Sometimes people ask me why I created CreateTheater.
I created CreateTheater because too many writers were trying to develop plays and musicals alone.
They had scripts. They had ideas. They had taken classes.
But they did not have access to the kind of ongoing development room that professional theater requires—especially if they lived outside New York.
CreateTheater was built to become that room online.
I was already developing new plays and musicals online since 2013. Why not turn it into a theater company?
A geographically independent company where writers could bring in their actual work, hear it discussed, receive dramaturgical guidance, and prepare the script for the next stage of development. Not another class. Not generic accountability. A sustained professional artistic process that focused on the play or musical itself, developed by a professional company that happened to be in NYC.
Turns out, this was a really helpful idea! We’re still going strong eleven years later.
But theater cannot live entirely online.
A script may be strengthened on Zoom, but eventually the words must enter the mouths and bodies of actors. Each writer needs to hear the rhythm of the spoken word, feel where the room’s attention shifts, and see what is actually happening in the “audience.”
Theater becomes theater when artists are together in the same space.
Development Reading Workshops
As I’m developing new work post-pandemic, more and more as a professional director/dramaturg we’re exploring the script in one-day or two day reading workshops. It’s an efficient, economical way to engage actors and a director with your script and foster a collaboration of artists for your development process.
That is why CreateTheater is expanding into one-day and two-day development reading workshops in New York City, where most of the casting process takes place.
The online development room helps the writer prepare the script to enter the live room. Then, in person with actors, a director, and focused dramaturgical support, the work can be tested before the writer spends significant money on a showcase or production.
This is why development matters.
A reading should not simply prove that the script exists. It should reveal what the script needs next.
And the quality of your feedback will either delay your development process or help your script assemble a team that will move it forward faster.
That is why I created CreateTheater: to give writers access to a serious development process, wherever they live – and then bring the strongest work into the room where a professional creative team can make it truly come alive.
I welcome your thoughts and comments!