Playfull, yup I went and had a look there, but I got scared off because he seems to have won zillions of awards and written billions of plays.

Were you referring to jay's site? Or was that just unfortunate timing on the posting?

I offered to show him mine if he showed me his (and mother warned me about sailors), then i saw his site and bottled it. I would make a great winner of TPTT - four programs of me 'mumbling i am not worthy'.

Unfortunate posting timing hehe. It's not personal sites that bug me, it's company sites.

Playfull I think I would do exactly the same.

Nighty night lilmissy

Night night Playfull. Sweet dreams.

Great idea for this seperate thread Playfull - and some good feedback here from everyone!

Three very key issues emerge; may I summarise?

1/ We'll probably need a title sponsor, partially to get a little bit of cash behind it and partially to give it credibility. I'm sure we all have the same castbroading organisation in mind. That will possibly dictate the name and site design/style, so I wouldn't fret too much on those issues.

2/ We'd ideally need a patron - someone with credibility who is prepared to read and ok / reject the scripts. Again, that may emerge from 1 above, but it could be the other way around. If we could find a 'known' famous Director who'd be prepared to give us the time, that might help generating 1 above. Errrrmmm ... not dropping names, but I have a passing acquaintanceship with Sir Richard Eyre (google him, folks) - any other offers from anyone who knows someone?

3/ We're going to need a legal beagle on a few points (contracts, copyright protection, defamation protection etc) - anyone know a playwriting / acting vulture?

- I think Amdrams MUST register; we do need to know who's peeking

- I think this is 'amateur only' (both in terms of writers and theatres) - if professional companies or theatres want to use our stuff, that's welcome - but a seperate contact!

- I think we should try (and it's a long shot) to get other agents / publishers to view the site

- On the subject of the New Statesman article, there's a couple of points. One; can anyone smell sour grapes? Two; just because the winner hasn't been professionally performed / published before, I like the implication that they're a novice writer. Could be - but we could hardly say that Jay (for instance) is a novice!

That's all. Any comments?

Keep thinking!

Addendum to my above posting;

4/ I think Gravy's 100% spot on - we do run the risk of getting an awful lot of rubbish submitted, so I think the site needs to include;

- 'Accepted' thinking on manuscript physical presentation (a la TPTT).

- Guidance articles (which I'm sure we can crib) on what makes a good or bad stageplay (yeah, I know, rules are made to be broken, but there are some hard-and-fasts).

- Possibly (in the future) maybe even arranging regional workshops on a fee-paying basis for amateur writers to meet, brainstorm and cross-fertilise?

5/ Thanks, again, to Gravy who also makes the folowing points in an off-Forum e-mail to me;

- Freedom: Playwrights need to make it clear how much artistic integrity they are reserving regarding setting, cutting, changes to dialogue or physical setting etc. It will be no good complaining afterwards if some director decides to set your masterpiece on Mars when the original script calls for an Edwardian drawing room.

- Policing: I saw an American (I think) site once where it was made clear that public performance without licence would attract penalties of 10 times the normal performance fees plus costs.

Accounting: This bit is likely to be the most work as if the site is collecting the fees and deducting say 10% or whatever then the accounting will have to be totally transparent and open to inspection. I am not an expert but I believe that an artist or whatever normally has the right to appoint an accountant to look at the books of an agent to check that everything is above board.

5. Promotion - we need to get the site at the top of search engine listings and have lots of links to Am Dram societies, touring companies, theatres etc. To this end perhaps we should consider (in time) broadening the site content as much as possible e.g.

- Geographical listings of forthcoming productions
- Chat room
- Actors available
- Audition Opportunities
- Writers workshops

Brain too sleepy to process all that information

Okay here’s my take…

Quality is going to make this site successful… That means that we have to select the plays that go onto the site… But this can be done constructively…

Part of my day job is evaluation – and there is a quick way of evaluating the plays we would be looking at (strangely enough, we’re all fairly familiar with it – you end up receiving much of the same stuff that we sent to TPTT).

This is then sent to a blind peer panel (no-one but the manager knows who has been sent what extracts to who). They are then required to mark elements of the product (in this case the play – say on dialogue, set/scene change feasibility, tension, plot progression) on a scale of 1 to 5 (only ever use 1 to 5! It’s the way the brain works! 1= crap, 5 = Brill, 3 = Average and 2 either side). The mean scores are then totted up to see if it’s worthwhile reading the entire play (say we look at all plays that score 4 or more).

Should a playwright not make it past this stage, we can pass back the information why – “three of our panel did not believe that the plot moved fast enough to maintain the audiences concentration” – hence giving them the chance to learn, re-work and re-submit!

The hard part here, is who would read? I will instantly volunteer, not because I’ve written a few – but because I read a play from the point of view of ‘Would I want to put this on in one of the clubs I belong to?’.

Anyone agree with this? If so, do we have any other volunteers, and I can develop a sample scorecard…

I think that would work Jay. That's how we mark a lot of our work at university oddly enough.

Oh and Playful,

Please do get in contact… I would love to have a read. Don’t be scared by the site – I’m not pretending to be an expert – my site was only put together with FrontPage (LML is now writhing on the floor in agony)…

And yes, I’ve won awards… But that’s only because I KEEP on entering Amateur competitions. It’s the only way I can gain constructive, honest and objective feedback… And if I pick up an award – I shove it on the site (I’ve learnt by experience that 60% of being a playwright is self-publicity… and I’m still at the 40% level!)

