 You know, I think I should preface by saying one of the things that has been so striking about doing this research and then seeing it, you know, when you're inside of something, you don't exactly see what it is. And then you assemble it and you're starting to see it. And then when it's like a production. You have a production of a play and finally you see a play and you're ready to figure out what's next. I hope this will answer or at least address Doug's question. One of the things that became really clear after the fact was that everything that has happened that I would say is hostile or not working for the playwright in the American theater happened, it's the result of actually good intentions. You know, the perfect example of course is literary management offices. They were developed as a way to create access for playwrights and to be able to read scripts as they come in and to be able to have someone who sold job or some people who sold job was to welcome playwrights into the theaters. Over time, they became buffers between playwrights and the theaters rather than conduits for playwrights. Nobody set up to create barriers between playwrights and the theaters. And, you know, and you'll never meet an artistic director who doesn't honestly love playwrights, you know. I mean any artistic director in this country could say what Molly said last night about their relationship to the playwright. In some cases, like Molly's, you have someone who's really put her money where her mouth is and is really investigating her own practices. So, the playwrights, I'm not sure that the playwrights did anything but I do think there's a way in which over time you have ceded authority over your own lives to the people who select plays, starting to take it for granted that playwrights, oh, playwrights are never hired to run theaters so playwrights can never run theaters. I'm just a writer. We have no collective power. You know, those kinds of things that happen that I think are partly from, I don't know if they're from timidity but I think they're certainly from isolation. You know, a new drama is one of the things that's really striking. My office is right across the hall from our writing studio and inevitably I'll hear somebody in the writing studio and I'll go in to make sure that the air conditioning's on or the heat's on or the lights are good. And the playwrights always sit in the dark. You are mole people who sit in the light of your screens. I mean, it is inevitable. There is no playwright, the 50 playwrights currently in the drama who walks in the room and turns on the lights. And I think there is, I mean, it's a kind of lame metaphor but I do think that there's a kind of isolation that's bred from the fact that the bulk of your work happens alone and then there's this horrible and increasingly long period of waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting to hear that you start to, you know, playwrights over time become more alienated and you start to swallow your own alienation in a way. And rather than think that there are other ways you think, well, this is the way it is. I mean, so I don't think it's anything that the playwrights have done but I do think it's, there are questions that need to be asked at every point and questions are terrifying, especially when you feel you don't have power. Like, why does the nonprofit theater rely on royalties? The for-profit theater that sells bullets of tickets when things go well is natural for royalties. But a subsidized theater, why have we never subsidized the playwrights? Why have we not asked that question? And now we can see, well, 3% of your income comes from the foundational place that your income's supposed to come. Okay, that's an old practice, it doesn't really work. So partly maybe playwrights should be asking better questions, should be working together more, you know, becoming more sort of seating-less. Yeah, and I think part of it is you've lost a lot, you know. It's not like your situation can get any worse, you know. I mean, and that doesn't just go for playwrights. I mean, it goes for the theaters too, we're all in the shits, you know. The American theater, I mean, theaters are folding every week, you know. Fear is rampant, the money is not there. We have, and yet, as Molly pointed out, there are 950, 1950 theaters in this country with budgets of over $75,000. What do you do? There are 4,000 universities, what a great moment when she said that. So there's lots of opportunity and there is abundance. It's just, we tend to see, right, you know, your playwrights, you live in conflict, so we can see what you're talking about. But who would like to ask Todd a question? Will you say your names too? Hi, everyone. My name is Roberta De Lois, and I've seen Todd speak before, and he's really awesome, so thank you, guys. Thank you, Roberta. This is a little bit common, but you mentioned Hallow Mountain, which I followed pretty well as well. And if you remember weeks ago, months ago, Matt Smart wrote a very interesting column, if you haven't read it, about basically playwrights or other shifts, because we're lazy, we don't work hard. And that's really encapsulating a long, interesting thing. But it made me think, because when I read about emerging playwrights that are kind of up the ladder for me, like Victoria Hall and a few others, they all talk about how they apply for every opportunity, how they, you know, not just networking and good things, and shake hands and meet people, but they see an opportunity that might be good for a play, and they want it. They work, work, work, aside from the work of playwrights. So I'm wondering if you've given us a long question. If you have any comments about, like, working hard versus not working hard versus, like, what I do this all the time, sorry. Like, where that sits for you in terms of what you see in the work of playwrights. Right. Excuse me. Did everybody hear the question? We're not going to repeat it, are we? What's the answer? At its essence, a writer's lazy. Are we not taking advantage of the opportunity that it could be because we're in this bitter place? Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I think it's a great question. And as I recall Matt's piece, it was really about, maybe I'm misremembering, but I think it was more about laziness in the work itself, not in terms of applying for opportunities and things like that. And that is the sort of thing that I would never generalize about. You know, I know playwrights that kick themselves up and down the stairs about everything, and sometimes it's productive and sometimes it's not. People work really hard. Every playwright I know works really hard. But I would turn that question a little bit to this notion of what does it mean to be a writer in collaborative art? You know, it seems to me that playwrights live in a kind of, I think of it as a kind of schizophrenia that I'm a novelist and an essayist and I don't really understand the desire to write something and then give it to other people to fuck it up. I don't really understand, I mean I guess I should because I'm a Gemini and I work as an artistic director and I also work as a writer, but to do that with the same material seems to me strange. However, the fact that you do means that at a certain point in your process you enter into a really deeply collaborative situation. Now, you are actually, because you're in the theatre, you are always under the umbrella of that collaborative situation. And what we heard in this research again and again from artistic directors is that playwrights are sending plays that are not finished, that they are encouraged to do that by their teachers and partly it's the unintended consequence of the fact that you know that every theatre is going to want you to rewrite your play even if it is finished anyway. So that there's a sense and then there's like defensiveness and then there's who do you listen to and of course it's a terrible situation because everybody including the box office person and the marketing interns telling you what to do with your play but there are people that need to tell you producers actually have a point of view and that relationship between producer and playwright is potentially a fantastic one and it is the heart of the theatre. So I guess this is all to say what is the actual work and who dictates it. And yes, you may work alone very hard. You may rewrite and revise and rewrite and revise and then come to a point where it's like, I don't accept the collaboration or you may not work hard enough and then put it out to collaborate, do you know what I mean? And I think every playwright knows that in his or her own heart to the extent that you've been trained in the discipline of rewriting or that you've discovered what it means to actually throw something away and start over and really get at the essence that you're asking the right questions. So I don't know how to generalize about that but I do think that hard work is better than less hard work. And some of that is related to the points that Richard Nelson made in his speech four or five years ago which goes back to the first question I asked, the theatre world is more tended to treat us like children and we live out ourselves to be treated like children, right? So, yes. William Saltz and one of those playwright bloggers you mentioned. I think it'd be interesting. Could you say where you're from to and introduce yourself? I'm from here, Washington DC. Yeah, I blogged for how and on that we're too into theatre and I'm interested to hear what feels like a slightly quiet call to arms to us to take over theatres. Oh, is that quiet? Well, you didn't say, you know, man about. You know, I have just started to consider myself whether there's a path for me to artistic directorship over theatre and I'm interested to know if you see that path. It feels a little bit like applying to be a brain surgeon and I realize it shouldn't. You know, I don't read brain surgery. I've been a playwright and I think a lot and write a lot very publicly about theatre but it's that, you know, so where's the path from there to, you know, did everybody hear the question? Yes? Okay. No. No. What is there a path and if so, could he describe it from being a playwright to perhaps moving into a position as or similar to artistic director? Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah, sure. Okay. So, Gudi, I want to back off your question a little bit. I think because implied in the way you framed it is a sense that artistic directorships are jobs that you apply for in theatres that are established already. I think, and it gets at something that I found troubling in the research of this book, and I'm going to come back to this notion of leadership, which is that despite the fact that almost every playwright we talk to in group conversations had lots of great stories to tell about theatres they had effectively collaborated with that did a good job by them where they worked lovingly with their maids. When it came time for critiquing the theatre, what everybody was really doing was critiquing institutional theatres of a certain size. So, the first thing that I would say in response to this is, and because you're asking, I think, my opinion, and I don't know that there's a path out there or that certainly I'm the wisdom to detail that path, but I would say let go of the notion that the institutional theatre is the theatre. You know, if you want... I mean, the truth is, Molière never did apply for a job at that theatre. Do you know? Yeah. He didn't. He did. Che is also a director, he's been an