The show's associated website has somehow managed to attract hundreds of submissions to its discussion forum. Only after reading a few of the postings did I realise that they came from the 2,000 or so playwrights manqué who had not made it to the TV leg of the contest. (Eighty-one of their plays, we were told, had Jesus in their title, 198 made terrorism a theme, and 335 were based in gyms or fat clubs.) It was Pearson who noted that, judging by the scripts, few showed any sign of actually going to the theatre.
So we've all penned crap play about Jesus ploting a bombinf in a Fat Club next to the gym in here are we?
Told you we were going to get tarred with the same brush.
I do agree with the unspoken criticism in the article that it is a little strange to desperately want to be a professional playwright but at the same time not make it a priority to go see professionally produced plays. I have tried to generate discussion about actual plays on the West End, the offerings at Edinburgh, plays at new writing theatres and I can't get that conversation here. I get that conversation with my friends who go to the theatre with me who don't want to be playwrights at all.
I guess the reason that they don't occur here is beacuse we have been to the West End, been to (in some cases, performed at) the Fringe, submit to new writing theatres (Soho et al).
But post something here - and you might be surprised by the responces.
My fear with what I saw on Monday was that our collective respectiblity as aspiring playwrights could be diminished... After that New Statesman article, I can see it starting.
Don't worry, Jay, just don't say on the cover letter that you post in this forum and you'll be ok.
What was the last play you saw? What is the next play you're going to see?
I saw the Voysey Inheritance, Coriolanus, Royal Hunt of the Sun and The Crucible in the last six weeks. This Friday I am seeing Titus Andronicus and next Friday Avenue Q: that doesn't make me a better playwright than anyone who doesn't go see these plays, but man, it's in my blood - I wanna see them, I have to see them. To me it's a necessary part of realizing the dream. I'm also reading Chekov's plays.
You say you've been to the West End - when? What did you see? What did you see at the Fringe? What did you think? What makes a great play?
I tried to do a thread of great new writing a while back - no responses. I nominated The Pillowman. Have you seen that? Read it? Read History Boys?
You've sent something to Soho but what have you seen there?
I'm just saying there is some legitimacy to the article's criticism.
The last play I saw was NC Hunter’s ‘Touch of the Sun’ at the Salibury Playhouse. But I have since attended a series of public rehearsed readings at the same theatre.
The next plays I’m seeing are Two Cites and Maskerade.
As for what I’ve seen the West End, the last I saw was Shoot the Crow (one of SF babies – and I guess not ‘truly’ West End as it was in the Trafalgar Studios). But living off the Solent with small children, getting up to the smoke is a treat that the wife and I can only afford to take once or twice a year.
At the Fringe? Damn, there are too many to list. I have performed at the Fringe 5 times, but once up there I’ll take in as many as 5 plays a day. One of the more memorable pieces of new writing I saw there was ‘Desperately Seeking Robin’ a two header that had me in stitches. And never forget Shakespeare for Breakfast!
As to what makes a good play – that’s simple, it must entertain me. That doesn’t mean that it has to be a comedy. Tragedy can entertain.
There must be something that is presented that I can relate to. And even fantasy can do that, if the characters talk to you.
But the best plays are the ones that when you’ve walked away from a great evenings entertainment, you realise a couple of days later that you think about some aspect of yourself or the world slightly (and sometime massively) differently.
And most of all, let me be the one entertained, not some perception of what the playwright thinks should be an educated theatre goer. Let theatre grow and bring new people in.
Don't worry, Jay, just don't say on the cover letter that you post in this forum and you'll be ok.
I have a major problem with this.
Do you really think that it is going to be worthwhile submitting anything to anyone for the next 6 months?
I’m not daft enough to head a submission letter with the line ‘and was rejected by TPTT’.
But how many people are now going to think that they can send an idea and a 15 min extract to theatres/agents/actors/producers.
Not once has the programme explained the ‘normal’ submission process.
My guess is that PFD, Soho, and lord knows how many more are going to be swamped with these pitches. That’s more chaff for us to battle our way through.
Originally posted by Swann1719: Don't worry, Jay, just don't say on the cover letter that you post in this forum and you'll be ok.
What was the last play you saw? What is the next play you're going to see?
I saw the Voysey Inheritance, Coriolanus, Royal Hunt of the Sun and The Crucible in the last six weeks. This Friday I am seeing Titus Andronicus and next Friday Avenue Q: that doesn't make me a better playwright than anyone who doesn't go see these plays, but man, it's in my blood - I wanna see them, I have to see them. To me it's a necessary part of realizing the dream. I'm also reading Chekov's plays.
You say you've been to the West End - when? What did you see? What did you see at the Fringe? What did you think? What makes a great play?
I tried to do a thread of great new writing a while back - no responses. I nominated The Pillowman. Have you seen that? Read it? Read History Boys?
You've sent something to Soho but what have you seen there?
I'm just saying there is some legitimacy to the article's criticism.
Full marks for cracking good taste Swann, Royal Hunt is one of my all time favourites, but it is so heart wrenching I honestly could not sit through another performance
Do you really think that it is going to be worthwhile submitting anything to anyone for the next 6 months?
Actually Jay, I should think every agent, producer, publisher and artistic director in the country is currently doing a spot of loin-girding, expecting exactly the response you suggest (ie floods of 15pp submissions). But ...
1/ If the 'development process' of the next 3 programmes shows full-time agony for these people, and a bit of shouting and screaming at them, it might have the reverse effect.
