 So, welcome everyone. I'm Emily Morrison, Director of Artistic Development here at Neurologist. And I am very happy to see so many interested people in Neurologist and in our mission process, and the new adjustments we've made to it. I've been asked to tell you to be aware that this event is being live streamed on the internet through New Play TV, and that as an audience member who asks the question, your voice or image may be recorded. So we tried this last year and it was successful. We're doing it again since I was born in Allen, our Director of Finance in New Media. Thank you to New Play TV. I just want to introduce the lovely panel here. We're expecting the playwright Daniel Wright to just finish his seven-year residency, who agrees to come back and sort of be able to represent the playwright's point of view on this process. Answer any questions you have from the playwright's point of view about what the film is is, what it's like to be on the admissions committee. And so we're going to introduce the panel here. And then I would like to just go around and have you just say your names. I'm interested in knowing who we're sharing. Here on the left. So I'm John Steepard, I'm the Director of the Playwright's Land. I'm Todd Wilder, I'm the Director of the Playwright's Land. Andrea Luxio. Maurice. Laura Gray. Eric Augenbaum. Christine Farron. Eric Moyer. Tammy Bryant. Mastan. Josh Bailey. Brunos. Zach Lyne. James Tyler. David Lawton. Jeffrey Steinstein. Derek, sorry. David Allen. We're going to try to do our best to open up the process to all of you to demystify how it works and also to answer any questions you have about how it will stand or what it means to be a resume playwright at New Brom. So while we'll do an overview about the process, the new adjustments I hope that we can quickly get into a dynamic conversation and field questions from you and we'll have some from the people. Help, help. Help me. Yes, from the... Hi, welcome. What's your name? Susan. Hi, Susan. Nassra. Nassra. Hi. Thank you. It's over to you, Todd. Okay, let's start. So I'm Todd Wilder. I just came in. And I want to give you a little overview of the process of the admissions process here. I want to do it in the context of what this place is and what the mission of this place is. It's... Nudromotus is now a 63-year-old center for the support and development playwrighting, playwrights particularly. We've never known too easily what to call it. It's partly our home base. It's partly a laboratory for writers. It's partly a community center. It is an actively evolving community of playwrights. It goes back to 1949. So it is constantly the offerings and the spirit of the place are constantly being updated. There's not something evolving depending on the group of resident playwrights here on. The current male, about 50 resident playwrights. It's not a set number. There's not a set number of people who get in every year. And so this year, for example, we lost... or we finished setting a residency period of five playwrights. We accepted in six playwrights. And so now we'll shut this room down to two. It's very important, I think, from the outset to know that the mission of this organization is to give playwrights space and time to develop as artists to make whatever impact they can on the field. And that the context for that is a community context. And specifically it's a community of writers, which I know some of you still think is oxenoron, but it's not. So that the work at New Dromedis happens in really two spheres. One is the individualist sphere, as each writer makes his or her way through the seven years here really directed by a playwright more than herself. So I'm the artistic director here, but in a great sense that's a misnomer because every writer is the artistic director and decides what he or she will work on, how they'll work on that, how they'll avail themselves of the programs we have here, how they'll use the staff, how they'll use the community of their writers, how they'll use the buildings. And as you know, every writer has a very different period of seven years, which is a huge period of time. Those lives can change in very different circumstances. So on one level, New Dromedis is about the playwright's development and growth. On another level, New Dromedis is about how to function, lead, participate in, be active within a community of other writers. And the underlying premise of this play, so it's not stated in our mission, is that writers are each other's greatest resources and that we make each other better. Your example, your challenge to each other, your collaboration, and share what you learn from each other is the strength of a place like this. So at any given time, there are roughly 50 writers here, each in some different stage of development personally, artistically, professionally, and each in some different relationship to the community. And playwrights use this place in many different ways. Some people use it entirely as a laboratory, some people use it as a community base, some people use it as a zombie around, some people use it as a place to write, on a daily basis, and most everybody uses it as an instance. So the admissions process, only like the process of being selected in a play and done in a theater, or even another developmental organization, say the O'Neill, some are the O'Neill or Sundance, or in other residency programs that are more limited in time, the selection process here is really about intruding a writer, their body of work, where it stands through a couple of plays, intruding a couple of plays, trying to get a sense of where they might be in career, how they might use this place, how they might get back to this place. So