SM
As an emerging playwright, how can I best advocate for the emerging directors I work with so that they can remain attached to the projects we have collaborated on once these projects start to receive institutional support?

Dear SM,

This is a fork in the road that almost all playwrights come to when our work first starts to gain traction. It’s tricky and it’s hard. You and your emerging director collaborate, and you both get better from working together. Then your play gets the chance to go to the next level, if you agree to work with a different, more experienced director. As an emerging writer, you can advocate for your original director; sometimes that will work. They’ll advocate for themselves; sometimes that will work. But most of the time it doesn’t. Then you have to make a choice: do I stay with this director, or do I see my play done? Almost all of us choose the latter. I did so twice, both times to work with directors I revered. Working with them made me a better playwright. But to get to have those experiences, I had to have two very difficult “I’m going in a different direction” conversations. In both instances we remained friends, but while one of my original directors and I worked together again, the other one and I did not. As I said, hard. But the thing is, this is part of every theater artist’s journey. We work with each other, we learn from each other, and then we go on to work with others and learn from them as well. In this instance, you will be the one who leaves the relationship. But as your career goes on, plenty of collaborators will leave you. The goal, I think, is to be gracious towards those you move on from, and equally gracious to those who move on from you.  

Yours in the journey,

Fefu