administrator in the theatres and that sort of thing. Theatre, boards of directors, managing directors, they tend still to choose directors to run theatres. They're gregarious. They're used to working, bringing people together in certain ways. It's the way it's done. I'd say let that go. I mean, again, I think, you know, my current project has very little to do with playwriting, it's about collecting founding visions of American theatres from basically the 20th century in the words of the people who founded them. And it's very inspiring. And you know, the thing is that theatres are always founded and changes are made in our field not by moving into the structures that exist, but finding other structures. I teach this class up at Yale and to the managers in the school of drama. And the theatres that are most exciting to them are theatres like 13P. There's a group of playwrights coming together or Pig Iron, which is an ensemble that also, you know, devises their own work. And this to me, and also theatres in their own community and children's theatres and that kind of thing. So this suggests to me that there's a hunger out there. And I think it's happening. I think one of the reasons that the numbers of theatres are so high is because a lot of theatres are currently being founded. Despite the fact that everybody is being told it's too late, you can't found theatres anymore, there's no money. So I would just say, that's the path is, carve out your own path. It is a job market. You know, those things lead to each other, and it's opening up a little bit, but I would say as much as you can suspend that notion. Yes, in the back. Yeah, well, this is going to be quite contradictory. Say your name again, please. Obata Yohana Sanzaro. Yes. So basically, do you think, a lot of the issues that you addressed as far as it relates to the diaries and straights that we as playwrights find ourselves in, how much of that is related to the embarrassment that we have as making what we do a commodity. It's kind of, sometimes I'm an artist, so the stuff that I'm writing and sitting here working on, I feel kind of embarrassed about saying that it's for sale, you know, on some level. That being number one. And then number two, I'm very interested in a new drama that is applying because of the fact that it's not so commercially driven, you know, as some of these other things. So, that's fun with that. Let's start at the very beginning. This notion, I don't know how to really address this question, though. I understand that it's an important one. That sense of your, you know, your work is your work. It's personal. It's new. It's lots of things. It's alive. And it's also something that you need to sell, you know, and you're selling it in a marketplace that was originally intended as a kind of nurturing space and is more and more of a commercial marketplace. So, I think that's one of the great things about being part of a guild, being part of a profession where you have people to mentor you and teach you and, you know, to teach you the skills that allow you to agent to your own work, to market your work, to, you know, how many rejections it takes before this patch of skin is, you know, strong enough to take the next one, you know, that kind of thing. And I think it's... It also, in a way, goes to Greening's question, which is a question of, you know, we live in a profession, especially in the nonprofit art theater in this country, that is still rooted to a certain extent in love of the art, in amateurism. But it has professionalized at an accelerated rate really since the early 60s. And certainly since the days of the actor that was in the White House in the 80s. And it has professionalized in such a way that suddenly you are aware that you're not just throwing your art up on the stage of Caffecino for a week, you know, with a lot of other poor bohemians who are living in the village in the 60s, you are now trying to get it to the person who will make a decision within a monolithic organization, or what seems to be monolithic and all that kind of thing. So part of it is about professionalism and how you reassert the love and the art. The other thing is, Neutromitous, I mean, one of the things that it's really easy to be an idealist in a place like Neutromitous, is that we opt out of all of that, which is a really kind of luxurious and fake position to be in. Because I can sit in Neutromitous and I can say, we live in this ideal world, we give everything away, the playwrights can do whatever they want once they get in, we don't tell them what to do, we have no say over what they do, we don't select them, they're selected outside of us, the staff, and everything is a gift, and we don't sell anything. And therefore, we are pure and everybody else is corrupt. We can say that, that's easy to say, but it's just not true. We're so lucky to be in that position and to be able to make it work and it's hard to raise the money and all that kind of stuff, but we're actually, we are permeable to the theater that it would be easy to corrupt, which is full of lovely people who want to do the right thing. If I could just posit that, I think that's what is becoming the issue, the chasm between being able to be in a place where you're producing art and you're getting some sustenance, maybe not monetary, but you're getting some sustenance from that, whether or not, you know, people know you as this guy is a playwright or this guy is an artist, you know, even if he's broke, you know, there's some sort of currency that's attached to that. And if these two things are growing at the same rate in different direction now, it becomes an issue for us. I think it's absolutely right, and I think it's really at the heart of what is so hard, not just for playwrights, but for everybody who lives in