. Coming up on October 1, I have made a full 100 submissions fewer than last year and even of those I’ve made, a whole slew of them were isolated cold queries about specific plays for specific reasons, i.e. not responses to general calls for plays. Without those targeted queries, I’m guessing I’m at about […]

  “How do you make so many submissions?” I hear that constantly from fellow playwrights who say they comb all the sites and don’t find anything, or anything appropriate, and feel like they must be missing something. They are: the idea that you have to create your own submission opportunities and there’s no other way to […]

  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 […]

  **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 […]

  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 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 CYNDY MARION, PRODUCING ARTISTIC DIRECTOR, WHITE HORSE THEATER   “White Horse Theater Company is a very small not-for-profit off-off Broadway theater company […]

    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 […]

  In trying to choose a title for this blog post, I started out with something like “Why Women Need To Submit,” and realized just how awful that sounded. But in the context of play submissions—something I advocate fiercely—there is something worse: according to informal polls and at least one study, women submit fewer plays […]