Interview: Break- through Magazine

The Playwright as a Salesman: Taking the first steps

by Carolyn Buonomo, Breakthrough Magazine

Ever thought about writing a script, but aren’t sure how to take the first step toward selling it? This shouldn’t be a problem “if your script is good, and you’re tenacious,” says Topher Payne, a prolific playwright who won 11 awards for his work between 2008 and 2010 alone. Payne, who has beenwriting ever since he was able to put pen to paper, started off with stuffed animals as performers when he was a child. He has since graduated to a much more attentive audience and has increasingly grown more successful ever since his first play was produced as part of a young playwrights’ festival in 1997.

The way that Payne sees it, “from the moment you type ‘END OF PLAY’ [your script] is now a product that you’re trying to sell.” So what should you do first? Identify your target audience.

“If you’ve written an edgy, sexy drama about twenty-somethings, the first theatre you approach shouldn’t be the one producing Driving Miss Daisy,” Payne said. “On the flip side, if you’ve written the next Driving Miss Daisy, you need to make yourself known to that theatre.”

When it comes to finding theatres who are interested in your writing, “networking is key,” said Madelyn Chapman, coordinator of the Mario Fratti- Fred Newman Political Play Contest at the Castillo Theatre in New York. Because it is often hard for writers to sell plays unsolicited, participate in contests to get your name out there, so you are in a position to reach out to theatres. Another thing that playwrights need to learn is “the art of shameless self-promotion,” adds Payne.

“Once a theatre has agreed to produce a writer’s play for their upcoming season, a whole slew of planning goes into place [but how you as a writer are] involved or not involved will be dictated by the size of the theatre,” said Christina Ham, one of the Core Writers at the Playwrights’ Center, in Minnesota. Typically, if it is the first time that the play is being produced, it is a key time for the playwright to be part of the rehearsal process. Matthew Paul Olmos, from the Lark Play Development Center, said that playwrights need to “state upfront if they want to be involved.”

One thing that does stay constant, however, no matter the script or the theatre that you hope will produce it, is that you should take the necessary safety precautions and protect your work before putting it on the market. Some steps you should take to ensure that your work stays your own are:

• Copyright your work with the Library of Congress, or with a guild.
• Email your script to yourself at different points during the writing process, which can help create a  record that it is yours.
• Be wary of companies looking to buy your script that aren’t well known and are charging a fee.
• If you don’t have an agent, consider becoming a member of the Dramatists Guild, who will review any future contracts that you might enter with different theatres.

Luckily for playwrights, “theatre is not like TV or film, where ideas or concepts are lifted so often,” Olmos said.

Amid all of this advice, quite possibly the most important thing to remember according to Payne, is “if you really believe in your plays, you can’t be held back by humility. You have to believe that your words deserve to be heard.”