“Know Thyself”: The New Play Oracle and Losing The Way We Know Our Work

by Andrew Kramer, member of the 2013 Emerging Writers Group 

I’m just going to start by being really honest: I’m one of those difficult to-find-anywhere-on-Earth-let-alone-in-NYC idealists. 

I think positively because I want positive things to happen.

I (try to) avoid getting intensely angry or jealous.

I do not fear change. 

Knowing this about myself, I had to stop and question why I was (and still am really) responding so poorly to the recent discussion regarding play and producer connection on the HowlRound blog. 

Last week, Gwydion Suilebhan brought a new, potentially revolutionary idea to the forefront of the minds of theater professionals: The New Play Oracle. This Oracle would be a centralized database for logging new plays and would be the place theatre professionals would go to look for new work. All of the submitted scripts would be neatly catalogued based on genre, length, themes, character breakdowns, etc. 

Suilebhan provides us with some facts, which he admits are rough numbers: 

1. There are about 10,000 playwrights living and working in the United States. 

2. Each of those playwrights is generating what he or she believes to be one “finished” script per year, on average. 

3. Nationwide, theaters are producing approximately 1,000 new plays per year. 

With these considerations in mind Suilebhan suggests the old model of playwright-to-literary manager submissions is simply not working. Whether you agree with Suilebhan or not, here’s my personal admission: I like submitting my plays. I like the way the submission process forces me to become better, more intimately acquainted with my own work. And furthermore, I think it’s a good thing for playwrights to do.

For me, the submission process is a playwriting exercise; artistic statements, resumes, treatments, cover letters - they’re all words, and words that directly relate to the work being submitted. They act as one package. They help me have a more critical and personal understanding of what I think my play is and what I want others to see in the play so that they can becomes supportive of it. The submission process is a way to really focus in and articulate the life and breath of your play in a format that’s not dialogue, action, and image. And that’s exciting to me. 

As a young writer I’ve been very thankful for the many development opportunities, festivals, writer’s groups, and productions I’ve been a part of. I know this doesn’t happen for every playwright, but every single time I’ve been selected for something, it was because of my submission. I’ve never been well-connected enough to know Someone who knows Someone and therefore knows Someone who knows me. That’s just not the case. But instead, I did my homework, I researched companies and their interests, their previously produced plays and playwrights, I’ve scoped out cities, directors, actors….etc all to have a better understanding of what it is I’m submitting for. In other words, I actively worked to share my play with others. It’s marketing. It’s working on Knowledge of Self. 

It’s my fear that with this proposed massive database in the New Play Oracle, playwrights would become stagnant in knowing their work and actively attempting to share it with others. There’s something so startlingly inactive about housing NEW plays, plays that haven’t seen the stage yet, in some massive list where they are efficiently labeled and categorized. 

Submitting to the New Play Oracle feels like some sort of death. While there’re thousands of playwrights living and writing today, not every playwright is submitting to every theater. That wouldn’t be the case with a centralized database. Numbers are concentrated; Quantity becomes more important than Quality, and the personal connection and voice that playwrights can manage in person or in a really great cover letter or e-mail are lost. 

“Know Thyself” was inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. I found this ironic in the wake of the current conversation. If we writer’s stop working on furthering our knowledge about our own work through the process of discussing and sharing it with others, we risk losing the momentum, drive, and passion that so furiously bonds us to that work and to our voice. 

To me, the suggestion of The New Play Oracle has emerged out of the best intentions to initiate dialogue on how to better serve playwrights. I just can’t help but resist the handing over of my work to a large, storage facility of a database only to be shelved by genre, length, and character breakdown. And while I’m sure this is how some literary offices manage their submissions as well, I still think we GAIN something as young and emerging playwrights by working hard on readying a submission, introducing ourselves to new people and companies, and returning to revisions and writing (and crossing our fingers) while we wait to hear back……. 

in six months to a year’s time due to the sheer volume of scripts they receive. 

Andrew’s play, Crying for Lions, is currently being developed by Tennessee Repertory Theatre’s Ingram’s New Works Lab (which he was selected for via open submission!) under the mentorship of Steven Dietz and will have a staged reading in May. 

This post is part of a weekly series from the Emerging Writers Group community of playwrights. The EWG is two-year playwriting fellowship at The Public Theater seeking to target playwrights at the earliest stages of their careers. In so doing, The Public hopes to create an artistic home for a diverse and exceptionally talented group of up-and-coming playwrights.