Though I’d known Rachel online, we first met in person in my hometown of Buffalo, NY, when came for the world premiere of her play, BURST at Alleyway Theatre. We spent a fun day in Niagara Falls on the Maid of the Mist and her show was nothing short of spectacular. I knew she was […]

  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 […]

  **Warning** This is a long one… but readers have been asking for it… Be careful what you wish for ????   “My play had a great world premiere, and now I can’t get a second production, because it’s been produced already.”   I hear this a lot, and I address some of the problem […]

  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, […]

  Last year in my 2013 submission recap, I simply reported how many theaters I’d submitted to, and how many I’d heard back from. I’m going to go about it a bit differently this year, and make some comparisons over the past three years, because I think—I hope—it will be telling.  (I’m a few days […]

  As always, if you don’t know what RIPP: Real Inspiration for Playwrights Project is about, please click here (the original idea) and here (the evolution of that idea) to get some context before reading).   Before we begin, let’s congratulate Sean Daniels on his new appointment as Artistic Director of Merrimack Repertory Theatre!   And now, as […]

    As I wind down the RIPP series in preparation for something different in the new year, I’m gathering together some of the shorter bits I have. Though shorter, I hope they are no less inspirational. In this group, the advice is all about how to, as one playwright friend says, reduce the clutter, […]

    As always, if you don’t know what RIPP: Real Inspiration for Playwrights Project is about, please click here (the original idea) and here (the evolution of that idea) to get some context before reading).   FROM ROBYN FLATT, EXECUTIVE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, DALLAS CHILDREN’S THEATER   “It is a tough world out there for playwrights now that boards […]

    As promised, another installment of RIPP. And, as always, if you don’t know what RIPP: Real Inspiration for Playwrights Project is about, please click here (the original idea) and here (the evolution of that idea) to get some context before reading.   FROM ABIGAIL ROSE SOLOMON, FOUNDER, ROSALIND PRODUCTIONS   “I’m sort of a one-woman show; I […]

  Well… it’s been a long time since I’ve written a RIPP post. (If you don’t know what RIPP: Real Inspiration for Playwrights Project is about, please click here (the original idea) and here (the evolution of that idea) to get some context before reading.)   Part of the reason it’s been so long is that I’ve been super […]