The Loop

If you're a playwright, and you don't subscribe to The Loop, you probably should. This is the latest from Gary Garrison, who's in charge of the thing.



Yeah, it’s beginning to make more and more sense to me. As I travel
around the country and meet more and more artistic directors, literary
managers and producers, and I contextualize them in the common cry
of most playwrights I know (“We need more productions!”), I’m slowly
realizing that if really we want things to change, clearly we’ll have to take
matters into our own hands.
I was in Seattle a couple of weeks ago and met with a lot of play-
wrights and almost twelve (!) members of the producing community
there. Representatives from the largest (and consequently, most presti-
gious) theatres were present. The panel then scaled down from the large
theatres all the way to the smallest, tiniest, barely-surviving theatre (lit-
erally, a converted home garage where an adult hand-puppet show ran
for months). Playwrights peopled the audience and you could instantly
feel that “us against them” energy that hangs over meetings like this.
Inevitably the question was posed to the big theatres: “Why won’t
you produce local playwrights -- playwrights that are literally in your own
back yard?” I watched the panel people shift in their chairs, their faces
immediately demonstrating the war-torn fatigue when trying to form a
peaceful answer to this question. Rising out of the ashen looks of the
panel was the voice belonging to a man named Jerry.
Jerry (on staff at the largest of all the theatres) calmly looked up and
said, “Because every time I do, I lose anywhere from $25-50,000 at the
box office, and then I have to fire someone on my staff. It’s not that
we don’t love you, but we’re a regional theatre that depends on our
subscribers. And our subscribers depend on us to bring them the latest
from Broadway, or the Pulitzer Prize winner, or the Tony winner. Period.
End of story. And I know it’s not the story you want to hear, but it’s the
only one I can tell with honesty . . . and even compassion.”
Fuckin’ A. Bravo, Jerry. Yeah, no one wanted to hear it. But you told
the truth. You were courageous in a way I’ve hardly ever seen from any-
one in your position. It took balls, my man, but every playwright lucky to
be in the room now know where they stand with you and your theatre.
But the brilliance didn’t end there. What fell out of Jerry’s honesty
was a call from all the theatre people in the room to embrace the notion
of playwrights producing playwrights (13P in New York, Playwrights 6
in Los Angeles), or small theatres banning together to co-produce (and
hence share the risk) the overwhelming number of original plays, or how
about this idea: self-production.
I can hear your groan from here. Self-production? Ewwwwww. Look,
the “vanity production” argument is tired and old and something too
many of us embrace because we want someone else to pay for our candy
bar. Okay, I get it. But baby, if you don’t see anybody with their change
purse out and poised for you, wouldn’t you like to do something beyond
standing there feeling helpless?