*has palpitations* *starts redesigning Jay's site out from under him*

LML,

We could use this as a selling point of the site. State our submission policy prominantly and show how we can encourage and develop new playwrights...

Yup. I think keeping the emphasis on the fact that it's new writers would be a good idea.

And now the fog is lifted from my brain I can study Adman's essays.

Ok Adman...

1. Can you clarify the whole sponsor thing? How would they be involved/ how much say would they have etc. I still can't get my brain to understand it.

I have to put my foot down about something. Making people register to look at the scripts is not a good idea. It will put them off.

As far as promoting the website is concerned, well, not my area, but it can be submitted to the Google Directory. You have to wait a while for them to check the site but it should put you at the top of any Google searches as well as having a link in the Directory itself.

Jay,

Well volunteered. I think the process of script appraisal would have to fall on the more experienced members such as yourself Adman & Gravedigger. My total lack of experience has made me a candidate for TPTT but I think I would be totally out of my depth judging another’s work.

This then brings us to the status of ‘Founder Members’ of the ‘AmDramJunction.com’ Are we looking at a not for profit organisation, or one where shareholders/founder members share any profit at year end. If the latter, I can see problems with equal shares for equal effort issues.

I understand that as writers we are paid specific to our works popularity.

Money, the eternal sticking point.

LML

Benefits of having a sponsor;

1/ If we choose the sponsor well, we should ideally find someone who is in a position to give us publicity as much as cash; print or broadcast media obviously springs to mind. They don't get a say (unless, of course, they are themselves stageplay specialists in some way, or can field one, in which case they get to put a member on the Board - I see this as a Limited company for everyone's protection).

2/ I'm thinking of what's called a 'title sponsor' - "Channel 4's The Play's The Thing" could have been "BBC2's The Play's The Thing". I think we'd all probably see the logic and loyalty of approaching C4, but it could be "www.amdramplays.co.uk - sponsored by the New Statesman" or whatever. Plenty of precedent.

3/ A title sponsor would be expected to ante up some cash as well - we're going to need to get this onto the doormats of the AmDram societies, and even with e-mail there are going to be costs. And, by the way, this is a horny one; but if we made it a charity in some way all the funding could be tax-deductible fopr the sponsor.

4/ I like Jay's scoring system, but still feel we'd need a patron - again, partly for credibility.

LML,

I personally think that registering is a good idea… but only at the point where they want to obtain a full manuscript (MS)…

On the site we could provide the first 15 mins of the MS, as that’s the point where the audience will have made up its collective mind to walk at the interval or not. But the full MS has to be controlled.

On a previous point – I am enraged by the attitude of so called ‘professional playwrights’. I have not had a professional production, so I can quite proudly state that I am an amateur playwright. But I am still writing. And I will keep on writing.

What is this nonsense about taking years to develop as a playwright! Sure I’m still learning – but I haven’t attended a course. I learn by listening to audiences. I loved reading Mr Ackbourne’s statements… I’ve acted in three of his plays… I’ve even had one of my play compete against his in a festival two years ago… And it was my play that won!

It’s the attitude of such playwrights that maintain the elitist image of the theatre and discourage ‘real people’ from going.

Since entering this competition, I mentioned it on a couple of other playwright forums – and have been slammed for it! “How are you going to feel if the winner is someone that entered for a laugh?”, “Enter if you like – you probably belong with the other entrants… people that delude themselves that they can write”…

If the likes of Ackbourne feel so strongly about this subject, why aren’t they doing something to develop new writers – like we are, by discussing setting up such a site…

(Rant over)… (for now!)

Yeah, registering to get a full manuscript would be ok. Just don't make them register to look at the extracts.

Adman, thankyou for the clarification. I have only just woken up, I'm slow.

If you wanted to approach Channel 4 with the idea, you might get furthest if you went for the Ideas Factory, since it's about promoting new talent. Just a thought.

Hmmmm… Money….

Yep, we have to discuss it… The site must make money… To keep it going…

How about doing it like a virtual agent? The site takes 10% of the playwright’s 10% (not too excessive, and encourages the site to push the playwright’s work). And in the unlikely event of there being a profit at the end of the financial year, it could be used to run workshops/rehearsed readings…

Totally agree about the Sponsor… If we did this on our own, who would visit the site (that is the downfall of my site). With, say, C4 as the sponsor we obtain credibility – in addition to the cash needed of hosting, advertising etc… But on top of that we need a Patron… Someone in the world of professional theatre that will be instantly recognisable to AmDramers to draw them in…

Anyone know anyone famous…? the best I can offer is Terry Pratchett and Steven Briggs… But I don’t think they would be any good to promote our site

OH! And if we had a good patron, we could get them to give a breif review on plays accepted! (Okay, maybe to reduce their workload, a review of the 'play of the year')

The site itself shouldn't be too expensive to maintain, but if you wanted extra money to do other kinds of promotion...

I don't know any famous people whatsoever. I'm not very useful am I?

How are you thinking of recieving payment? Via the site or a cheque in the post?