The D.C./Baltimore region had just such an occasion this past autumn when we held our first regional get-together at a local eatery. Kudos to my co-rep Renée Calarco for proposing the idea and finding a location that could accommodate our request for a private room.

We talked shop over the chicken salad and tomato basil soup, and we compared notes on past and present playwriting projects. I also gave an informal talk on some of the legal issues involved in the adaptation of pre-existing material for new plays. That’s a topic that’s popping up a lot now. It seems the well-publicized copyright infringement case involving visual artist Shepard Fairey and his President Obama “Hope” poster has artists of many media contemplating whether they’re at risk to be sued over something they might have appropriated…like somebody else’s story or song for inclusion in their own plays.

Typically, the first order of business when assessing whether a piece of intellectual property is fair game is to determine whether it’s copyrighted—and, if it is, to find out whose permission needs to be sought. In Washington, D.C., area, we’ve got the United States Copyright Office right here. If you go directly to the Copyright Office, you can search its records for free. If you don’t happen to be in the D.C. area, you can always hire someone to do the search for you, or you can even hire the Copyright Office to conduct the search.  When I last checked, the Copyright Office was charging $165.00 per hour, but some records are available for free on the office’s web site.

Oh!—but then I broke the heart-wrenching news to my fellow dramatists gathered at the autumn soiree: not all the world is the United States of America. The copyright records for many works are kept in the registries of foreign countries, meaning that just because you don’t find a work listed in our Copyright Office doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t copyright-protected. Perhaps you’ll also need to hire someone to search the records of another country.

Hey, no one ever said copyright was easy. And, as I quipped to the dramatists seated around me, if we wanted an easy profession, we wouldn’t be playwrights.

Rich Amada
ramada@dramatistsguild.com

Renee Calarco: Was this your first time as a Fringe artist?

Susan Austin Roth (MISSING PAGES): Yes.

Anthony Gallo (LINCOLN AND GOD): This was my third fringe experience.

Martin Blank (DRIVING GREEN): I had a short play two years ago.

RC: What were your goals?

SAR: To put this play before an audience and to get a review to help market the play. The audience was engaged and loved the play, and the play got a great review.

AG: To showcase the play.

MB: My goals are always the same. I have to be paid for my work. I have to have a contract. I want to make a play as good as I can. I was paid. I had a contract. I was able to do rewrites.

RC: What was your biggest challenge?

SAR: The A/C was insufficient and temperatures were over 90° F on stage. We could not see our venue until our tech, which was the afternoon of our first performance.

AG: Hiring a cast.

MB: The script was frozen by tech for the actors’ sake, so no more chances to rewrite during the run.

RC: What was your biggest pleasant surprise?

SAR: The audience came up to me afterward to tell me how moved they were by the play and that it deserved a mainstage production.

AG: Good reviews.

MB: How well the shows sold in an environment where there are 120 choices!

RC: What’s one piece of advice you wish you’d heard before producing at Fringe?

SAR: Don’t do this unless you take the “find your own venue” option…(it) gives you a lot more scheduling freedom and assures you of getting the type of venue and access that you need.

AG:  Marketing, marketing, marketing.

MB: I didn’t produce my play this year or two years ago in Fringe. As a playwright I tried to keep things really simple…and I think that got my plays done, and gave them a better chance at being done well.

RC: How much time did you spend doing this?

SAR: Pretty much full-time for three months. 

AG: Oodles and oodles of time.

MB: About ten hours during rehearsal, and ten hours seeing the shows.

Information about the 2010 Capital Fringe Festival is at www.capfringe.org

rcalarco@dramatistsguild.com 

The results are in, folks.

A few months ago, Rich Amada and I issued an online member survey. Seventy-six of you responded. We were curious about our membership: how many of you have collaborated with other playwrights? Do you write primarily longer plays or shorter plays? How long have you been writing plays?