2/ Even if it doesn't, there will just be more waste in the bin!
3/ My take on it was that in the last 6 months, quite a lot of TPTT entrants who already had plays would have been more energised to send them off.
So if 1/ and 3/ is true, there could actually be a fall in numbers - which is exactly the opposite to what SF wanted!
To be frank, I fear the programme is not going to be taken seriously enough by anyone for it to have much sway either way.
3/ My take on it was that in the last 6 months, quite a lot of TPTT entrants who already had plays would have been more energised to send them off.
And this is where I think the numbers will increase. Those that have submitted to TPTT that have now seen the plays that were 'better' will send of the pitches to the agents/producers/theatres, and mistakenly, actors...
Those of us that have submission experience and have a couple of plays under our belts, and some with a couple of productions, [U]KNOW[/U] that there are better plays in the rejected pile. But we know how to submit - many don't!
And this is where I think the numbers will increase. Those that have submitted to TPTT that have now seen the plays that were 'better' will send of the pitches to the agents/producers/theatres, and mistakenly, actors...
Ok Jay, I can probably buy that.
If that's been consciously planned (and I don't think is has, but if so) it's probably the most subtle piece of guerilla and viral marketing I've ever come across - because the Agent (Mel), the Producer (Sonia) and the Actor (Neil) are all, in that order, the possible largest beneficiaries of large volumes of possibly high quality work.
Show cr4p to enrage and incentise the good guys - who are as yet in the closet - to contact you? Even the good guys who weren't in TPTT in the first place and have maybe never submitted their good work?
Nah. Not deliberate, surely not. But it is a 'heads we win, tails we can't lose' scenario for Sonia, Mel and Neil!
I'm sure there was no intention. But the desire to make controversial reality TV, rather than think of the future of theatre and new writing has lead us to this point.
But the desire to make controversial reality TV, rather than think of the future of theatre and new writing has lead us to this point.
That's the big, big bit I DON'T get!
Sonia Friedman does not strike me as woman wanting to move from high-brow theatre to low-brow tv just to get her name splashed. Nor does she look like the kind of lady to be railroaded.
So - seeing that there MUST have been better synopses than, at the very least, the MM one - why put in very difficult new work to produce rather than very easy new work to produce?
No - I prefer to stick with my cynical view that she took the middle ground; synopses that would be bl00dy difficult to produce, but not impossible, so she can be filmed saying 'Phew, we did it! Against all the odds! Aren't we clever!' And so the inexperienced writers can be filmed being shown 'how to do it', thus educating the inexperienced writers watching (there is an argument that the experienced ones being filmed not needing much help wouldn't really help the inexperienced writers watching the show).
I prefer that thought - that she chose middle-ground writers to honourably educate others via the tv - to the thought that she deliberately set out to make reality tv.
(there is an argument that the experienced ones being filmed not needing much help wouldn't really help the inexperienced writers watching the show).
But it would have!
I would not feel so venomous if I could see that the plays were (in my opinion – yeah I know this is subjective, but others seem to agree) superior or at least as good as what I’ve read or submitted.
They would then have known that they we're beaten by something better.
Then they would have learnt what the gap between the performances some have had and what a ‘real’ theatre has to do to amend to turn a script into a reality.
Damn I would have loved that.
I now fear that Saturday’s episode is going to be ‘Play Writing For Dummies’.
A play has been written; it is on at a West-End venue... one can buy tickets to see it.
So if Sonia Friedman has backed the right horse... and then if Kate (or whoever emerges as the winner has a successful run... then won't we all be dummies?
How can we all make judgments on someone's work after only hearing a vicarious reading of a synopsis and/or a few pages of script (albeit vicariously). It's the IDEA that sparks the PT.
Also I'm a bit concerned that some people (Caicos naughty fellow) are implying you need to see five plays a month in order to be able to write one of any worth.
Lewes - England DID beat Paraguay (just) and DID win against T&T (in the last 11 minutes). But they should have done so much better! And that's my point.
In that, I refer to the PT, not Kate Betts.
I wish Kate (who must SURELY look in here - I would!) the best tonight for the preview (any minute now, actually) and for the future. She seems like a lady I could enjoy dinner with, and on Jay's kids' lives (okay, and mine) I genuinely hope she's the playwright equivalent of JR Rowling.
Nothing I have said should diminish her achievement; she beat 1999 others to the finishing post (to thoroughly mix up my metaphors). My only query, and I think Jays, is whether a slight handicapping system applied, but if it did - she didn't apply it, and she STILL beat her peers to the prize!
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE KATE! IF YOU READ THIS POST - AT SOME POINT PLEASE COME AND TALK TO US HERE OR AT JAYSPLAYS OWN VIRTUAL BAR (A PRIVATE FORUM YOU CAN FIND BY GOOGLING HIS HANDLE).
Despite some of our comments - and you have to admit that, at this stage, we know little about you or your play other than the spin put on by the tv programme - we're actually very friendly, and VERY pleased to see one of 'us' up there, and if I've said anything unkind... well, put some down to the fact that we haven't seen how things unfold, some down to jealousy and some down to devilment!
If you lived in my street, town or county - I'd be at the front of the queue to buy you a drink!
Jay, for the record - as my primary co-partner in criticism - can you agree with those sentiments, in case the lady herself (a fellow writer, after all) is looking in?
I am glad that these sentiments are shared by most.
I really feel that this play cannot be judged on anything we have seen yet and whatever the final product is, I for one will only pass my judgement once i have seen it in the flesh, so to speak.
