Thought t might be good idea to have a dedicated thread.
Posted 08-07-05 19:01 by Adman
A group of us - JaysPlays, Adman, Crampy, Playfull, LilMiss, Aurora and Gravedigger (apologies if I missed anyone out) are considering getting together a website for (specifically) AmDram societies to be able to view our plays and use them on an 'honour' paying royalty basis.
Lots of plans (including safeguarding copyright etc) - anyone interested please send me a 'hello' to services at tcworks dot co dot uk, and I'll get a list together and circulate everyone.
This will NOT invalidate anyone's entry to TPTT - especially mine! We hope, eventually, to involve C4 when we have a viable plan to put to them!
'All we see and seem is but a dream within a dream' Poe
Re new statesman article. So nice that the established writers are worried for us! 1)They are concerned that we might be 'taken advantage of' - yeah i have sleepless nights about that myself! and 2) They say it takes 'years to become a competent playwrite'. - I am sure it does, and some of the entrants do have years of experience. I also think these writers may have forgotten that they too were once in our position, and deperate for a break.
'All we see and seem is but a dream within a dream' Poe
I could understand people who have been at it years getting annoyed if someone like me, who has never written a play before (heck I don't even have an A level in English) suddenly got all this recognition for "just having a go". Might be a bit galling.
-Every rose has its thorns. Mine are all sticking in my side.
I'm not sure. Everyone seems to be overqualified for everything these days. You probably don't. I was just hammering home the point that I am utterly inexperienced.
-Every rose has its thorns. Mine are all sticking in my side.
Should AmDram's have to register with the site (free) to see the play extracts?
This could provide us with a newsletter list. So we could let interested parties (Agents? producers?) know when we have new plays available and when and where our plays are being performed.
'All we see and seem is but a dream within a dream' Poe
I was wondering if anyone had thought up a good name yet?
What did you have in mind for the newsletter? Just a sort of text email or one with pictures and stuff? Because someone would have to put it together. I could probably do that if that's what everyone wanted, as I have the most free time (students eh?)
-Every rose has its thorns. Mine are all sticking in my side.
Putting my website designer brain in for one moment, my take on the newsletter thing -
Good idea to have a mailing list of amdram places to send updates to, but I would have it so they sign up for the list specifically, as making them sign up to download play examples might put them off looking, and you want to get them hooked as easy as possible.
-Every rose has its thorns. Mine are all sticking in my side.
Newsletter type things usually work on an opt in basis.
Not sure which is better, the risk of putting some visitors off by making it a register to view system, or the information gained by such a process. It would be nice to know if visitors were all AmDrams or if we could attract agents/producers.
'All we see and seem is but a dream within a dream' Poe
Well, any amdram place with a website would probably have a contact email on, so you could just search through the sites and already you've got a mailing list. Same goes for agents. Find the contact details, pester them hehe.
-Every rose has its thorns. Mine are all sticking in my side.
Who judges if plays submitted to 'whateverlilmissycallsit.com' are up to scratch. I might think that i have written the first great work of the century - others might think i have just reduced the original value of the paper it is written on,
Do we have an open door 'post your play here' policy or do we aim to keep all the offerings up to a reasonable standard?
Ummmmm
'All we see and seem is but a dream within a dream' Poe
Well...I guess the best thing to do is a peer review system. You post it to an area of the site where only the other writers can see it, and they consider it. It could certaintly help people improve their writing at the very least.
-Every rose has its thorns. Mine are all sticking in my side.
This needs thinking about - who amongst us (I know not me for sure) is qualified to pass judgement on others work. And to start offering individual constructive advice would be a huge undertaking for someone.
On a seperate issue could we get established writers to offer thier early/unperformed works? Just a thought.
'All we see and seem is but a dream within a dream' Poe
Could just submit it to other writers...Get them to mark it out of ten and give any additional comments and the feedback is sent to the writer. If they get above 7/10 or whatever, they get in. And we refuse to look at anything that hasn't even had a basic spellcheck run on it. It could start getting time-consuming depending on the interest.
I wouldn't get established writers on the site, since it's a) about promoting new writers, and b) the way I imagined the site is as a sort of community of writers where everyone can be quite personally involved with it, which an established writer might not want to be. They've probably got better things to do, like write plays.
-Every rose has its thorns. Mine are all sticking in my side.
You either have to leave it totally open - in which case you will get hundreds of rubbish plays clutting up the place and Prodiucers/directors will get hacked off with the work of sifting through them for the gem or you have to allow quality posts only.
You only need to read a scene and a synopsis as in TPTT to get an idea whether there is a) a reasonable plot and b) is the dialogue believable
I think if someone new wanted to join then yup, something like a TPTT entry would be enough for everyone to look at and judge the potential. There's no point in turning away someone good because they haven't got it perfected yet.
Anyone thought what it should look like? (Stupid designer's question I know)
-Every rose has its thorns. Mine are all sticking in my side.
I was just thinking out loud with the established writer thing - I know that they might not want to see their possibly weaker stuff exposed to public scrutiny - but i am sure many famous writers have unperformed works they are fond of, and would like a chance to have them seen or even performed. And it just occurred to me that having a 'new' Pinter, Potter or Aykbourne available would provide Adman with mouth-watering publicity opportunities to promote the site.
'All we see and seem is but a dream within a dream' Poe
Would that other web designers had your restraint! I suspect much of it comes from overenthusiastic PR depts in large companies who want to show off to the chairman. Anyway that is off topic. I can design plastic components, kitchens and anything made of real materials but web sites . . . *Does impression of Stan Laural*
My pet hate is people who think they know how to make websites because they know how to write the code, but they have no design training at all and it's just...I could go on forever.
I keep sketching increasingly bizarre and complicated flow-diagrams of the site at the moment.
-Every rose has its thorns. Mine are all sticking in my side.
