Keeping Submission Records

THE PLAYWRITING SEMINARS > BUSINESS > SUBMISSION > RECORDS

'There are three ways, I suggest . . . to deal with critics. The first, most sensational, slightly dangerous but highly successful if carried out with sincerity, is to hit them.'

-- Sir Alec Guinness

Keeping records is something else you won't like doing, but somebody got to do it. Each script package you send out to theatres and Competitions will set you back about $10.50 -- so you don't want it falling in a hole. This is how you'll know when you should hear what's happened to the results of that year or so you've just invested in writing.

Of that $10.50, about $6 is tied up in each copy of your play. After a while it'll seem like these things are worth their weight in silver. That's why it's comforting to know where they are.

Here's what your tracking system needs to record for each play or Synopsis you send out . . .

The Theatre or Competition
And a particular person you may have been asked to address it to.
The date you sent it.
The Notification Date
The estimated date you should hear back from them, figured from their stated Response Time. This will vary from a few weeks to a year. The average is about 3 or 4 months. The Dramatists Sourcebook is where you find this information. Or from the Dramatists Guild's Resource Directory.
The Response
Even if they didn't leap at producing the play you sent, more than a few Literary Managers will ask to see your next play if they liked your Voice. So when you send the next one, here's how you'll remember who this was -- and to remind them that they asked to see it.

You can track all this on 3x5 cards, on software like Excel or Lotus, or a pad of paper. It won't take long before you've got much more than you can ever keep in your head or even as scribbled notes in copies of the Dramatists Sourcebook.

A note on bugging theatres that don't respond by their Notification Date: You don't gain points by being ham-handed with this sort of thing, even if they deserve it. Give them a 6-week grace period before you drop them a note. And think of the note as a way to get them to read your play, not just to send it back to you.

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