I Really Do Read Cover Letters

I just completed my first full day as Literary Manager at Victory Gardens Theater. I almost feel like I've switched sides, which says something about the subconscious frustration we playwrights have with the gate keepers between us and production. I've said and written many things about how I think lit management should be done. Now I've got to put up or shut up. Please note, I will need a few months to reorganize and re-invigorate the reading system. So don't take me to task quite yet.

As they occur to me, I'll be writing a few words of advice to writers as they approach the submission process. Today's topic: cover letters.

I really do read those cover letters. Perhaps that's only because it is my first official day. But after several hours of combining through the current batch of submissions, I do have a list of things to avoid:

1) Don't say you hate writing cover letters. Or you're no good at it. Or in any other way draw attention to the fact that you're writing a cover letter.

2) Don't announce you're an amateur. There's no reason to state that this is the first play you wrote. Or you haven't been involved with theater since college. Or that 15 other theaters have rejected this script.

3) Don't announce the weaknesses of the play. Unless you are submitting to a workshop process and have been asked to explain what you want to work on, don't list what's wrong with the work. You're submitting for production - if there are weaknesses that you're aware of, don't send the script.

4) Don't just say "In response to your request...." or "As we discussed..." The people you are submitting to are reading hundreds of scripts, and have had dozens of conversations which have included "Send me that script." Give a reasonable context of the conversation. There's a difference between "Here is the script you requested after reading my synopsis on June 10th." And "After my reading on June 10th, you requested that I send you my latest work." In addition, turnover happens --I'm a case in point!-- so you can't assume that the reader of the letter will know what you're talking about.

5) Don't characterize or categorize the play. If I wanted to read "Aliens meets About a Boy but set in Italy." I would get the two scripts, shuffle them together like a deck of cards, and read them on the plane as I go visit my brother in Italy. I hear that in TV and Film, executives need that kind of context because they're not creative types. I suspect that's a rumor made up by people who wish they were executives in film. But either way, literary managers in theater tend to be writers or directors. We're creative types. Really.

I'll save a list of do's for a later post.

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Are Closed Shops Good for Theater?

I don't have a home theater. So I spend a fair amount of time surfing the net, looking for theaters that produce new work. And it seems that more and more of small theaters in Chicago that produce new work have an in-house playwright. In most cases (though not all) that in-house playwright is the only new work that theater performs. I'll admit that I find that frustrating. But I'm trying to work through that personal frustration and ask - is the practice of in-house playwrights good for playwrights? Is it good for theater?


I'll tell you right off that I don't have a full answer for this one. So I'm just going to lay out the arguments as they bounce around my head and see if people are willing to talk about closed shops.

Good for Playwrights
For the in-house playwright, the benefits are clear. Production is the greatest learning tool a playwright has. The more productions, the more chances to become a better writer. And of course there's that incredible satisfaction of seeing something you've dreamed up come to life. More productions means more of your dreams come true.

Bad For Playwrights
For the in-house playwright, there's the danger of becoming comfortably mediocre. I've watched many a feedback session turn into an exercise of group-think where everyone convinces themselves that the playwrights intentions have actually been manifested in the script. We all want to be doing important work, and sometimes we manage to convince ourselves that we are despite all indications to the contrary. It usually takes an outside eye, an eye with a different agenda, to bring us up short and see how reality lines up with our hopes for the piece. I imagine that in a closed shop, that outside eye is in short supply. I'll admit, that's a major assumption - there are plenty of ways of working that will ensure there is outside input. But with an in-house playwright, it seems that the chances of that self-fulfilling feedback are much higher.

For those of us without a home theater, the "bad for playwrights" angle may be too hard to separate from professional jealousy. Outside of the in-house system, it feels like yet another opportunity to get work read or produced has been lost. That frustration makes it easy to feel like theaters with in-house playwrights are more interested in producing their friend's work than looking for new voices in theater. Rationally, I can see that those two things aren't mutually exclusive. But there is an argument to be made that by producing only the work of your in-house writer and then that one Mamet play all the actors want to do, the theater with in-house writers are shutting out other developing playwrights.

At times, it feels like the only way to get your work done is to produce it yourself. Which brings us to the good for theater question.

Grant a premise so that I may continue: the more theaters with in-house writers there are, the more playwrights are going to be interested in starting their own theaters. In other words, the fewer options for someone else to produce it, the more likely it is you'll produce it yourself.

Good For Theater
More theaters means more diversity, right? Lots of different styles, lots of different subject matter. And more theaters means more productions, so writers get better and people can see work about those subjects that they've really been dying to see. A bit rosy, perhaps, but that's the theory.

Bad For Theater
The rosy prediction rests on a couple of key assumptions. 1) That each company is doing something decidedly different - that is, that the number of companies reflects a number of unique worldviews. 2) That each company is creating their own audiences from non-theater going people.

I'll leave it to the reader to decide if each storefront out in Chicago really does have something unique to be bringing to the stage. But I've been around enough small productions to wonder about the whole audience creation idea. I've been to any number of shows where the only folks in the audience are somehow personally connected to someone in the company or cast. And as a result, I fear that the more of us that choose to create our own theaters to see our own work produced, fracture that audience even further, dividing each small theater into its little fiefdom of twenty dedicated audience members.

It seems to me that instead of each of us breaking off on our own, and producing our own work, we should look at ways to bring our audiences together. To cross-pollinate. And it seems to me at least one way to do that is to move our playwrights around from house to house.

Alright - so I have come to a working conclusion. That closed shop theaters stand in the way of nurturing writers and developing audiences. But I'm willing to admit that's just professional jealousy talking.

Anyone willing to help me see beyond that professional frustration?

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