the profession that they love and knows that, you know, it is a split profession that, you know, it's one of the wonderful things about the work that is really, to me, the sort of avant-garde of the 80s, which is community-based work in this country, which is so where is the place that professionalism and the work of the community and the amateur love, where does it come together? You know, how do we as people who love to make things and be creative together work in a way that also exercises our love of quality, our craft that we develop over time, our mature visions, and it's hard. I mean, it is really a, you know, I was on a panel in Chicago a few weeks ago with Brock Scholl for 37 years or so that led, brilliantly, as its executive director, and he was like, you know, this is a really young field, we're finding our way. It's only 50 years old, really, and it's kind of true and so I think part of finding our way is like, can we get back to the love from that place of ultra professionalism? Can we not throw the baby out of the bathwater? Because we have, like, a whole professional, amazing managers and people who know a lot about audience development and all this kind of stuff, and beautiful buildings. Why shouldn't theater have beautiful buildings? You know? Yes, it will be back and then I'll come up here. Hi, my name is Phil Dome, I'm from Penn State and I'm here as both the writer and I'm going to be the next president of the Association for Theater and Higher Education. My question is, and part of why I'm here is thinking about the leadership I can bring to some of these questions for the next two years in this position of what we're doing in the Academy in terms of supporting the arts, of responding to changes in the culture industries, etc. But I'm particularly interested if you would talk about, or if you would be, make some suggestions how do we need to change our thinking in the Academy in order to become part of the solution and not so much a part of the problem which is what I think we're more a part of the problem than we are the solution at the moment. Well, I wouldn't presume to know what your thinking is do you know what I mean? So I wouldn't presume to know what the problem with it is, but a quick example one of the things that we do in the Academy is we always, the answer to every problem is to start a new degree try to then offer it to people and then pump the market full of people with that degree, I mean that's just and we just keep doing that over and over and over and I'm not so sure that we need to keep offering degrees in everything that we do and just, yeah. Well, I don't know about that particular thing, I mean my mind is spinning around a few things and one of them is defensiveness, which I think it goes both ways, I think the the profession has long been defensive about the Academy and vice versa and so both within our departments and within our theaters and you know, across that gulf, there's a lot of like, well, we know what we're doing and they don't and then we create our little fiefdoms in the departments and we create our little fiefdoms in the theaters you know, one of the facts that I've come upon that I'm kind of thrilled to be contemplating in this in looking at these strong divisions of theaters is that theater communications group which is the national service organization for theater which was founded 50 years ago this year was founded, its original mission was to create bridges between professional theater, the community theaters and the university theaters and about two years into the life of TCG the professionals won and they changed the mission so now we are 58 years later we are having to rediscover the genetic code and heal the riffs that have created at the same time our theater departments are more and more more than certainly 50 years ago are populated by theater professionals there are professional playwrights teaching all over this country professional directors, professional everythings and so that thing that like when Bob Roosting went to Yale in 67 and everyone there had ever actually worked in the theater and you know that kind of thing is much more rare these days but I do think the kind of defense Heather McDonald said something beautiful yesterday which was this was so easy and natural paraphrasing her because we had this time we had this summer, we had this space here at George Mason we are all professionals you were first amendment Heather as a playwright so it was easy to welcome the drama to build in so to find ways to create that cross sector collaboration I think is really important and to remember that I mean, I'm sorry I don't mean to be a history geek but I will be for this moment I was given some transcripts if you know that McLeory was the first funder of the regional theaters he ran the Ford Foundation the vice president of the Ford Foundation in the early 60's and he's the one that seeded the growth of arena stage that got through all the major institutional and regional theaters when McLeory went out on the road to study the field in 1961 almost I had his transcripts that he dictifoned when he got to his hotel room at night so that they could be recorded almost everybody he met with ran a university department because that's where the American theater was at that time and then over the last 50 years it's migrated to the institutions and then the individual artists because they can't make a living have gone to the universities and yet the split is still there Peel the Rift Ashley, I'm also from Pennsylvania my name is Paulette Sylvester originally from Pittsburgh and I went to the capitol in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and I want you to know I bought three senators your boss made a requirery and then I left the capitol and I'm actually formed a