really both, again, the individual development and the community aspect, because not everybody would use new dramas or meet new dramas, though sometimes you would think that it's only, oh, this is kind of right, just finished a set of the res, what's he doing now? Just now. No, not until after this. It's his sneaky way to get back in the building room. You know, a tunnel. So the process, the admissions process really focuses on both of these things, specifically and mostly it focuses on the work. But it doesn't focus so much, as you know, you're going to submit two plays, two new dramas, those plays are written, they're read and written by you, and they are read, but I'll explain it in a moment. Later on in the process, there's a three meeting, there's very long meetings, so I'll explain it to you. Over the course of that time, most of the work is focused on who is this writer given these plays and what kind of passion does this writer incite in the community. Later on in the process, when I'm in the pool of applicants, as we know, to apply the list, then questions come up also about the writer's state of interest, how would that person use this place, how would this person benefit from this place, why a community setting for this artistic development song. So everything that we do, unlike a producing field which does really focus on is this play for us, and maybe secondarily is this writer, this place is really about how excited does this particular group of people this particular year get excited about how excited does this group get about this particular writer at this moment in this world. So the package that we submit are his two plays, a statement of interest, and we're going to talk about the other parts later, because we've just changed the requirements to make a smaller submission actually. And then some sort of CV or resume. If a writer is from out of New York, New York area, there's an additional small statement about how they might use this place. The process by which you would be evaluated or made to catch people on fire is more likely to. Is that there is a seventh person who may, it changes utterly every year. Staff is not on it, so when you don't weigh in and facilitate the process, to keep our big mouths shut, we often don't even give some information if we know it. There often we don't. We never say, oh yeah, this person was applied 18 times before or this person was applying to this last year or anything like that. So it starts fresh every year including the panelists. The panel has made up of three current neutral writers, two alumni and what we do do is we constitute the committee. So we try to create a committee that is as athletic and as diverse in as many ways as this place is, as we put our work is, and as we want this theater to be. So there is a geographical balance to the committee, there is age balance to the committee, there is gender balance, there is racial diversity, there is aesthetic eclecticism on the committee and none of that is predictable. So inevitably the most experimental writer loves the most conventional application or the most classic. It has never, in 16 years in my experience I would say with maybe exceptions of the one or two very strong parts of the conversations that people find themselves representing virtually, not uniquely in the process because the writers by the time they get to the end of this process they are so damn good and so damn right for this place that those kinds of conversations that the balance finds itself almost inevitably. So this committee changes every year, we stack the committee in a way to make sure that the committee will work on a consensus basis because that's how it's done. There's never any limits that are binding in a process. This group has to this group has to agree in the end and has to agree at every stage of the game. So if one person wants to let go of a pirate early on and somebody else wants to hold on to them, we hold on to them until I can all agree. At the end, this group has to agree by consensus and not by any miracle vote that this is the group that we are accepting. So it's a total crap shoot. It's not a lot of randomness built in. It's passion bias so that there can be writers that everyone on the committee really likes and they won't get in here the year after year because they don't set two or three or four or seven people on fire in the same way that maybe somebody who have the committee hates their work. So it really is about passion. It's about interest and it's about convincing the rest of the committee to go along the consensus on each and then on every athlete. We are limited numerically not by a set number that we bring in every year, but really by the resources in our place. We are pretty much maxed out in terms of time, space, money availability of space staff resources at this particular team number one. Which I know in a place that lets five to eight say in the first year, which has been my experience for 16 years has never been less than five or more than eight. It feels in some ways that each year is exclusive or they're exclusive, but when I think about that we're giving seven-year resources to everybody every year of our existence, I think there's no legal organization in this country that serves so many writers that want to learn so fully except maybe actually what it takes that has been actors and so on and so forth. So really I will get off this but the, so that's the panel process. The panel changes every year. We're trying to mix it up. They read two plays. They alternate the plays, go from the panelists, read ten plays every two weeks. From October to May. In January they made once, usually they made last between 12 and 15 