What a strange year…   2023 was the year I decided to double down on the screenplay momentum I started in 2022 and see if my back catalog of plays would do any work for me. As we all know, it’s been tough for the trenches playwrights to get in the mix—tougher than usual, I mean. I have more than two dozen full-length plays, some decorated but unproduced, so I had things to continue submitting, but let’s face it—there’s not much to submit to! My number of submissions this year stands at a mere 142, and if you’ve read any of my past year-end summaries, you know that is PALTRY! A fift ..read more

  Three facts conspire to make this a strange year—both the best I’ve had as a playwright and also the worst. First, I made almost my lowest number of submissions since I started keeping records back in 2011. Just 188. That’s about a third of what I was making in the peak submission years when I introduced my submission seminar at the 2015 Dramatists Guild conference in La Jolla. Open submissions have not only decreased in number, but they have also decreased in quality. Because of this, my submissions have been steadily decreasing—aided in some measure by the fact that I not only don’t ..read more

How do I get published? I get asked this question so often. It’s a close second to “how do I get an agent?” Both questions are frequently posed almost as a next step after finishing a play. Meaning too soon. Publishing is not an automatic next step. The usual answer to the agent question is “When you’re ready for an agent, one will find you.” That’s also somewhat true when it comes to publishing, with one caveat: it’s likely they will only find you if you were produced in New York and had good reviews. There may be exceptions for playwrights with existing relationships with a company, but ..read more

  I posted this a couple of years ago and I’m reposting (with a couple additions) because man, it’s hard to even write a bad play as I’m discovering today lol! Happy new year to all my colleagues, friends, page buddies, and fellow creators who continue to strive to make art even when   *it’s a struggle   *it doesn’t pay the bills   *the odds seem overwhelming   *the odds are against us   *we’re dealing with emotional stress   *we have anxiety   *we have depression   *we have responsibilities   *we have jobs that pay   *we have childre ..read more

  If 2020 was a doozy, 2021 was doozier. In 2020, there was more sense of being in this together, waiting for the vaccine cavalry to deliver us. I know I didn’t predict how chaotic and divisive things would become, the continued uncertainty around theater, or the depression and fatigue plaguing so many of us, especially now as we head into an Omicron-fueled 2022. In 2020, the pivot to virtual theater kept us going during what we thought would be a temporary break. In 2021, virtual theater still exists, but there doesn’t seem to be much excitement surrounding it because we got a taste of ..read more

  I know many of you who read this blog or have been to one of my submission seminars know about the Playwright Binge, an email group intended to provide support for the arduous but necessary process of marketing our work. The group has grown so large that the recent sharing of an opportunity prompted the organization in question to switch to an agent-only policy. Obviously, this isn’t something we want to become a trend. And so yesterday, as we’re nearing the end of the September Binge, I challenged group members to do a little research and find a theater in their area that looks like i ..read more

  Six years ago, I wrote a blog post called YOU WANT OUR UNPRODUCED TEN-MINUTE PLAYS WHY? It’s worthwhile background reading, but if you don’t feel like clicking on the link to read, here’s the TL; DR: theaters didn’t have great reasons for wanting world premieres of ten-minute plays. In the end, the answers to why this was a requirement ended up sounding a lot like “just because.” For a while, I really advocated for writing to these companies and we did see some success in getting a couple to amend their requirements, as documented in the aforementioned blog post. But as I wrote fewer a ..read more

  I just purchased a plane ticket with some of the airline credit I’ve had since I chose not to travel to a writers’ retreat in March 2020. And it’s to attend a live production of my play, TEACH, in New York City. LIVE. SONS & LOVERS will be in Columbus, OH. LIVE. In August, I’m headed to Aspen to see ESMERANDA’S GIFT (Or How To Make A Crossword Puzzle And Solve Your Life) at Theatre Aspen. LIVE. With an audience. I still haven’t wrapped my mind around this.   On one hand, it feels completely normal, buying plane tickets, traveling to see productions. On the other, I’m aware of ..read more

      I began this play March 24, wrote it week by week, and shared it here as raw pages. Today, a first draft is done. If you have enjoyed this, thank you for sticking around. If you’re a playwright with a New Play Exchange account, please please consider leaving me a recommendation there; I’ve uploaded the complete FINDING NEIL PATRICK HARRIS, which has gone through all the revisions I talked about throughout this process (Edited to add: and then some! This play has earned several readings and workshops), so it won’t be exactly what you read here each week but hopefully is ..read more

  I posted this a couple of years ago and I’m reposting (with a couple additions) because man, it’s hard to even write a bad play as I’m discovering today lol! Happy new year to all my colleagues, friends, page buddies, and fellow creators who continue to strive to make art even when   *it’s a struggle   *it doesn’t pay the bills   *the odds seem overwhelming   *the odds are against us   *we’re dealing with emotional stress   *we have anxiety   *we have depression   *we have responsibilities   *we have jobs that pay   *we have childre ..read more