Well, we learned a lot. Eighty-eight percent of you have been writing for more than seven years. And 53 percent have written 10 or more plays. You tend to write longer plays rather than shorter plays: 88 percent of you write plays that are typically longer than 20 minutes.

We asked if you’ve written the book, lyrics, or music for a musical. The answer surprised me: 47 percent of you have worked on a musical. I don’t know exactly why that surprised me, but Rich and I now hope to host a meeting or panel discussion about writing musicals.

Before I sign off so you can ponder the statistics that follow, please know that we have a Dramatists Guild Facebook group for the D.C./Baltimore region. Join us on Facebook!

Survey Results:

How long have you been a playwright?
Less than 3 years: 1%
3 to 7 years: 11%
More than 7 years: 88%

How many plays have you written?
1 to 3 plays: 14%
4 to 9 plays: 33%
10 or more plays: 53%

Have you ever collaborated on a play with another writer?
Yes: 49%
No: 51%

Do the plays you’ve written typically have a longer performing time than 20 minutes?
Yes: 88%
No: 12%

Have you written the book, lyrics, or music for a musical?
Yes: 49%
No: 51%

Have any of your plays been produced?
Yes: 89%
No: 11%

Have any of your plays been produced by a professional (rather than community or school) theatre company?
Yes: 66%
No: 34%

Have you ever self produced your own play?
Yes: 37%
No: 63%

Have any of your plays been published (other than self publication)?
Yes: 34%
No: 66%

Have you written a screenplay or television script?
Yes: 38%
No: 62%

Have you ever had a screenplay or television script produced?
Yes: 8%
No: 92%

Do you have a graduate degree in playwriting?
Yes: 14%
No: 86%

Are you currently enrolled in a graduate playwriting program?
Yes: 0%
No: 100%

Do you ever direct, act, or participate in the production of plays other than as an author?
Yes: 74%
No: 26%

Do you belong to a writers’ organization other than the Dramatists Guild?
Yes: 47%
No: 53%

rcalarco@dramatistsguild.com

“The market is changing, and we’d better change with it.” Those were the words of Gary Garrison, the Dramatists Guild’s executive director for creative affairs, who also cautioned that things are probably going to get worse for playwrights before they get better.

Garrison made his comments before about 50 D.C. area playwrights gathered at a February mini-conference on play marketing. The basic focus of the conference,  presented by Playwrights Forum, was self producing for playwrights tired of waiting for someone else to produce their works.

Yes, the phrase “church basement” was referenced more than once in connection with self producing. (And, perhaps ironically enough, the conference was held inside a church.) But it was made clear at the conference that the stereotypical lowest rung on the production venue ladder isn’t the only option for a self producing playwright.

There are fringe festivals—such as D.C’s own Capital Fringe Festival—where playwrights can stretch their wings as both producers and writers. And, also, there seems to be a resurgence of interest in one-person shows that a playwright can write, perform, and take on the road wherever a performance venue might be available. The current economic situation seems to have prompted that resurgence in one-person plays that are inexpensively produced.

And that brings us back to the cold, hard reality that Garrison was discussing. A shortage of cash has resulted in a shrinking market for theatre. Playhouses are going belly up, and those that want to remain in business have to choose their seasons ever so carefully. And since we can’t change the market, Garrison told his audience, we playwrights need to change.
How do we change? Well, Garrison offered that the first step is to reevaluate what constitutes “success” for a playwright. If theatrical commitments to do productions of full-length plays are hard to come by (and they are), then perhaps shorter plays (of the ten-minute variety) are a viable alternative.

Another option is just to produce yourself—hence, the mini-conference. Self production is tempting although, as one of the conference panels cautioned, not usually a profit-making venture. Panelist Sean O’Leary noted it takes a “minor miracle” to actually make money on a play production.
But is the money really what it’s all about for most playwrights? As panelist Martha King deSilva put it, “Economics are important, but, in the end, it’s about what makes you happy.”

ramada@dramatistsguild.com