The year was 1999.  After more than a year of applauding each other’s work in the Kitchen’s Tuesday night developmental lab under the nurturing hand of T. Jay O’Brien, a mutual admiration society had formed. And this society soon had a name: Playwrights 6 (or P6 to its friends).

Each member ponied up $100 for the kitty, and producing assignments were divvied. One would find a suitable theatre. One would design the postcard. One would handle public relations, another finance. The show, an evening of six one-acts, would be called MAYHEM: in part, because the show was scheduled for May, but mostly because no one had a better idea.

It was determined that six playwrights, along with a dozen or so actors, could likely fill a 65-seat theatre with friends for two performances.  A sexy photo of the clad-in-black scribes strolling through an alley like a literary Mob Squad magically landed in the Los Angeles time with a “Best Bet” headline. The theatre gods were smiling.

But there was turmoil. One playwright wasn’t ready as opening night drew near, and the drama on stage got a front row seat to the drama off stage. But the proverbial show must go on, and it did. Albeit to a half-empty house one night, because one overzealous actor made reservations for dozens of no-show friends, would-be agents and imaginary casting directors.

And thus Playwrights 6 learned its first valuable lesson: choose your “play”mates carefully. And always overbook the reservations.         

There would be many more lessons to follow.  When you rent a theatre, expect to clean the theatre. Even when you sit down and agree to a certain set of rules and parameters, someone is going to break them (and become rather self-righteous and indignant when you point it out).  And if you use anything fragile on stage – be it martini glasses, a wine bottle or a toilet – it will break during a performance. So always build a broom and dustpan into your set design.

Of course, there were triumphs as well.  The first Critics Pick. The first award nomination. The first time a production turned a profit: still an astounding feat in the Los Angeles 99-seat theatre scene.            

With each new production – be it a group show of one-acts, a single play or 2 full-length plays running in rep – things got a little easier, and P6 gradually earned more recognition.  Co-productions with established theatre companies in LA proved to be prudent ventures: sharing the risk, sharing the costs, sharing the workload, sharing the critical kudos.

Throughout all this growth, two things remained consistent: the company motto “True to the Word” and the firm belief that actors were so important to playwrights that they shouldn’t be asked to contribute financially or perform sweat equity. The playwrights would do the heavy lifting. Actors would only do what they did best: breathe life into the words.

These beliefs have served Playwrights 6 well: through its baby steps, growing pains, the decision to leave the Playwrights Kitchen and create its own writer/actor workshop, the leap to non-profit status, the first grant awarded to the company, the first revolution that almost destroyed the organization from within, and the slow rebuilding that continues even today.

In the past few years, Playwrights 6 has been featured in American Theatre magazine, LA Stage and the Dramatist. Since 1999, P6 has mounted 23 productions. This year, this company celebrated its anniversary with its 24th show: a special members-only performance inviting every playwright, actor and director who has worked with the organization to attend.

The evening was filled with nostalgia and laughter, as triumphs were toasted and tragedies were lampooned. There was wine, but no spaghetti. And as I looked at the faces of my compatriots (yes, I’m a proud co-founder), I marveled at how far we had come, how much we had sacrificed individually and how much we had accomplished collectively. 

It’s funny: we’ve been Playwrights 6 for ten years now. But we haven’t had six playwrights at the helm since that very first show. Maybe that’s a goal for the next decade.

Larry Dean Harris
lharris@dramatistsguild.com

Today, I’m starting a new list: literary managers that care. And I’ve found four sparkling candidates right here in Los Angeles to put at the top. 

I besiege you: don’t inundate them with submissions. Wait a few months, or maybe just take solace that they’re out there waiting for you to send that one super-special play. 

Aaron Henne and Brett Webster are Co-Literary Managers at The Theatre @ Boston Court in Pasadena, which does not accept unsolicited manuscripts but does accept queries only from SoCal playwrights (see bostoncourt.com for guidelines).  Both are playwrights themselves, but neither have been produced at the Boston Court. 

“I would love to have my work done throughout LA, the world,” Webster says, “but having said that, there is the literary manager side of me that is excited about finding other playwrights. I probably read twelve – 20 plays a month.”  Henne chimes in. “We’re all out there in the wilderness writing and submitting. Just keep in mind that on the other end of those submissions is a living/breathing person who – more likely than not – wants to appreciate your play.” 

