Literary Managers & Royalties

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'The only way to learn how to write plays is to see your plays done. And particularly to see them done in an environment where you're learning for yourself whether they work or not and determining the terms on which you consider whether they are effective or not.'

-- Arthur Kopit

Literary Managers play a significant role in bringing new work to the American stage. They're responsible for managing the review and selection processes for new scripts submitted to regional theatres. At a major rep company running a new play competition or accepting unsolicited scripts, this may involve the screening of over 2,000 manuscripts a year.

And these are the folks who run . . .

New Play Development Programs

That makes them the primary gate-keepers of productions and the royalty payments that make up the financial rewards of this business. Most Literary Managers have advanced degrees in theatre or literature and work as dramaturgical consultants to the playwrights whose writing intrigues them.

The risks of this sort of development process are tremendous for you as a playwright and for the theatre doing it. But so are the rewards.

Rep companies will take a small percentage of your future royalties if they do the premiere production of your play. They use this to pay the rent. The theatres deserve what they get from you: they will have given you a good royalty for their premiere production [up to $20,000 in the largest companies for a six week run] and, if all goes well, the risk they took should lead to many other rep theatre productions for you, a commercial Broadway production, and possibly a film version.

And that's why these theatres [along with other organizations] sponsor . . .

New Play Competitions

For all that, they get about 5% to 20% percent of your take for a limited number of years. You won't miss it since this is usually passed on to succeeding producers to pay.

At the other end of the royalty scale from regional theatres are non-professional community theatres, college drama departments, and high schools. Literary Managers are seldom found in this world. Royalties run from about $15 to $50 [U.S.] per performance, with 3 to 10 performances being the norm for a production.

Don't turn your nose up at these rates, yet. They may be small, but there are thousands of producing operations in this category and it's possible to bring in enough from multiple productions to make a car payment if you can do without a Mercedes. The bad news is, few of these folks will leap at your script if it hasn't gotten notice in competitions or the rep circuit.

A NOTE ON JOB TITLES: In the U.S. Literary Managers have often been referred to interchangeably as "Dramaturgs." This was originally a job developed in German theatres -- a title for which there is no good English translation. To split a very fine hair . . . Dramaturgs work on new plays but often concentrate on revivals of older [previously produced] plays, developing the concept and style of a production in collaboration with directors and designers. Literary Managers work primarily on developing new [unproduced] plays. But don't be surprised if you get a letter about a new play you've submitted from a rep company's Dramaturg. It's a rare U.S. regional theatre that has both of these titles on its payroll.

These folks share the same professional organization in North America . . .

Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas [LMDA]
121 Ave. of Americas, Suite 505
New York, NY 10013
USA
212-965-0586
Fax: 212-966-6940
admin@lmda.org

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