#playwright problems

[sputnikcentury]

How many notes about “this won’t be clear to Cishet audiences” do I have to get before it’s acceptable to just send back a gif of Dr. Frank-n-furter shouting “I DIDN’T MAKE HIM FOR YOU”

[icallervera]

Okay. So I wrote a play. It's fine, serviceable, whatever. There is one female role and, after an underwhelming parade of actresses at the callback, the director settled on an actress who is a very dear friend of mine (I mean, as much as I "friend." I don't really friend). No one was perfect, we should have shopped for more actresses, but... Whatever. We cast her. Now, 6 months later, she's shitting the bed. Is dreadful. So dreadful, we're cutting numbers and scenes to minimize her. I have no idea how to handle this. I'm sad for my friend bc she's epically failing, but I'm also sad for me because her bad acting is taking its toll on the show. Ugh.

[sputnikcentury]

hold on just adding a note to my characters page that if this trans character isn’t played by a trans actor I will personally shut down the production and trash the set

[sputnikcentury]

how do you get a play produced

Hi, Anon! Great question! 

In my experience, you get none of the opportunities you don’t submit for, which is why websites like https://playsubmissionshelper.com/blog/ are your best friend as an aspiring playwright. Even if the prize is a staged reading or a workshop or a cash sum, all of those can advance your play into the hands of people who might be in a position to produce it - even just submitting your work, even if you don’t win, still gets it out there!

Cultivate relationships with producers, directors, and theater companies. if there’s a company near you that you know produces or develops new work, get involved with them. Volunteer in their box office or front of house. There’s really nothing wrong with some good, old fashioned brown nosing - endearing yourself to people can open doors. 

It’s never “just” a reading or “just” a workshop - if someone wants to get your work on its feet, DO IT. A Singular They went through three readings and a workshop before I was offered a production opportunity (disclaimer: by a theater company I’ve had a relationship with since I was sixteen). It all builds up. 

tl;dr - submit everywhere, make friends, hustle

[sputnikcentury]

made a lot of progress tonight but it’s only 42 pages so there’s a lot of work to do and probably a lot missing

need some people game to give feedback on a play about toxic internet culture

[sputnikcentury]

I can’t think of a better way to commemorate AIM dropping support for 3rd party chat clients and effectively killing the program than writing a play set in an online RP community.

[sputnikcentury]

I’m in an adversarial relationship with my publisher and if you email me and ask nicely I’ll send you illicit PDFs of my own work.

[sputnikcentury]

When I think about A Singular They now, it feels naive to me to have written about an intersex, non-binary protagonist whose biggest struggle in life was to feel whole in their body and understood by their peers, with no looming catastrophic threats to their personhood—but I have to remember that we lived in that world! It was an optimistic portrayal, but it was grounded in the reality of 2013-2015! When I ended the play with Burbank’s assertion “I will be all right,” I believed that! It was the fucking Obama administration! Why shouldn’t I have believed that!

Art is a fossil record! A better world is possible, we have BEEN THERE BEFORE.