There are people who help bring art to the world who are not artists but what they do is essential nonetheless. They are producers, lawyers, agents, publicists, managers, etc. They often create a framework upon which the artist-audience relationship is built.
Unfortunately, some of them are invested in seeing artists as children. It may be understandable in a way. To make art, the artist must be at home with play. And it's too easy for observers to conclude that the adult who is at ease with play is also less an adult than the rest of us.
Playwrights have been infantilized in recent years in countless ways. We are told not to worry our pretty little heads with details of production. We are encouraged to seek help in structuring our scripts from dramaturgs. Some even believe they cannot finish a script without the assistance of someone to offer outside wisdom.
And so some of us internalize this childlike way of being and we simply wait for corrections from "the adults in the room."
I wish all playwrights would understand that taking responsibility for every aspect of your writing will free you as an artist. You will only be free to bring your vision to the world when you stop behaving like a helpless baby and take responsibility for what you actually put on the page.
What does this mean?
Here's a handy list of Absolute Musts.
- Know that every comma, every dash and period is where you meant it to be and every word spoken on stage flows from your intention.
- Use software that is designed to properly format your work on the page.
- Resist the temptation to send out work that it unfinished.
- Know how to make a PDF.
- Organize your workspace. Organize your hard drives. Know exactly where your work is so when someone asks to take a look, you don't make them wait more than a few hours.
- When you send your scripts out into the world, spend a lot of time thinking about how a person unfamiliar with you and your work might make their way through it from start to finish.
- Do everything in your power to make reading and loving your work as easy as possible. That means taking a hard cold look at every page scanning the horizon for anything that might be a barrier between your dramatic intention and a total stranger who may be pressed for time and unable to sit quietly to imagine every beat. Anything that might possibly confuse the reader who starts at the top of a page and works their way down must be jettisoned.
- Anything that could suggest to the reader that you are not confident or clear-eyed about your artistic vision must go.
- Anything that suggests that communicating with you will be a challenge, cut.
- Finally, lean on the wisdom of friends who know and love your work to let you know when your support materials (artistic statements, synopses, proposals, cover letters, etc.) don't accurately capture both the nature of your work and your own personality.
- Keep detailed records of everything you do to advance your career so as to avoid making the same mistake more than twice.
- In every professional relationship, ask yourself what you collaborator needs, wants and dreams of. Respect the point of view that is not your own.
- Find joy in the discovery of other people's work.
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