Mo' thoughts on Momentum

(Sorry about the title, couldn't resist).

I'm in day...what, three or four? of Pittsburgh City Theater's Momentum festival. The folks involved with the theater, and the artists they've brought in, are just AWESOME. I was talking to Ange, who is helping with Company Management during the festival, and she basically said "yeah, we always get nice, smart people here, I don't know what that is...". I do. It's "Like meets like."

This morning, in the midst of photocopier orgies, pencil-sharpening and bagel runs, I paused for a second and looked around City Theater's offices. There were about ten people, from the Artistic Director and Associate Artistic Director down through unpaid interns, running around to make sure that the five playwrights-in-residence this weekend have everything they need for their workshops. That the actors have up-to-date pages. That everyone's got coffee. It struck me JUST HOW MANY RESOURCES (money, time, energy, creative juice etc) go into making a single weekend-long festival fly.

And I thought:

Man, if you're a playwright who has folks marshalling these kind of resources behind your project, you are BLESSED. And Baby, you better do what you can to DESERVE those people, and those resources...out of respect for them, yourself, and the 150 playwrights behind you in line who would kill for the opportunity.

What does that entail?
um, well...again the list below is of things people are totally doing RIGHT at this festival. Hurray, City Theater & co.
-Showing up ready to work...to skip the bar and go make changes to your script.
-Listening to the smart people who have thoughts for you...really considering and/or trying what they say (and if they're NOT smart people...well...why the hell did you sign on?)
-Making sure your changes are well-organized (make those pages easy to coordinate for the frazzled literary manager and her interns)
-Being gracious, honest, forthright, thoughtful on any panels in which you're asked to participate
-Being NICE to everybody. Saying hello, remembering names if you can
-Trying, in general, while you're there, to be as positive a member of that theater's community as you can. Make nice to donors. Thank staffers. Don't make extra work.
-And, you know, write a really really good play that the company can tape to their refridgerator.