hours during which they cut the list from whatever 300 of here in 25 would apply to about 100 semi-finalists. There's a meeting in March, early April where the semi-finalists are chosen, so it's committed to about 20. And then there's a meeting in early May during which they come up with a group of 5, 6, 7, 8 based on who they are really excited about. The statements of interest are not read until the finals unless a panelist has to read them. We've found that as we're about to have something happen we'll say as we have recommendations we find that they are almost never read in the process. The CDs are rarely recorded too. That the first two meetings are really about the work. It's random who gets to play the first time but as your plays get more feedback reports from the writers we start to sort of push the plays towards readers who you think will like them or get them in some way. As we, especially Emily and Erin, who run this process of industry as they see sort of what the play rate is on for where the passion between them might be. And that again is the question. So, statements of interest are read at the end and at the very end of the very end of the process we start to discuss things like citizenship, how a person can use the plays, whether they use it, whether they need it, whether this group makes a nice class that feels representative based on implicit or explicit sort of beliefs of the panel itself. There is no sense of what a new drama is. There's no sense that this is a place for emerging playwrights or mid-career playwrights or established playwrights. Some of that is hidden by default over the years because it's really hard to get through that process and so it tends to play group playwrights who are a little bit further along in that group. We have two really strong plays as opposed to one play that's really strong and one that shows a process. But again, every year somebody gets in and rushes off the boat and then somebody goes for 20 years. So it's a really different process. It changes from year to year but those structures are the same. You improve people in that particular situation how they read, how they discuss with them towards consensus. You described two bodies. There was the panel and there was the committee. At what point? It's the same thing. I used two words for the same thing. Many panel things. Intrepid viewers. People who can live with their spouse have been really pissed at them for eight months. Thank you. Is there any other need for clarification on that? We're going to move on because now I'm going to tell you what is going to change about the process. Essentially everything about the procedure will remain the same. There are some administrative changes some of which are rather significant. The first being that we're going to go completely paperless. So we have a module on our recently redesigned website through which all applicants will apply. What you apply with will remain the same. It will be two full-length plays instead of two copies of two full-length plays which is what the paper full process included. So two full-length plays for CD or BIO an artistic CD or BIO and a statement of interest. So that will all happen on the online process. We are no longer accepting any letters of recommendation. They have always been optional in the past. As Todd said they have rarely had any influence in the process except those that came from current resident playwrights or board members. The advantage to having a letter from those groups of people was that your A play and your B play. You determine which play you want read first, which would be your A play and then your B play would follow as you advance in the process. So the way it was done before with the letters of recommendation from current resident playwright and along with board member was that both your A play and your B play would automatically go into circulation to two different readers in the first round. So that is actually we are not having letters of recommendation so there is not for anybody. What we are going to do once we have a list of applicants is to circulate it to the current resident company and to alumni and they can opt to advocate in favor of one writer to have both their A play and their B play read in the first round by two different readers. So what we are going to do that is very new is to have that first round the read will be without means attached. So in fact while there is this advantage that comes from within the community advocacy from the current resident playwright no one will know whose play they are reading or if it is their A play or B play it will be attached in that first round. Names will be attached in the second the semi-finals in the final round so that the names will then get introduced in the second and third round of the read. And then the submission window which used to be open for two months July 15th to September 15th is now open from August 1st until September 1st until 11.59pm. So it is in fact open. And so the window has strong tool in mind. So those are the new changes right? I'm not sure. I want to just say one thing about the recommendations specifically. I think they are saying A yes as we both said recommendations aren't really read and they are not going to have full of a process. I think we feel really strongly about the recommendations again and again and again and that it's a drag on your relationships and it's also a drag on your writing especially if they are never a drag. Which are our cult. I mean I would say probably the people sitting up here would write about as many recommendations not for this process but for other groups as many poor people. Excluding you down in this, the staff here writes