AngieHow does a playwright crack the code of getting a production in this climate? It seems like the gatekeepers are extra gatekeeper-y these days and there are a ton of revivals! 

Dear Angie,

How I wish there were a code that could be cracked. But there isn’t one now and there never has been. (Also, at least in NY, there aren’t that many plays being revived right now. There’re fewer shows being done, but as is always the case, they’re mostly new plays. We’re Americans: we’re not interested in our own history, theatrical or otherwise.) This theater climate is the rockiest I’ve ever known, but the way to navigate it is still the same: write and write and write, regardless of any outside interest in your writing. Learn your craft by practicing it; build plays that scare you, that embarrass and unnerve you. Then you’ll be writing works that come from the specificity of Angie, that are like no one else’s—plays that will get produced. Some of us get to this point after two years of toil; it took me twenty. The thing to hold on to when you’re writing and no one is yet opening the gates for you, is that ours is a calling more than a profession. We do this work, be it for a paying audience on Broadway or for our friends around our kitchen table, because we love doing it. The work is the only reward we’re owed. I expect you already know this, but sometimes—at least for me—it’s helpful to be reminded of this.

Godspeed, fellow scribbler. 

Fefu

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