workshop based on Scott to set a Carnegie Bell and what we did we had the kids right from scratch they want to sing a song, they want to write from scratch they want to be in a play, they want to write from scratch but one thing that really hindered us when we approached the theaters it was like they're not allowed to touch anything and actually the kids give us this wonderful they call the administrators or derviers they're the orderiviers or they are derviers or they are artists and I said when you tell them they said they make the rules or they're part of the art and I'm very fortunate to travel with them so we began studying the history of theaters the vaudeville circuits were actually making requirery the original vaudeville circuit is a book that's part of the year book is required reading now but it looks I don't know but the thing about it is it seems to us traveling through from theater to theater these are high school kids traveling from theater to theater they're actually talking now about creating a circuit of development because we can't participate so therefore if the system isn't working we're going to the dead theaters that have no administrators by historical society to make a development market that bypasses Godfrey that they can develop their work and eat through levels of development they want a statewide award but it looks like somehow along the way after vaudeville died and after the out of town in the original 1940s and 50s something broke it was like the cost shot up so far an average musical it begins at 11 million the goal was to have $100 taken on Broadway somewhere along the line even Broadway, the community thing the parents brought their kids down you bought your ticket in the cellar of Walgreens it's like all on that it's no longer a community participation it's like a business it's not even artistic it's a business infrastructure broke the numbers are reflecting that but no one has even talked about the business of it and in the end I came from Pittsburgh where a whole city fell apart but it still was gone it was not so much for me to replace the widget of still with a play to realize another infrastructure had collapsed yes I think did the people in the back hear the question the infrastructure is gone the infrastructure development is gone and the impresario that united young artists together that hammers to be great with Rogers the impresario that created collaboration and we're trying to figure out does anybody else notice this and your numbers sort of reflected what we're finding but we're working through the garbage of Pennsylvania that has been left abandoned I'm sorry did the people in the back hear the question do you want to take the stab at me the business infrastructure somewhere between the 60s and now broke and she's asking him to to uh... actually have you noticed it I mean I think of it in a little bit of a different way because because I actually sadly don't know about anything about theater do you know and it sounds like you know about a lot that isn't theater and I don't even know much about theater but it goes back to this notion of professionalism too and it goes back to me to the 80s that you know the individual and the institution has always been a struggle in this country I mean it's just it's in our roots and something really happened in the 80s like that solidified but at the same time are the what I guess we would call it the sort of grassroots politicization of our country also really started was the only response against increased institutionalization and business models being the only models I mean I remember when listening to Reagan and hearing him use capitalism and democracy interchangeably and being surprised I mean like when did that happen but at the same time that happened I mean I again my reference point is the theater there were people out doing work in communities in what we would now call grassroots or community based theater that is also old it really goes back to the early part of the 20th century but the fact is that I think is the only real response I mean we've seen it and fortunately the grassroots has the means is much more agile and nimble and has the technology that the institutions have not yet figured out and the cities have not figured out really how to harness because they're stuck in the dinosaur machinery do you know I did at one of the centers this was sort of a thick book I'm not sure if I want to read it he happened to be on the council of the arts and I said well do you understand what's going on because I'm not sure I said get off the council get the heck off the council the monkeys have taken over the lab I said please try to understand what's going on but we're not going to be able to fix it I've got a question on the ground on the side yes hi my name is Ralph Trough and I'm from Los Angeles something you said today struck me when I read your book as well that artistic directors say why do playwrights send us plays that are unfinished I belong to a writers group that meets every two weeks and we hash things out around the kitchen table and I belong to several not-for-profit theaters that do readings of my plays but there comes a point where I can do no more with what I've done I need a director who's got an opening night to head for to show me what his problems are I need an actress who's memorized the lines to tell me hey these things don't fit together how do we make these artistic directors understand that they're the ones who aren't finishing the play I've done as much as I can yeah I really hear you Ralph and I think in a way Molly and I did not do justice to this moment because we did not say the most important thing which is the most significant change that I perceive and that I feel is happening at this moment is that actually the theaters