so many recommendations and it takes a lot of time. So it doesn't have a bearing on the process, it just doesn't seem fair to anybody. Yes. I also just want to say I want to also say that these changes just because it gives a glimpse into the way new problems work at organizational length that all these changes were made with the input of the writers. We have a writer's executive community of governance and policymaking playwrights within the community. To communicate really significant matters too for feedback and whether they are decision making. This was all done with their input with their suggestions and with their ultimately their blessing that this was in fact a great direction to go from a playwright's point of view as well as an organization point of view. I wouldn't say to say that that this was it wasn't something that deep that grew out of the administrative process but it would only happen with the input of the writers and their blessing to move forward in this manner. Another thing about the line reading first round is the question that comes to my mind is why do we do it here about and I think there are a couple of reasons that I just want to be really clear about and I'm never really blind once you get down to people who are getting into the civil trials it's inevitable that somebody on the committee knows that justice is inevitable and so whereas the blind reading first round seems to give a kind of equity across the board ultimately it felt too dicey to let some people be known as someone unknown particularly on the community level and the sort of citizen base and career level of this it didn't make sense to bring people into the library it didn't make sense to force or cut off that conversation about what benefit could this person have from some years here and how could this person participate in some years once you for us to make it blind through I really didn't make sense but we were really hopeful that this notion of the first round blind will create a quality of submission that in a way though we strive for it when everybody said oh I know this writer there is a sense of power additional power for the people who are now the person so just to give you an overview of what paperless is going to look like I'll just talk you through that and direct you to the website but first off I just have to say for us to be going paperless our designers are actually calculating they're trying to calculate how many tons of paper by doing this it's literally going to be tons so we'll post that on the website when we figure that out and also we need a whole store space in the basement that was not available like over 650 places we could get about 125 applications to play each so about switch ok great exactly but anyway a lot of things so all those shelves now are being used in a way that doesn't have storage space so that was like really extraordinary discovered so here's how it's going to work you're going to go to our website the window will open it's first and we'll go to t-front.org we'll click on admissions and you will be prompted to create a username and a password so you'll do that and that will prompt you to go to the website create your password and you have the entire window to complete your application you can wait you can start it you can save it you can discover oh actually I want to work on my statement a little bit more and you can come back and then paste it in that sort of thing you cannot make any alterations to any part of your application however once the window closes at 11.59 on September 1st so you do have that whole window to go back and scan but just make sure you don't leave it the whole last second and it lets you off that will be a very hard deadline so as Emily was saying materials are all the same with the exception of your letters of recommendation you're submitting the exact same thing that you've applied before that you've all submitted it's just all online so you'll be in contact information verified with your US citizen or an INS work authorization you'll be pasting in your statement so you can actually tape it in there or you can just paste in from the text file the uploading or pasting in your myo or CV or resume whichever you prefer whichever one seems most important to you and then you'll um, yeah, let's say you're most popular for that and then you'll be uploading each of your plays typing new titles for us and you'll have a chance to review all of it see if it all looks good to you when you are sure that you're ready to submit it you'll click submit and you'll receive an email that actually gives you a quick brief overview of the things Todd was mentioning about the process there are three rounds of reading about when you're curating that sort of thing as you proceed in this process and there'll also be a link in that email so that you can find your application and make sure you want to look at it but you cannot make changes you can't go back and re-reverse when you're playing you're locked in with what you submitted really, really, really easy really, really simple Morgan Alline has actually put together a little video if you go to this site right now and look at the admissions page you'll see text that sort of covers all these changes we've always been talking about you'll see the guidelines that you can upload and look at and then you'll also see a video that Morgan put together that will show you a pretty good approximation we're still making a few tweaks and changes but a pretty good approximation of what you'll see when you actually go through this any questions about any votes? so great, thank you I feel like now's the time to open up our questions and see what other kinds of conversation