Playwright with a Plan.

Be A Playwright With a Plan

So, assuming you have written your brilliant new and contemporary script, what’s the plan?

When I was the resident dramaturg of a theatre company that only produces new work, I got this question a lot —how can I get my new script to the attention of a theatre company? Like any new business proposal, it’s about strategy.  Wait, did I say business? Yes, I did.

Theatre companies are in business, regardless of any lofty notions their creative mission statement might indicate. They love theatre, but they have funding limitations, budgets, KPI’s and board members that need to be answered to. When they read your work, they are thinking not only of its artistic merit but also how much it will cost, how it will fit their brand, how easy or difficult it will be to sell it to their audience base, and indeed how it might increase or diversify their audience base.

As much as it might seem unpleasantly commercial and tacky, getting your work up on stage and your career in theatre started is about the business of seeking a suitable buyer for your writing.  Writing for theatre and ‘selling’ your theatre script require two different skill sets. I know writing is a capital ‘A’ Art but selling your writing is a capital ‘B’ Business. Think of your writing as product, goods to sell. And I know that doesn’t sit well with some creative types to think of their Art as a product, but there you have it. 

So put aside your ‘talented artist’ hat for a minute. Think strategically. Think like a salesperson. If you want a sale, you’d best be selling a product that the buyer actually wants. Knowing how to tempt them is about knowing their habits, their likes and dislikes. If a theatre company consistently produces short new works with a low budget, then it wouldn’t likely be clamouring to produce your full-length musical, no matter how toe-tapping those tunes are. If a theatre company is known for social justice/political drama, then they will be walking past your light-hearted comedy farce set in the 1920s.  Know the buyer’s needs and limits and expectations. Target theatre companies that are doing the type of new work that best matches your own—look at the size and shape of their venue, the technical specifications, the average size of the casts, the types of performances. See as many shows as you can at that theatre company to get a real feel for it—and here’s the crunch—attend all their events.

Press pause here. Happy anecdote and case in point follows.

A friend of mine, Cairns-based playwright Dennis McIntosh, had had just one professional theatre production under his belt, and even then it had been a modest regional theatre season at JUTE, which is the equivalent of an off-off-Broadway one-nighter. In short, he was an unknown. He came to me with his second play, a rough draft titled Who Took The Fall. It featured his favourite topic; worker’s rights. He’s a union man. A working-class hero. The play was specifically about a tragic event in Australian construction history, the collapse of the Westgate Bridge in Melbourne in 1970.

As a creative producer for JUTE, I was gunning for this work. I loved it. He had created such a wonderful, compelling first draft; it was deeply embedded in his ethos and as a playwright, I knew this man was worth investing in. We had produced his first work, and I had been his dramaturg; I could personally vouch for his discipline and his attitude. I wrote a grant to get him funds to have it developed.

But after the development, the company didn’t move ahead with it. It was a very good piece of writing, and we certainly had faith in his ability to bring it up to production readiness. One glitch. The story itself. Set in Melbourne. It is a fundamentally urban story. Our audiences would only vaguely connect with the content. It was a big hander- at least a cast of seven-, and I’m not giving away any spoilers here, but part of the stage action involved a ruddy great big bridge collapsing….so, yeah, not cheap.

Undeterred, the playwright started shopping it around. He found a champion of the work, a director. This director had connections to the Melbourne Theatre Company. Eighteen months of hard work later (during which the playwright no doubt proved his discipline and professional attitude to the Melbourne Theatre Company) Who Took The Fall, known now as Westgate, had a four-week season to astonished audiences who adored it. Despite Melbourne theatre-goers being notoriously urbane and picky, this pro-union, working-class play was a massive hit. Standing ovations. Sell-out season.

Turns out, a working-class hero really is something to be apparently.

I think we can all take a leaf out of Dennis McIntosh’s playbook.

Know your play. Know your theatre companies. Know you need to prove yourself every time, all the time.

1. Don’t be slack; answer emails straight away. Responding is reputational gold.
2. Be patient. Theatre companies do not work fast. They are large creatures with limited time and even more limited staff.
3. And don’t give up easily. Dennis never did. He could have. But didn’t. He held the line. Deep respect.

Theatre companies do much more than just produce shows. As part of their business, and part of their strategy to find new product and new audiences to love the new product, they conduct writing programs, competitions, workshops, creative developments, show and tell events, volunteer programs, Q and A events, conferences, subscriber nights, public readings, and season launches. Hop along to these events. Introduce yourself to people there. Definitely, join their writing program if they have one. This is not just a strategy for you to know about them, it’s for them to know about you. Beyond that, be a bit proactive (but not annoyingly so!)  Show your social ability—remember theatre is a highly collaborative Art form; it depends heavily on the ability of creatives to communicate and get along well enough to produce a cohesive theatre performance. They need to know you play well with others. Ask for a meeting with the artistic director or the resident dramaturg to discuss your work. Make yourself known. If you stage a public reading, invite a theatre company representative—along with every friend, family member, stakeholder, relative community group, peer and interested party available so the theatre representative sees “a full house” and concludes there is a market for your work.

Take every opportunity you can to develop good connections with theatre company creatives.  And that’s not as self-serving and smoochy as it sounds.  Theatre is about artists trusting artists. There needs to be a certain trust relationship that you are working towards— namely, they trust in your work practice, and you trust them to work well with your ideas. Theatre companies plan years in advance, which is great because writing a good play and creating your reputation with a company can take years as well.