Training Your Readers to Read: Part II

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'The first scene that got written was the strip club. I had this girl who is a stripper and I had this guy. I found out who she was; I found out who he was. I had two instruments, but the play didn't sing with just two. At one point, there were three couples, and then I realized I didn't need three; I needed two for a string quartet. It's kind of if A meets B, and then meets C, how's D going to feel about it? Some critics of the play have said it's algebra and not true to life. Of course it's not true to life; it's a play. It's kind of virtual reality. . . . I think that's why the play is called CLOSER, because it was the idea that the closer you get to someone, you might feel your own solitude more deeply.'

-- Patrick Marber

The Tingling Fingers method of selecting new scripts had remarkable success for Ellen Stuart and her theatre, LaMama ETC. But what made her fingers tingle probably had far less to do with unexplainable psychic phenomena than with more practical approaches to script selection. As with all psychics, there's a dodge here that only those in on the trick can spot . . .

Ellen's scheme gave her a fleeting chance to read the play's title.
A good Metaphoric Title can tell you, if not volumes, at least a solid paragraph about whether this playwright has a clue about the craft. And she was looking for lots of new plays to produce every year, so she could afford to let some theatrical lemons slip by.
And she'd usually met these playwrights.
This gave her a chance for some personal reactions to them as human beings. Given a choice, it's a great idea to work on a new play written by someone you like -- or at least who you think you'll like. Or at the very least, tolerate. You may be spending a lot of days and nights together with this winner of your competition.

But odds are, you don't know any playwrights you want to work with. After all, if you did, you wouldn't be wading into the murky waters of your own new play competition. And advertising it nationally, no less.

As you dip your toes into what at first probably seemed like an approach with the clarity of at least a jelly glass, here's a Rule with No Exceptions . . .

David Mamet and Wendy Wasserstein will not enter your competition. Neither will Tennessee Williams, William Shakespeare, or Lillian Hellman. It's nothing personal. This is just not the way their plays get done any more.

Unfortunately, most of your readers won't think about this obvious fact, unless you point it out to them.

They'll be looking for what they already know from their experience in theatre. But nearly all of that experience will be with plays by playwrights who've taken many a pass through the mill of production at major regional theatres or with commercial producers.

And that mill grinds exceeding fine, as they say. It's no wonder the published results are exemplary. It takes major production to create the kind of polished work we're used to seeing from our best playwrights.

So if Wendy, David, Arthur, Tony, Beth, Marsha and . . . aren't licking the flap on that envelope with your address on it, the guide for what you're looking for needs to shift. Otherwise, the BBC Rule will come back to bite you.

Competitions with modest financial awards attract playwrights who don't have theatres lining up to produce their plays. At most, they've had their skills tested with readings, workshops, or occasional productions in small theatres. And it's unfair to them and your theatre for the readers you've lined up to expect scripts that can hold their own with what you get from Samuel French, Dramatists Play Service or the StageNScreen theatre book club.

If you have a $10,000 First Prize to dangle [as Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park does] or the equivalent in recognition [as the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference does] you still won't get Wendy and David. But you'll draw a host of seasoned playwrights who haven't achieved household name status yet.

But if you can't lay your hands on either of these lures, one of the best things you can do for your competition is to make sure your readers don't get blinded by the lottery mentality . . .

That longest of shots: The great unproduced play nobody's found yet.
It's possible. It's happened. It's . . . Most notably it's happened at Actors Theatre of Louisville when they used to have their annual full-length new play competition. That's the one that rocketed ATL to fame and fortune by discovering Marsha Norman [with 'NIGHT MOTHER] and Beth Henley [with CRIMES OF THE HEART]. ATL dumped this competition several years ago. And that says nearly everything you need to hear about the real odds of discovering the Wendys and Davids and Marshas of this business on a regular basis before they've become a feature on the regional theatre circuit.

If you're just out to win the theatrical lottery, the BBC Rule will stick to your competition like fly-paper. That doesn't mean you shouldn't look for this sort of sleeper. You probably can't stop your readers from trying to win this lottery anyway. But you can urge them at the same time to look for something that could be just as exciting . . . A playwright.

Finding Playwrights, Not Plays

In case you've been thinking the Brits are just a stuffy bunch with impossibly high standards for new plays, here's the US version of the BBC Rule. This is from Lloyd Richards, probably the most famous [and successful] of US new play finders and developers through the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference. So here's the "O'Neill Rule" . . .

"Ten percent of what you get is worth reading. That's 100 in 1,000. Ten percent of that is worth doing. That's 10 in 1,000. Ten percent of that is exceptional. That's 1 in 1,000. That is genius, and it's difficult to find. It must not be presumed that there are hundreds of talented young playwrights out there undiscovered."

Well, they always say Americans are the world's optimists. But the O'Neill only does workshop productions as part of a development process. That makes "worth doing" a larger net than you may want to toss if you're planning to offer your winner a full production.

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