I've been working through a new batch of play submissions and queries and the more I do, the more apparent it becomes that asking for a ten or fifteen-page dialogue sample is, well, silly.
It's standard practice, so we've been following that pattern. But here's the problem, it doesn't really tell you anything. It doesn't show you if a play is good or not. If you look at fifteen random pages of some of the masterworks of the cannon (that word doesn't scare me like it does some folks,) they are/seem to be severely lacking.
Fifteen pages of King John doesn't necessarily look that different than fifteen pages of Hamlet. Chekhov would (probably) never be picked up from a dialogue sample. Ten pages of Ionesco? Forget it.
So why is it standard practice? Why do we ask for fifteen pages instead of full scripts? I'd assume it's to weed out unwanted reading material. I know not every reader finishes every script they pick up, even if their website says so. It's hard to keep going if a script is awful, I know because I finish them. But why not take a full script and make a better informed decision?
Now one could make the case that fifteen pages of a great show, and you know there's something there. But I have to wonder how many scripts are sitting in piles there that could be really good if they'd be read, far better than ten pages lets on.
I know most say their literary department is overburdened. They don't have time to read everything so we put up barriers to entrance. Doubly ironic is how few of the bigger houses with literary staffs do new work by unknown writers. Under the guise of lack of manpower many companies do everything possible to not be bothered by having to read plays. Everything except, of course, not accepting submissions. That would send the wrong message . . .
But if plays are what companies do, should we not use as much of our resources as possible in reading? I can not think of another business model which would actively resist new ideas. Can you imagine a drug company not accepting anything until it has been patented and proven a successful money maker? I'm sure they'd like to, but doing that would put them out of business.
In the grand scheme what do we gain by putting up barriers to even reading new work? Long before decisions are made about possibly producing it. We have barriers on cast size, scenic requirements--any hurdle we can think of that makes our jobs a little easier. But has making our jobs easier castrated the supply of what many need to function?
Are we better served by by other institutional functions than by doing everything in our power to find great works to stage? If you look at many companies submissions pages you'd think so. I know a lot has been said about development hell and the well-crafted, empty MFA scripts. But I have to wonder if the root causes don't lie even earlier.
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
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8 comments:
New works isn't exactly my cause celebre, but in a similar vein, I've always thought that literary departments should have two distinct sections. One devoted to new works and one whose sole purpose is to keep tabs on and read scripts that haven't been produced in the city (or region, whatever) in more than a decade. There's an amazing amount of work that is being lost to history because we simply don't do any seeking any more.
When he saw a poster for Gift Theatre's Wit the other day, my roommate turned and asked me, "Haven't there been any plays written in the last three years?" The only thing I could say was, "Nope, and there've only been 50 written ever."
Kris Vire wrote last week about 4 productions of Much Ado this summer.
Even with Shakespeare there's more room for variety. And I can't think of a writer done more often (and often poorly.)
I know a lot of folks who don't read plays period, let alone new ones. So they tend to want to do what was on their (everyone's) reading lists in college.
on a highly un-related note, did you see the nice color shot of "Henry IV" included in the listings section of The Reader this week?
I took a class with a playwright who said you ought to send the entire script -- even if they specify a 10 page sample. If they like the first 10 pages, they're going to keep reading (in theory).
Marisa - Interesting strategy, but I wonder how often it worked--I know a number of people who wouldn't even bother with the first ten pages because the playwright couldn't follow submission guidelines. Spiteful, perhaps, but a bigger risk for the playwright than the theater.
That said, if it works, I'll start trying it.
Great post.
And I couldn't agree more.
I had a friend once who said that if a script doesn't interest him in first 10 pages, there was little chance of it being interesting for him for the next 90.
But I pointed out the same thing you've pointed out here: Read the first 10 pages of most classics and you'll be amazed by the lack of interesting anything.
I don't think I changed his mind. And was unlikely to since he really wasn't interested in reading anything.
His prove it to me attitude was exactly what I hate anywhere I find it. In theatre audiences, directors, actors and producers.
It is a front that, to me, is a disguise for an unwillingness to be vulnerable enough to see through another's eyes and is antithetical to creation.
In my opinion, lit departments are filled with very earnest people who would like to read/discover something great. Some of these readers (many) are trained dramaturgs. Some are writers. Some of just theatre lovers.
But that doesn't mean any of them knows whether a script will play.
And that is quite a mysterious talent anyway.
After all, we all know many plays that work great in one production and then, in another, don't work at all - but the words are the same.
It makes me think that submitting plays is generally a waste of time.
And readers, and their opinions, should be considered generally irrelevant.
Marisa's teacher has a point, now that I think of it. Out of the 100-odd theaters to which I sent a 10-page sample of a play nearly two years ago, fully half of them have not even sent a rejection or *any* kind of a response. If I'm getting that kind of lack of professional courtesy when I'm *following* their guidelines, why not just send the whole darn thing?
My feelings are mixed about the trend to request the ol' ten-pager in advance. From where I sit (in my office amidst stacks of books, notebooks, and other detritus), those ten pages present a challenge: which ten pages out of the 100-120 or so will give the reader a sense of what's going on in my play or musical? And perhaps I'll guess and second-guess myself into which cutting to use until - oops! - I've missed the deadline.
In general, however, I've found most literary managers and their minions to be most kind to me here in Chicago and occasionally elsewhere (forget a response of ANY kind from a Los Angeles house). To be specific, Raven Theatre read the 10-page extracts of two of my plays over the past eight months, and in both cases requested I send along the full script. While Raven passed on both scripts, I received a very nice letter regarding each that also included a handwritten note of encouragement and support, which tells me that A) someone actually read the script and B) someone cared enough to go beyond the standard form letter.
That said, I've found in some cases that the 10-page sample will never be able to capture the essence of a play. This past week, I submitted 10 pages of a new play to a local theater company; however, this new play is actually four one-act plays meant to be performed as an entire evening. My dilemma: from which one-act should I lift the ten-page sample? While all four of the one-acts share similarities in theme, location, circumstances, etc., each is peopled with new characters in different settings and presented in a different style. In this case, I literally drew my selection from a hat, and now I hope that Chance has provided an interest-provoking ten page preview of my play.
The inherent trouble, perhaps, is that - in my opinion (others may feel otherwise) - plays are meant to be performed more than read. Text that might sit immobile on a page might come to life when actors are rushing around, lights are fading up or down, sound effects are happening...so my guess is it's doubly hard for any literary manager or team to make a full assessment of a play's merits whether or not they've received 10 pages or 100 pages.
But, since this seems to be the trend, perhaps this presents a challenge to us writers to create works that engage a reader's imagination, stirring the reader to visualize our text's potential in a dark room surrounded by paying customers. I'm not saying us writers aren't trying to do that already. But in an era where our 10 pages of play seem to correlate to our 10 minutes of (possible) fame, well...this might sound like I'm advocating that we, as writers, need to retool our craft to resemble sit-com writing, I'm merely suggesting we meet the challenges of submission with the same invention, humanity, craft and love of theater that we already pour into our own works of Art.
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