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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.

TEN YEARS A PLAYWRIGHT: celebration and reflection

  Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway. This is my actress daughter’s favorite quote, one that’s been adopted by her twin sister—a computer coder/YouTuber—who has it as her computer wallpaper. It’s my favorite now, too.   Never let up […]

Artists Helping Artists #4 (#AHAinTheater): Jonathan Dorf, co-founder of YouthPLAYS

  I’ve “known” Jonathan Dorf online for years as a playwright and co-founder of YouthPLAYS, but it wasn’t until I heard him on George Sapio’s Onstage/Offstage podcast that I realized what a marketing guru he is. Naturally, I asked if I could pick his brain about his work and business,  and ask him to share […]

NETWORKING AND FOLLOW-UP, or “I submit like you said; what else?”

  In my blog post, How To Submit So Your Plays Get Produced (recently recorded as a Dramatists Guild webinar!), I talk a lot about getting your work out here. And why it is so important because you’re not only showing people that you’re consistently in the game, not a hobbyist but a serious contender, […]

Does the first line of your play make an impression?

  Plenty of plays start with “Hello?” and go on to be good plays; I’m not disputing that. What I am disputing is why any playwright, when there is an opportunity to deliver an opening line that creates the world of a play, that establishes something, would choose not to take it.   You don’t have to […]

My 2016 Year in Review

  In my continual quest to prove that submitting does work, I again offer up total transparency in my year’s submission and results. As with 2014’s Recap: You Can’t Argue With Numbers and 2015’s Review in Numbers, the goal is always to show that submitting yields results. More than that, consistency yields momentum, which is […]

RED FLAGS! Or here we go again: beware this submission call

      ANOTHER UPDATE: As of 1/17/17, Outvisible has amended its most egregious paragraph, but still bars playwrights from doing more than observing in reading rehearsal, can’t fund the playwright’s attendance and rehearsal, and isn’t offering Skype, and still insists on world premiere language in future publications. I believe the company is trying to […]

Three dialogue clunkers we’re better off without

Having seen an unusual number of readings lately, I’ve noticed things that are not quite bad habits, because they’re deliberate, not automatic, but that are detrimental nonetheless. Maybe the best word is indulgences, things perceived as necessary, even clever, but that—at least for me—have the opposite effect, which is almost always making the playwright too present, […]

PLAYWRIGHTS AND THE STATE OF PERPETUAL HOPE

  If you clicked on this title, you know what I’m talking about. It’s the thing that makes us obsessively check our email because, at any moment, an acceptance could arrive—and what if we don’t see it immediately? The thing that makes us cough up fees—maybe even against our better judgment—because that opportunity could lead to […]

DIY PLAY FESTIVALS: LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP!!

  Imagine seeing this in the guidelines of a playwrights’ opportunity:   *If your play is selected, you are responsible for a $100 participation fee. You are also responsible for finding a director, casting the show, supplying sets, figuring out tech and lighting, running rehearsals, and, in all truth, filling seats. Just so you know, […]

TEN REASONS YOU SHOULD BE WRITING TEN-MINUTE PLAYS

  Every so often, on Official Playwrights of Facebook, a debate erupts about the merits of the ten-minute play. Naysayers contend that there’s no such thing as a ten-minute “play”; it’s an exercise, it’s not real writing, it’s a sketch, and so on. Proponents counter that a good (and they do acknowledge that, as with […]