Whether it comes in the form of feedback from a reader, a blog post, or formal newspaper review, harsh words sting. Devastate. Create self-doubt. No less than Teresa Rebeck has talked about how difficult it was for her to recover from a bad review. But in a subjective, collaborative, artistic world, they are going […]

  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 […]

  It started with my simple post on the Official Playwrights of Facebook: What is the single best piece of piece of playwriting advice you’ve ever received distilled to one line–talking about craft only? I have two, but the best one is probably: Questions are the weakest form of dialogue.   What followed was an […]

  Gratitude journals and their more public cousins—gratitude Facebook posts—have become mindful ways to connect with what is good in our lives. I’ve never done one, but it occurred to me a while back that doing a 365 Grateful for playwriting might illuminate a year’s worth of reasons why we’re so loyal to this sometimes […]

  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).   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 […]

    A few weeks ago, in the midst of reading submissions, I started a mini-tweetfest of lines that should be eliminated from plays entirely. With a hashtag of #retirethisline, I sent out a bunch of tweets, and encouraged some others. Because Twitter is fast and furious and they were easy to miss, I thought […]

    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 […]