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Donna Hoke offers page-by-page script analysis and career coaching for a reasonable fee. If interested, please inquire at donna@donnahoke.com.

MY 2023 WRITER’S YEAR IN REVIEW

  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, […]

2022 YEAR IN REVIEW: EXPANDING MY HORIZONS

  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 […]

THE BIG PUBLISHING QUESTION

Hopefully it’s clear now that the question isn’t “How do I get published?” but “When should I try to get published?”

PLAYWRIGHTS, OWN YOUR HOMETOWN! (Getting traction in your own backyard)

  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 […]

WHY IS IT SO HARD TO GET ATTENTION  FOR COMEDIES? FIVE REASONS

I guess it’s time to post about something I’ve been saying for a while: if you write comedies, it’s tough to find homes for them. Yesterday, my colleague, Ken Levine, posted on his blog  that post-pandemic, theaters need to program lots of comedies. I agree, but this suggests that theaters have previously not wanted comedies […]

Three playwright questions as theater reignites

  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, […]

2020: A PLAYWRIGHT’S YEAR IN REVIEW

When it came to results, because of Zoom, this year was actually better than last in terms of readings, and Naatak theater gave FLOWERS IN THE DESERT a stellar virtual production, featuring a married couple who fully staged it from their garage and directed by Harish Agastya; it was so beautiful, I made my husband watch it!

(THE FINAL) EPISODE 22: FINDING NEIL PATRICK HARRIS, A Play In Process

      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; […]

EPISODE 21: FINDING NEIL PATRICK HARRIS, A Play In Process

  If you’re still here, I thank you.  I’m not even asking anybody to subscribe anymore because we’re so close to the end. I do have some other things to ask, though, because even though we’re close to the end, for the writer that’s just the beginning.   At this point, do you know what […]

EPISODE 20: FINDING NEIL PATRICK HARRIS, A Play In Process

    Is it just me or do these weeks go by insanely fast? So fast you almost feel like you’re reading this in one sitting? I really intended to go through and work on the opening monologue jokes but got caught up with two little commission deadlines and moving my daughter and just a […]