September 12, 2024
By Charlie Schulman, faculty, writing for TV, screen, and stage
New play development in the American theater has taken a massive hit since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. While many other industries have recovered from that economic crisis, theater has not. Audiences have yet to return to live theater at pre-COVID levels. Several major not-for-profit theaters nationwide have cut staff and shortened or discontinued seasons. New plays or large-cast productions deemed too “risky” are being swapped out for tried-and-true crowd favorites. In addition, we’re seeing a proliferation of one-person shows, two-handers and three-character plays filling out scaled-back seasons. Most concerning are the widespread closings of theater organizations with long histories of developing and producing new plays, including the Lark Theater, The Sundance Theater Lab, The Public Theater’s “Under the Radar” Festival, and The Humana Festival. Drastic changes to the old play-development pipeline that brought us plays like this season’s Tony Award-winning “Stereophonic” (Best New Play) and “Appropriate” (Best Revival) are sure to have lasting repercussions.
The not-for-profit theater model is essentially broken. What should playwrights do now that the old development landscape no longer exists? Playwrights still need to see their work developed and produced, but how to make that happen is unclear. The long-shot odds of winning play contests or being selected for production have become astronomical, with fewer plays being selected and the number of play submissions reaching new highs. As playwrights, we need to bring something more than just our creative genius to the table. We need to demonstrate that the plays we are writing can attract first-rate talent, and that talent can attract investors and producing partners.
Before I get into how one can go about starting their individualized new play development pipeline, I’d like to first say what I mean by “new play development.” Most new plays benefit from readings and workshops as part of a revision process intended to heighten conflict, develop character and story, clarify transitions, identify dead spots, and generally shape the play into a fully wrought work for the theater. This process happens in a collaboration between the playwright, director, actors, designers, producers, and most importantly the audience. The audience tells you where the laughs are and where the pivotal dramatic moments need to be. You can tell when an audience is listening intently and hanging onto every word and when they’ve checked out. Unlike other literary genres, plays need audiences to be fine-tuned and fully realized.
The Catch-22 in this is the danger of bestowing “world premiere” status on a production, because these days theaters are almost exclusively interested in world premieres and much less interested in second productions. Unfortunately, many theater companies are unable to provide the high-profile quality productions that are needed to lead to mainstage productions, publication, and license agreements. This means that playwrights with commercial aspirations might seriously want to consider turning down a “world-premiere” production for something better that unfortunately might not come along.
How should individual playwrights go about creating first-step opportunities for professional Equity productions? First, write entertaining plays that people want to see. (Not an easy task. This reminds me of the Steve Martin routine about how to make a million dollars and not pay taxes. “First you make a million dollars. . . .”) Once the play has been written, the playwright needs to develop relationships with talent, investors, and producing partners. Forge alliances with small, professional, non-Equity theater companies in places where it’s less expensive to produce developmental productions. Perform developmental workshop productions at new play festivals and fringe festivals. These steps give the playwright control of the who, what, where, when, and how much. Instead of dreaming about being subsidized by a broken system, playwrights should aim higher, become entrepreneurial, appeal directly to the consumer/investor, become job creators, control the timeline and create a new commercial American Theater that depends on a lean, mean production model.
How to start your own new play development pipeline (Whether you’re raising $500 or $500,000)
You’ve finished the draft of a play. You know it’s not perfect, but it’s ready to be heard out loud and shared with others. Start with a very low-key first reading. Invite actor friends, or non-actor friends, who are excited to help out and want to read a role. Include people whose opinions you trust. Order a pizza or provide fruit, cheese, wine, and a non-alcoholic beverage. Read the play out loud and get your initial response from the way people react to the reading and the discussion. It’s a giant first step, with very low stakes and it only costs you the price of a pizza and a beverage.
Remember that you’re trying to accomplish two things at the same time. You’re trying to improve your play while looking to find collaborators along the way to forge alliances that will eventually lead to a quality professional production. As the play gets written and rewritten into shape, you can start looking for collaborators. Remember: it’s not who you know, it’s who you attract. Maybe there’s a local theater company that can do a reading or workshop? Maybe there is a director or actor who is aligned with this company who likes your play and wants to do it? Maybe your play can catch the eye of an actor, director, or producer who has connections to a theater, other creatives, or a producing partner. Think of each reading as a step toward that ultimate, elusive, highly desired production; while you may not be on a linear path, at least you’re on a path. It’s also a good idea to think of each reading as part of a continuum as opposed to a one-and-done type of audition.
Raising money to produce your play is an ongoing campaign. Relentless determination and momentum will overcome the obstacles and setbacks. Of course, to be fully invested in the process, you have to believe that the play represents your best work and will wow audiences. It might take a long time (or several plays) to get to that place. It’s certainly a leap of faith. Some of the early presentations may have weak links and not show off the work at full strength. But once you arrive at an honest, hard-earned conclusion that the world must see a first-rate production of your play, you will become difficult to stop.
In television, the writer/creator is king. In the theater, the play is the thing. Playwrights should think of themselves in the same way independent filmmakers do. What we need now is something like when Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith joined forces in 1919 to create their own film studio called United Artists. What I’m imagining today is small groups of individual playwrights banding together with shared resources to function like an institutional theater, minus the overhead and bloated executive salaries, to produce a for-profit season. This for-profit season would be funded by a pool of investors hedging their bets on a slate of commercial plays that could also be movies. But maybe I’m getting a little ahead of myself.
In Part Two of this blog, “How to Raise Money and Find Producing Partners,” I will detail how, working with partners, I financed several developmental workshops and co-produced two Off-Broadway musicals: The Fartiste and Goldstein. I’ll also outline my current efforts to find producing partners and investors for my new full-length comedy, Married Life/Sibling Rivalry.
Charlie Schulman is a playwright, theater producer, and script consultant. He is on the MFA faculty at the Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing at Spalding University. He also teaches Playwriting and Screenwriting at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. His full-length play Married Life/Sibling Rivalry will be presented as a staged reading in NYC this October. For more information and to get on his mailing list, go to CONTACT at Charlieschulman.com.
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