that stimulates, again John, as she said, he's the director of the Playwrights Lab I don't know if I can say this before he was on staff here he did spend a short period of time on the admissions committee and then Daniel who understands if he has been on the admissions committee you won't say because the actual identities of the committee remain confidential throughout I always tell the members that they can out themselves but they cannot out their committee members but they have unique points of view because they've actually been in the trenches with this particular process as well as just being eligible about all the way we've got these votes from the playwrights community from the lab community so what's in your mind? what don't you know? yeah? so each panelist will give one play because you're playing and you're written by only one person in this section there might be some mails on the panel who might have connected and just random in that sense we do circulate randomly but there's yes so the chance you will likely go into the first meeting with one playwright by one committee member possibly two depending on whether or not somebody from within the community advocated in favor two plays being read for the audience of purposes one of your plays will be read by one committee member and they will bring their response to your play to the discussion in January so no one person actually holds the authority over an individual applicant all of the people who, oh they make a recommendation on your play to reject at this point in the process or to advance so if you receive a rejection your play would be brought to discussion in that first meeting in January any play that has received a recommendation or rejection will be brought to that meeting and will be discussed amongst the group within the group and it's often happened I will say that the description of the material is such that another committee member might say that's really intriguing to me it's not like a play I would like I like to read that play at which point your recommendation is suspended your play will get circulated to the volunteer and your other play will get circulated to a different reader and so we'll get some more reads on it and then it will be brought back for discussion in that mid-march meeting the second meeting the other thing that often happens with rejections especially in the first round because first of all it's important that five of the seven people who are reading are writers so they're correct so it means why are they sympathetic and it means a while they can read and inevitably what happens is that if they don't like something they will say something like maybe I just don't get this or maybe this isn't my cup of tea maybe somebody else should read it this is the thing about discussing really at great length every play that is read and we discuss every read on every play so there are so many ways that you are and yet, yes, there is still a chance that based on one random assignment a reader can make a objective if a play gets advanced then it continues to circulate even in that first round and I will also say just even up to put a fire point on this playwright revealing their own limitations they often do that in their reports because Aaron and I really encourage them to let us know sooner rather than later where their biases are where their limitations are to ensure that that person gets read thoroughly so now we do have often have the writers or the committee members saying I don't get this early on or can I read their other play because I can't hear the voice or it's not clear to me and I really want to and I would say that they often err on the side of generosity because of being aware of their own limitations biases, sensibilities or they'll ask of somebody else and we do that in the first round because that's the best that we can to make sure that again that conversation in January has as much information as we can know at that point in time and I just have to say that when I was put in, so this was a little over 8 years ago I already read 40 plays so they couldn't just keep me out so when it was actually brought in someone else and he continued to read for that first round we both came to the meeting I had my input and then I was but I was actually I was surprised in that first meeting how many plays were actually there was always someone on the committee who said well that sounds really interesting I really want to read either that play or I want to read either that play so it was great to see that the care and the true interest for every play that had been read when the discussion came around there was great attention to the plays and a lot no plays that I presumed were actually or writers were put back into circulation because someone on that committee found something of worth in what the distance that the conversation was around that play or in that writer and so a lot of plays actually went back into circulation there so I just thought it was a really fair way when the clue wasn't just one and the check and that was it it's interesting it's an early on process I think to look much more tentative about their judgements and so and they're not just beaten down even so there is a sense in that first meeting that that is actually not a bad place to read that play but again just to reinforce last year's finalist is this year's first round rejection and last year's is a fantastic because there is that level of readiness especially in the first round and also tentative I wonder what you when you applied what you felt like you were going to get from you kind of just and then that change and there were surprises about what you needed to understand when I first