My encounter with Edward Albee...

Last month the news swept through the theatre and entertainment world that Edward Albee passed away.  Unarguably one of America's greatest playwrights, Albee left a mark on American dramatic literature that has only been equaled by the likes of O'Neill, Miller, and Williams.  He was a towering figure and his work will live on after him as his plays continually come alive on the stages of the world.

During his professional life Albee also had a reputation of being a prickly and oftentimes difficult man whose arrogance could turn people off and that could make him a handful to work with.  I thought my own encounter with him several years ago might be interesting to relate in this regard.

This script writing "business"...

It's often been said that the script writer's real work begins once a play or screenplay is written.  And there is more than a smidgen of truth to this.  It's worth taking a look at what kind of "work" this refers to.  

First of all, it's important to realize that once you are absolutely convinced that your script is ready to be released to the world--once you've been through that "final" draft a dozen times and every page is perfect--you have arrived at the threshold of a whole new phase in the project's life.  And this phase has to be handled just as carefully and thoroughly as the writing, rewriting, and early testing of your script.

Of critical importance is that you do your due diligence on the possible places your script could be sent and whose hands you want to get it into.  This is a vast task if it's done right and demands serious research into the various possible venues and people, contests and festivals, theatres and other organizations that are constantly putting out a call for new material.

Every writer--especially those in the early stages of their careers--play the wishing game that all they have to do is land a good literary agent and all their babies can then be handed off to this hard working professional dedicated to finding a home for your brilliant creations.  As all writers realize the longer they are in the business, this could not be further from the truth.  Agents negotiate contracts once serious interest in your work has been obtained.  But with very rare exceptions, they do not find the production opportunities for a writer's work.  And that goes for both the theatre and film/TV.  In other words, it's the writer who finds the interested parties who in turn make an offer.  The agent then becomes activated or a theatrical lawyer is found to deal with that offer.

So that leaves the burden on the writer to shepherd his or her work through its post writing life.  And that means a careful investigation of all possible avenues that that script can be sent down.  It also means developing a realistic strategy or game plan in terms of possible scenarios for the future of each script--from the most modest introduction into the world to the most ambitious and far reaching. For starters, playwrights should join The Dramatists Guild and then carefully investigate their annual Resource Directory (I'd be wary of buying the latest available edition of The Dramatists Sourcebook published by the Theatre Communications Group because it is now seriously out of date).  Screenwriters for starters should scour the Without A Box festival screenplay competition list and investigate every other screenplay competition (a simple Google search will open the door to hundreds of possible opportunities).

The point here is that it's up to you, the writer, to get things going, both for your script and your career.  And you have to be thorough, smart, and assertive.  Believe in your work and be it's biggest supporter--no one else is going to be that for you.

I remember years ago walking into the study for the first time of my friend and successful playwright Richard Nash (The Rainmaker among many others).  It was a small barn on his farm next to his country home and I'd been invited out to work with him on a new play that my theatre was producing.  I noticed that he had a long series of shelves against one wall that held dozens of scripts neatly stacked, one after the other.  I asked him why he had all these different scripts in stacks on shelves.  He said without missing a beat that he was a playwright and this was his business--he had to do this because he was constantly sending work out to theatres and producers.  Then he smiled and said that he was his business.  And it struck me that here was a true professional writer who took himself seriously and who knew that there was only one person that his long career depended on.

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Our next residency runs January 3-11, 2015 and we are currently accepting applications for starting the program at the following residency that runs June 19-28, 2015.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter), and a professional script consultant.

Wendy Wasserstein on script writing

The late Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein was a lovely person whom I had the privilege of knowing.  And I was fortunate enough to interview her twice on her script writing process some years ago, at the Dramatists Guild in NYC and at Drew University where I was teaching at the time.  Both were in front of rather large audiences.  She was a straight shooter and told it like it is regarding her writing and how she managed to create so many successful plays.

You can find a condensed audio version of my Guild interview with her on the Guild website here.  She offers many words of wisdom to the script writer.

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I'm the Program Director of the low-residency MFA in Writing for Stage and Screen being offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art.  Our next residency runs January 3-11, 2015 and we are currently accepting applications.  I'm also a playwright and screenwriter, producing partner in my production company Either/Or Films (The Sensation of Sight and Only Daughter), and a professional script consultant.

Our ever evolving entertainment industry

Last night my wife and I watched an interesting documentary called Side by Side about what the digital age has been doing to the film industry since its appearance on the scene a few decades back.  The film was released last year and is produced and narrated by Keanu Reeves.  It takes an in-depth look at the evolution of digital photography, editing, and distribution and leaves you with a keener sense of how the film industry is in the process of going through this major sea change as both an art form and a business.

And it got me thinking...

Years ago I wrote a book (actually a rewritten version of my doctoral dissertation) on what happened to the entertainment industry almost exactly one hundred years ago when another revolutionary invention made its way into the mainstream.  The book is called Broadway and Hollywood: A History of Economic Interaction (published by Arno Press way back in 1974 and long out of print although used copies are still available for purchase).  The book documents what happened to the national entertainment business when feature films first hit the scene in the early 1910s and then follows the repercussions up through and including a second shock wave when television took the country by storm in the 1950s and 1960s.

With all of us in the midst of our current digital upheaval, sometimes it's informative to take a look at what's happened in the past when technological advances sent shock waves through the industry and changed the way the world consumed its entertainment.  Way back in the last century the changes were profound and they vastly influenced the kinds of stories being written and produced.

At the dawn of the Twentieth Century the theatre ruled the entertainment business.  Hundreds of stage productions were touring the country every week through circuits of interconnected theatre chains.  The theatre was the entertainment industry.  But then in 1912 the first feature or multi-reel film was screened with enormous success in New York City and within a handful of years feature films completely took over supplying the lowest common denominator fare for the national audience with its insatiable appetite for entertaining stories.

As a result, the theatre turned in on itself and began producing far more sophisticated plays for a far more sophisticated New York City audience.  Suddenly playwrights were liberated and the towering talents of Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller and many others gave birth to modern American dramatic literature.  The Dramatist Guild was formed and playwrights organized to protect themselves and their work from the much more powerful and well heeled Hollywood studios that were constantly on the prowl for new material and were trying to make the theatre into a script mill for their west coast film factories.

And then a second revolution hit in the 1950s as television began taking the country by storm and this time the film business had to make a major adjustment as to the kinds of movies people were still willing to go out of their homes and into theatres to experience.  Hence the advent of much more sophisticated and daring films in the 1960s.  And look what's been happening to television over the last two decades as cable networks have been increasingly taking over...

Of course, none of these movements happened overnight, but it's clear by looking to our past that the ongoing technological advances in the industry have played a huge role in the kinds of stories being produced in each medium as audiences have become increasingly specialized and fragmented.

And today we're in the middle of yet another sea change.  The digital age is having and will continue to have a profound influence not only on how work is produced, but also on the kinds of stories being put out there.

But, in the end, it's all just part of the ongoing evolution of the entertainment industry.

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In addition to being an independent film producer and script consultant, I'm the Program Director for a low-residency MFA degree in Writing for Stage and Screen offered by the New Hampshire Institute of Art  (applications currently being accepted for our June 2014 residency).