New Play Development

Throughout the ONSTAGE journey, we’ve been doing our best to promote each playwright and connect them with the people coming in contact with their work at every stage, be it other playwrights, partner producers, the directors, the actors, or the audience—each and every person coming in contact with these plays has been given tools to help them find out more about the playwrights and learn how to connect with these writers through our project.

Karla Jennings provides insight into the benefits of blind submissions in playwriting.

Jonathan Mandell writes about the life of prolific costume designer Carrie Robbins, and her new ambitions as adaptor and playwright.

How many playwrights have been told to self-produce? It seems like the go-to response anytime someone expresses frustration with the current system of “Development.” It sounds enticing, and the idea definitely feeds the angsty rebellion residing within… But let’s be honest: very few playwrights have access to the resources necessary to mount a full production of their work.

I think, rather, that playwrights readily turn over the fate of their work to these committees and power-players, simply because that is the way it’s been done for so long that anything else feels strange. A playwright wants to get produced, after all— and other writers traditionally aren’t the ones assigning production budgets. But this can change.

Jonathan Mandell overviews five eclectic works by Texas playwright Kirk Lynn.

Kelly Miller offers insight on how the South Coast Repertory has supported and engaged with playwrights to develop compelling theatre in Orange County. 

We cannot be preoccupied before or during a show with differences of race, class, sexuality, etc., and assume because of these differences the lives of those we see before us are foreign territory. When we do that, we rob ourselves of what might be a beautiful and transformative experience if only we give it a chance. Instead we should keep an open mind and find the human connecting points. When we do that, we’ll find that deep down, we are more alike than we are different.

Dani Snyder-Young writes about the intentional diversity she witnessed in five of the 2014 Humana Festival productions.

The Weekly Howl is a peer produced, open access discussion about theater culture and contemporary performance that happens in real-time on Twitter using the hashtag #newplay.* This week's conversation topic is "The New Play Development Process of Incubation" and will be moderated by @garliacornelia and @thecelltheatre—who like all of our moderators, authors, and content producers—self-selected to peer-produce on this commons-based platform! This hour-long Howl will take place on Thursday, April 3 on hashtag #newplay at 9am PDT (Vancouver) / 11am CDT (Austin) / 12pm EDT (New York) / 16:00 GMT / 5pm BST (London). On Thursday, get heard in the conversation by searching for #newplay in Twitter (sort by “all”) and by putting “#newplay” somewhere in your messages. Spread the word!

A dialogue between Paula Vogel and Blanka Zizka regarding their play Don Juan Come Home from Iraq. 

Alice Stanley Jr. discusses her experience at a workshop of Ariel Luckey's solo performance Amnesia, and the talkback which followed.

Dani Snyder-Young reviews the (now closed) Next Theatre Company production of Kirsten Greenidge’s Luck of the Irish in the context of Evanston, Illinois

Michael Rau and Will Davis share different approaches to make collaboration work in theatre-making.

We've all been there. The curtain call is over, the house lights come up, and a representative from the theater comes out on stage to inform the audience that, in a few minutes, there will be a post-show discussion with the playwright. Thankfully, a partnership at Playwrights Horizons in New York City is rethinking that model. Playwright Dan LeFranc and director of New Play Development Adam Greenfield are turning the concept on its head by making the playwright the interviewer, instead of the interviewee.

This week's conversation topic is "The Playwright and The Panel: Improving Theatrical Discourse" and will be moderated by Doug Howe @NITEcorp—who like all of our moderators, authors, and content producers—self-selected to peer-produce on this commons-based platform! This hour-long Howl will take place on Thursday, March 13 on hashtag #newplay at 11am PDT (Vancouver) / 1pm CDT (Austin) / 2pm EDT (New York) / 18:00 GMT (London) / 7pm CET (Berlin). On Thursday, get heard in the conversation by searching for #newplay in Twitter (sort by “all”) and by putting “#newplay” somewhere in your messages. Spread the word!

Dani Snyder-Young looks at the world premiere of Joel Drake Johnson’s Rasheeda Speaking, and reflects on seeing a play about race, with a mostly white audience. 

In this installation, sound designer and playwright Tom Horan interviews Artistic Director Bryan Fonseca about the history and current status of the Phoenix Theatre.

Starting a theater company is much like getting ready to write a book report in the sixth grade. Before you get to the nitty-gritty, you first have to figure out the “Five Ws and One H.” Who? What? Where? Why? When? And, How?