applied it was many years before I founded that and the organization had changed so many things the last seven years I've seen for you it was there have been so many new opportunities for the players that I've never met so I was the least worried about new programs and new opportunities so in that sense it shifted my sense of what the organization was it was very different from when I first started applying so in that sense it wasn't necessarily what I thought then you would have were there any questions that you had and what specifically did you use for that? I use building practically every every day and earlier in my tenure here the building was fairly empty and I could go upstairs and be alone on Saturday and I lived two blocks away so it was kind of horrible but I just didn't know I realized that was the first thing I did and then I became the only program I could build so I got a travel grant and executive committee I was in the board of directors I tried to do everything and it was really important to utilize this as much as possible did you allow me to do it? yes that was my strategy literally not dirty but specifically I could tell you what you were saying was but overall everything that I did was good and others I was just going to because earlier today we held an orientation for five of the six new writers who would need less and one of the things that's on my mind especially I would call what Dan had just been saying was that we talk about the writers as the artistic directors or the leaders of their artistic trajectory over the seven years here so really to take the lead in how they developed their work what they're developing when they develop it how and with whom and so to really to really find that leadership position within your own artistic development and I just want to say that Dan was an exemplary he led this artistic development privately behind closed doors exploring the same play over individual working sessions to finding what it means to develop a play within a workshop a three to five day workshop to hold stories where he invited people to come in and help him think about a project that he was interested in working on to again the writers executive committee the board of directors showing up for all writers meetings showing up for other work and then just most recently really innovating a new kind of work which was through if you want to describe it but through improvisations and writing the response to improvisations with actors within the concentration of a three to five day workshop and it was so so the way he found his way through is not necessarily the way another person would find it but that is where individual rise to kind of evolution on an artist and a leader within the world and you know with the resources that we offer it's interesting man we have semi-regular champions with the writers as a staff, as a artistic staff both to make sure they understand what's here for them to make sure they understand what they have two years left and we have one of these with your meeting so a week or so ago I say parenthetically that one of the great things about being a staff at Neutromax is since we didn't create this place and there's not an extension of anyone's individual vision we can sort of brag about we can sort of brag about ourselves and one of the things that he said was he said you know when he got in here he was aware that it was the thing that he was supposed to check off of his professional resume it's like okay, got the group in time, got into the O'Neill got into Neutromax whatever production he had and what he realized very soon, even most of you got into some other writers was that it's it's a sort of box of gifts and that you open them over time and you just think about in Daniel's class it got it was Lucy Thurber, Kiara Brees Marcus Gargoy and now Neymar Mitchell amazing writers and amazing human beings and so just those five writers there, let alone the other 45 or the other traditional 50 that pass through during Daniel's time just gives you a sense of those gifts in addition to that that's a problematic opportunity so let's do that oh, okay so let's go Tammy and then we have a question one, two one, two could you talk a little bit about the out of town playwright coming in and okay I got your question thank you for bringing that up well as with any of this parent I mean how individual use is the building, the community the resources is very much according to their own goals and schedule needs and so for an out of town writer they have access to all the same resources as anybody within the community there's no separation or hierarchy depending on location but what we do ask the out of town writers to address is how do you from where you are participate in a community a vibrant vital artistic community of other playwrights and so each person really addresses that according to where they are we have some national members now I will say you can each hand all of them two live in the Bay Area Peter and Eugene Carlos lives in Chicago and they're as active as anybody building it to some degree because they have very discrete amounts of time that they come into they end up coming in for two weeks and doing everything they can do whether it's an extended workshop and individual readings and going to see other people's work they often concentrate their visits around our all writers meetings in which we have two one in the fall probably a playwright welcome in September and then one in the spring following the annual luncheon fundraiser big event May in the second all writers meeting so often their trips do cluster around those two big events but people use it it's a lot of people who come in for short periods