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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 […]

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 […]

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!

HOW TO FINALLY START A COMMITTED WRITERS GROUP

Ever since the theater-sponsored workshop I belonged to disbanded in 2014, I have felt lost. I tried unsuccessfully to start groups in-person and online, created Playwrights Offering Free Feedback (#POFF), and made use of my own contacts to solicit feedback—but I missed the camaraderie of a group, as well as having a place where I […]

TO PAY FEES OR NOT TO PAY FEES… HERE IS MY ANSWER (ymmv)

  People have asked my opinion on fees a lot over the years, so here it is, for better or worse, for agreeing or disagreeing.   Play submission fees are on the rise.   Worse–whether it’s the result of economy, copycatting, or emulating the film/fiction/poetry industries–they aren’t going away.   In the wake of my […]

“WE’VE ADDED A FEE” Grrrrrr…..

    I am swamped right now but so vexed by this latest bit of what–duplicity? disingenuousness? BS?–that I have to post. My apologies that there won’t even be photos. In return, I’ll keep it short.   Organizers of ten-minute play festivals are using “growth” as an excuse to add a fee. This makes ZERO […]

ARE YOU PART OF THE SUBMISSION FEE PROBLEM (or, follow the guidelines for crying out loud!)?

  I don’t like submission fees. I’m not a complete fee purist, but I don’t think they’re best practice. I don’t like playwrights funding opportunities. I don’t like paying into what is likely to be a losing proposition. However, after curating and categorizing plays for a recent college festival, I’m starting to understand what I […]

NOT EVERY JOURNEY ENDS IN PRODUCTION

  I started this blog post about BRILLIANT WORKS OF ART a couple of years ago not knowing how it would end, but hoping it would be as we hope all play journeys end: with production. Writing this post, and anticipating finishing it someday with a great production success, was coping therapy after learning that this play […]