are really getting that that development and production nobody is applying for grant money to develop plays anymore without at least phrases about for production you know this is something that I think is the result of years of arguing Richard Nelson outrageous fortune feedback from playwrights feedback from within the theaters themselves everybody knows that what you are saying is the truth and now the question is how do you do it and what Molly said last night is that it's not even about the first production it's about subsequent productions you know the amazing national new play network I know Justin Loeweth will be here this weekend you know that does rolling world premiere so that you get to see at least three productions of your play with totally different companies totally different theaters, totally different audiences as a way of seeing your plays and seeing what you need to do so I think that is actually one of the things which is real and deep and earned is also one of the bright spots right now which is that development and production have become really in the last couple of years inextricably linked for this field I want to go right behind Ralph and then I'll come back here My name is Nick, I'm from Annapolis and I was talking with Mr. Kelly and a lot of the things I'm hearing like the arms and the separation of the art and the professional world or something like that and I'm at a juncture in my life where I'm choosing grad schools and considering whether this is even a viable career for me so I'm getting a lot of Does that make more sense to study business and look at this aspect and have this undercurrent of playwriting as a way in to not to use that wardrobe to kind of cut that line and be both a wardrobe and an art that will live on forever that is just such a personal question and so I mean yes it makes no sense to accumulate debt as a playwright in a masters program but there are increasing number of playwriting programs that make you incur debt where you actually go for free or maybe get paid to go the truth is nobody knows your heart except for you and nobody knows the future so nobody knows what it means I mean people with business degrees aren't having a great time in the market either do you know what I mean that things are changing so quickly that even the short term future is look at lawyers where are the jobs and the question the answer is nobody knows where the jobs are and so the reason it's so personal is this is like as a teacher to a potential student you live your life to do your best to anticipate regrets that you will try not to have you live your life to do the things you feel you need to do so that you don't look back and you say why the fuck did I do that or not do that and so whatever is bubbling up in you that you need to do and maybe it's your practicality and maybe it's your need to sing or maybe it's whatever life is long and it's a lot better when you're not burdened by regret it's also a lot better when you're not burdened by that so we just have time for one or two more questions just back here yes I was I felt like the big driver behind a lot of this was mentioned in your speech which is the declining audiences and you talked about how fewer people are actually going to straight plays and I wonder if you have any numbers on how many people actually say they saw a new play in the past year an interesting number and do you think there's anything that we can do do we accept this trend as inevitable or is there something we as dramatists can do to try to turn that around gosh I wish I had the answer to the second one the first one the numbers that come out of the NEA don't distinguish between new plays and play plays they distinguish between musicals and non-musicals the Broadway at ten minutes records are they distinguish between revivals and plays that are new to Broadway which could be plays that are way old so I know there are no figures on that and what to do to turn them around is really I think impossible to say everything is changing so fast and in a way so beautifully in terms of access to culture and do-it-yourselfism and a connection to creativity and so I don't really know what to say except that find where energy is and go to that energy and become part of that energy and I don't know if the energy I don't know what it's like in Kansas City you say you're from I don't know what's happening at the Rep now that Eric Rosen is there I don't know what's happening in other kinds of theater I don't know how wedded you are to your community but I do know that as I travel and I've traveled a lot in the last few years there are places that you just feel the energy and you feel it in playwriting and there are places that you don't and there are places that you feel the energy in acting and there are places that you don't and there are places you feel it in lots of different ways and so one of the places Neutromitous was working to partner up with theaters and groups of theaters on this new project that we're doing called Full Stage which follows a play from from commission really to production with developmental extra time that we found that had great energy was Austin, Texas that has lots of theaters that are professional theaters that don't pay at a professional level with a lot of people who have stayed for a long time and work in each other's work and continue to turn out things without any sense of where it's going to go or how it has to go and are making really brilliant and kind of edgy stuff all together and doing their day jobs and living their lives and it's a fantastic place you know Dwayne's from Seattle Seattle has had its ups and downs I don't know whether you'd say it's in the ups now or the downs there are lots of places that have activity and then you just never know where the