I was most interested to see the number from Spamalot and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee at the Tony’s last night. Last year I was really taken by Avenue Q, got the soundtrack and loved it even more. The stupid thing is that I was in New York in Jan 2004 and could have seen Avenue Q and didn’t!
There really isn’t anything quite like Broadway. I lucked out and got 10th row centre seats for Little Shop of Horrors. The singing was so good it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. At the end of the play, the head of the monster plant moved forward, left the set (left the set!) and came out over the audience at least five rows. A pretty amazing experience.
At this point of my writing life, I’m pretty sure that I will never have a play on Broadway. And that’s fine. Because the fantasy of being on Broadway is a far cry from the reality. Even the simplest of plays cost millions of dollars. There’s no taking chances. Straight plays do not last the way that the musicals do. Would I like to be on Broadway? Of course! Do I need to be on Broadway or want it? Not really. What I want is to make a living as a playwright. And I do.
So I was really disappointed in the Spamalot number. It didn’t grab me at all. I was expecting it to be cheesy but I was expecting it to be a better kind of cheese. Spamalot has been getting rather healthy reviews so, in theory, that should translate into something. Shouldn’t it?
I laughed at the Bee number, but wasn’t sure about it either. The musical is all about a spelling bee – which if you’ve ever watched the National Scripps Spelling Bee (they were just on last week – I’ve been watching it for years. I love that they show it on a sports channel!) has a lot of “interestingâ€? characters. The musical capitalized on this but was I laughing at them or with them? Not sure. But it’s been doing a ton of business since it’s sold out runs off-broadway. It’s also a guarantee that it will be performed in schools for years to come.
Thanks for visiting! If you want to be notified the next time we post something, sign up for email alerts or subscribe to the RSS feed.
I feel like I’ve been writing all week, and yet not doing anything on actual plays! We’ve got a newsletter coming out on Monday so that had to be worked on, wrote a number of rejection letters for submissions, and I’m giving a couple of workshops at the International Thespians Festival in a couple of weeks so I worked on those. All good things for sure. It just is amazing when a week goes by and you’re sure you had the time to do more.
I’ve got a potential re-schedule for my workshop that got cancelled last weeked which would be fantanstic. I’ve also got another lined up at the end of the month for the Christmas play. It’s all going well, it’s just not happening RIGHT THIS SECOND!! It’s actually better this way. Now there’s time for the plays to settle. When I go back to them it will be with a fresh set of eyes and in the end they’ll be the better for it.
I’m looking forward to watching the Tony’s this Sunday. It’s something I’ve been doing since I was a teenager!
Yesterday was a reading day - there were a number of play submissions to go through. We’re never really overwhelmed with submissions because Theatrefolk has such a narrow focus. We looking for plays that have a specific criteria so often it’s easy to pass on a script because it simply doesn’t fit the criteria.
The past few months have been very exciting as we’ve had some wonderful plays come our way. There’s nothing like opening up a script and seeing that the first scene is pretty good and then you like the next and then it keeps getting better. More often than not I know whether I’m going to send a play to the next level early on. Plays reveal themselves generally on the first few pages.
I read all submissions and make notes. Then if there’s a script that has potential, I’ll pass to on to my partner, who wil read it and take notes. Then we’ll either share a unanimous ‘yes’ and the script will move on, or we’ll hash out the pros and cons. Again, because we have such a specific criteria it makes discussion pretty easy! The bottom line is that at least one of us has to feel exited enough about the script to champion the play.
Unfortunately none of the plays yesterday went to the next level. One script was completely gripping and theatrical but just didn’t fit in with our market. Those are always a shame to lose. When I do rejection letters I try never to write a form letter - as a writer myself I appreciate a personal letter, even when my work is being rejected! I also make sure I tell the writer to keep sending out their stuff. Choosing a play is subjective and what one publisher rejects another may love. It’s all about persistance.
The Theatrefolk Weblog is proudly powered by WordPress 2.6.3 | Entries (RSS) | Comments (RSS).