now on how to make the opening number work. Another writer learned that his I Want song communicated something very different to the audience than what he had thought, and is revamping the beginning of the song. Another writer was happy to learn that we were excited by his presentation, but confused by a few points – he now will be editing his opening for greater clarity.

Top 5 Takeaways: The World and The Want

Here are the top five things that we learned from the Workshop on October 27, 2019:

1. Clarity of storytelling must be established from the very beginning of the show

Establish WHO these characters are
The audience wants to know who we’re going to watch, and what they’re about
SHOW don’t TELL. If you describe your lead character as “the Lady Gaga” of that time period, don’t tell us – SHOW US.

2. The Opening Number

Why is this day different from any other day?
Set up your world and tone immediately, and keep it consistent into the next scene (and the next)
Can characters we “know” be used in a different way to tell the story?
Don’t refer to pronouns like “this” in a song without having established what “this” is.
An opening number should immediately get us into the ACTION of the story

3. Don’t Betray the audience into creating the expectation of a group I WANT in your opening number by introducing different characters, and then explain that we never see them again.

If you introduce specific voices in the opening number, your audience expects to see them again.Your audience wants to learn whose journey we’re on from the very beginning.
Don’t set up the expectation of A CHORUS LINE if we will never see these characters again.

4. Every song must have a complete arc – a complete beginning, middle, and end – to it

A song must travel and push the plot forward
We need to learn something within the song – the ending idea isn’t the same as the beginning idea.
By the end of the song, we must be in a very different place than we were at the beginning of the song.

5. The style of the song must reflect the action and intention of the character singing it

The tone of the song must serve the character in that moment
A laid-back, jazzy rhythm doesn’t serve a moment when the character has a driving, insistent intention to her action.
Instead of a ¾ time, a driving 4/4 may be more active a choice.Sometimes it helps to read the lyrics of the song as prose to discover the intention behind the action.

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