Wait! Whoa! What?!?! 

It’s true. Talk to Jen Kays, Literary Director at Circle X for the last four years. Kays is not a playwright. “I am an actor who loves stories,” she says. “Battle Hymn, our last production, was a play that I read and fell in love with and championed.  I made a love connection between Jim Leonard, a local playwright, and the director John Langs. They did a workshop together.   That was an exciting production for me, because the play wasn’t finished, so the playwright was part of the process and was there for all the rehearsals and tech.  We’re fulfilling his imagination. As a lit person, that’s my dream.” 

Unfortunately, Circle X no longer accepts unsolicited scripts, because it is a volunteer company. They accept plays from agents, and Kays keeps her ear to the ground. She attends readings, accepts invitations from playwrights via Facebook, and she reads blogs.  “Playwrights are the best advocates of playwrights. Playwrights have blogs, and I read them.  It’s a national community.”  Henne and Webster read blogs, too. Including Frankswildlunch.blogspot.com by LA-based playwright Kyle T. Wilson. 

Now Laura Flanagan (also an actor, not a playwright) has only been Literary Manager at The Open Fist for six months, but she’s read a lot of plays in her career.  “In New York, I was on one of the reading committees for New Dramatists. As part of that process, you read about 500 plays. So you get to know a lot of writers out there.”  When the Fist decided to produce its first New Works Festival this season, Flanagan called on New Dramatists for recommendations. 

Surprisingly, Open Fist does not have a submission policy.  “We only get two or three submissions per month, because we’re not known for new work.  We have a committee of three or four readers.” 

So let’s cut to the chase: what exactly are these literary managers looking for? 

“First of all, good writing. The level of the writing needs to feel like there’s something special about it,” says Flanagan. “I have to feel like I’m reading something from someone’s heart.  You can feel the force of the need behind the writing.” 

“It’s all whether or not the story moves us,” says Kays.  

“Things that jump out at us here are plays that are uniquely theatrical. Plays that use language. We like plays that are big on ideas and don’t necessarily live in a realistic landscape,” Webster says. 

“Most of our work often plays with time and space,” Henne adds. “Once a season, we usually do a reimagined classic or an adaptation of a classic.”  “Uniquely theatrical” is an expression that pops us often in our conversations. 

So what are their turn-offs? “Dumb things like spelling mistakes. If I open the script, and the grammar’s wrong, it’s gone,” say Flanagan. “Another turn-off is if I can immediately feel the influence. ‘Ahhh, another This Is Our Youth.” 

“When people don’t put character pages in their indexes, it drives me crazy,” says Kays. 

“I do get frustrated when something is obviously not in the world of what we do,” Henne offers. 

But then Kays counters, “Sometimes when I read a play, I think ‘is that even possible?’  But then I give it to Tim Wright (Circle X artistic director) and the company, and they go crazy for it.” 

Flanagan ends our conversation – and this article – with the perfect summation. “I’m always impressed with someone who has a clear vision of the play itself. Not that it has a message, but that it has a clear vision of what it’s doing onstage. Even if it’s three teenagers in a room.  That can be fabulous if the language is rich enough and the need behind it is compelling enough.”

April 26 was Guild Day in LA! At 3:00 PM, in the plush Ahmanson Auditorium at Loyola Marymount University, Chris Huntley of Write Brothers presented a two-hour plus workshop on Movie Magic software for an attentive crowd of Guild members who’d come equipped with their laptops – and lots of questions.

Then, after a brief break, the workshoppers reassembled at 5:30 PM – with the addition of a few dozen other members – for a Town Hall. Gary Garrison was scheduled to preside, and had flown to Los Angeles the day before. Unfortunately, shortly after landing at LAX, he got the sad news that his mother had died, and needed to turn around and fly back to join his family in Texas.

Before he left, though, Gary sent me a lengthy email outlining the subjects he’d been intending to talk about at the Town Hall, and I began the session by reading them to the assembled folks. They included an exhortation to support small theatres in this time of economic crisis, a report on the Guild’s efforts to set a standard for subrights, and a warning about giving away a portion of your author’s royalties to a director. There was news about the website, as well as the Guild’s success in shutting down several other websites which had been pirating members’ work.

Gary also reported that the Guild will soon come out with a guide to self-producing, and that membership levels may be different in the future. Last but not least, he announced plans for a biweekly series of seminars and workshops to address topics of relevance to members, such as synopsis writing, wills and trusts, blogging, and so on.

This ongoing education – Gary called it “The DG Academy” – immediately struck a chord with the audience. Sharon Sharth declared it to be a great idea, and Kelly Younger – a faculty member at LMU – said he was “enthusiastic” about the concept, even if it could be done only once a month.

As the discussion continued, one of the biggest concerns was the insistence by theatres on presenting “world premieres.” Jan O’Connor brought the subject up, asking why it seemed to be of paramount importance for a theatre to be “the first,” and questioning what exactly constituted a “production” which would preclude an author from claiming his or her play was brand-new. Paul Elliott claimed most 99-seat productions are useful mainly to see whether the play works. But since they rarely lead to commercial success, he cautioned playwrights to be very careful about where they assign their premieres.

Ellen Sandler pointed out that some theatres dependent on grants may have strictures in their mission statements, requiring them only to do work that has not been previously seen. G. Bruce Smith wondered whether a standardized definition of what constitutes a production might help in solving the problem. And Stephanie Hutchinson reported that, whenever she has questioned a theatre about whether a workshop production, for example, would disqualify a play of hers from consideration, “I’ve never been turned down.”

We ended the Town Hall with each person introducing him or herself, and giving a brief outline of upcoming productions, readings, workshops, and the like – it turned out we were an extraordinarily prolific group!

Everyone sent good wishes to Gary, and expressed the hope that we’d see him in Los Angeles before long.

dberkowitz@dramatistsguild.com

PHOTO CAPTIONS:

MovieMagic:      Nance Crawford (L) seeks advice from Chris Huntley of Write Bros.

TownHall1:          Rom Watson acts as a living desk for Sharon Sharth, as Jonathan Josephson (L) and Paul Stein compare notes behind.

TownHall2:          L-R, Ken Stone, Adryan Russ, Jan O’Connor, Catherine McClure Dunne (who flew in from Las Vegas to attend!), and Stephanie Hutchinson smile for the camera.

But how to make the leap from struggling playwright to Max Bialystock?

In January, Los Angeles theatrical attorney Gordon Firemark launched a six-month course in producing which he hopes will become a yearly event. The sessions – one a month from January through June – cover topics including acquiring rights, choosing a creative team, selecting a venue, dealing with unions, budgets and financing, marketing, and “pulling it all together.”
Though the course isn’t targeted specifically toward self-producing, Firemark reports that about half his students are writers interested in putting up their own work. He cautions that “there is much to be said about collaboration and having partners” when your work is produced, and adds that “art benefits from people who’ll go to the mat for what they believe in, and not just go along blindly with everything you want.”

Nevertheless, he argues that producing your own play, especially the first production, “can give the writer control to help set the tone for the life of the show.”

The most important things to keep in mind? Choose your collaborators carefully, making sure at least one person on the team “has been around the block”; form a company to be the production entity, so you insulate yourself and your assets from liability; and make sure you have good contracts with all the participants. Not surprisingly, he strongly urges you find a good lawyer to set up your company and do the contracts – and by good lawyer he means “someone conversant with custom and practice in the theatre business” and not a friend who does, say, real estate law or divorces.

Firemark himself began his theatrical career in junior high as a sound technician, “and I still do it sometimes.” After law school, he “cultivated a niche in theatre law” – a rarity in L. A. – and continued hands-on theatre work as CEO of Fierce Theatricals, producing “small-cast musicals, cabarets, and mini-tours.” He teaches business law at Loyola Marymount University, and serves on the board of the Academy for New Musical Theatre, where he teaches his course.

His last word on self-producing? “Don’t stand around thinking about it. Just go out and do it. Of course you’ll make mistakes, but so what?”

dberkowitz@dramatistsguild.com

Gordon Firemark can be reached through his website http://theatrelawyer.com/; the Academy for New Musical Theatre’s website is http://anmt.org/.