of time more frequently extended periods but they make the efforts based on schedules and needs and try to do everything they can do over those periods of time we have free rooms upstairs free for them so and some of our in-town writers use them too for retreats from the family but people come and they can stay in the building on two periods they can use it as their home they can make their own coffee in the morning so they wait for they're in the kitchen too so they really can and so some do it some do it to develop works some do it some do it just to another follow up question how does that impact being out of town applying are there like number of in town versus out of town is it more competitive well we do it's really not discussed candidacy issues which would include location of where someone lives aren't discussed until about halfway through that third meeting but we look at those those various things and one of the mandates from and as Todd said we always bring in recommendations from staff in terms of resources how we're doing how many can we support this year but the mandate from the writers was really to a couple years ago we found that it was almost 50-50 but sort of it had just improved that way that they were 50% in town and 50% out of town and they really asked us to be mindful of two thirds in town one third out just to ensure that there's a certain kind of vibrancy and brutality within the building for some of the people in town use it more like I said it really with our national members they are very much a part of the community and sometimes they do so Melanie Margaret she started as a local person but actually she started in Minneapolis moved to New York and then moved to L.A. moved to New York and some have even stayed in New York so it's the way to do any precedence in which we know we still have some development we've done on that one we'll see again because there is no reading committee there is no answer to that the answer is one that changes from year to year I would say that it is hard for unfinished work or I mean but for really rough first writers will know other writers will know it's hard for that to compete with the best that's out there and so I think and again but again people are looking for the writer through the work it's not always easy to do the play reference they still get stuck on the play so you know I don't it's never easy to answer that question because it depends on who gets it what the state is you know what it's like so much when you play you love it more than anything you've ever written and two years later you think it's crap or you love it for a reason because it is just combined with something new in you and that will communicate and so I don't know I would just ask Dan maybe to speak from inside the process what that would say I mean yeah would you speak to lots of questions yeah it's all it's a replay it's a different play but what I respond to is work that spoke to me and also it's a different point of view that I really appreciate it there are a few plays I remember that were very different from the time I normally think I would want to see or that I really like reading I could actually say yeah I had no events in my head so it's a play by play basis I can't really answer what spoke to me what spoke to me is what would speak to me anyway with varying degrees of interest in terms of finished or unfinished did that ever sort of influence you when you were there? really say now I can say that I don't really remember reading plays that were remarkably unfenture that scene that they were promising in that area I spoke through a word I don't remember I actually have a response to that just as a committee member I'm not even sure that I actually would have even thought of that the answer to that or my response to it was surely subjective but when I was on the committee and again when I was on the committee I remember reading there was one writer and I said hello to some lawyers so I asked him to read the play and then the second play was a blow up with that and so what I thought was I'm not sure that this writer is someone although I thought it was a great stuff and so having sort of been I also have now over 25 years or so in theater I've worked with writers who have really great stories but I actually don't know how to go back and sort of what I would call a proper way it's more of a free word and again this is me very subjective but I can see that if I were on the committee and I saw two plays that were sent in that were this is my A play and this is my B play and again what's finished I agree with that there's a lot of leeway there but it seems to me that if what you're doing is putting out your best work then you don't want to put it in something that you don't do because you have no idea who's going to be generous and who's not going to be generous and the rest you can't do anything about you go out there you do your best and that's that but if you feel that you actually have not finished the play I would suggest maybe you want to send it to you for the most minister I remember something one play was great really really exciting just really computational it was great and the second play really did feel like a really good play it was a play that was not nearly on the same level but that was also kind of taking me now I don't know if I'm so strong you know it wasn't that it was going to be a play so the way that there's another instance where I read a play and I thought this is a great play and I said and I was giving the second play it was a scene where I go it was just so lacking it's this natural the relationship between the two plays comes up a lot I think you're also right you are addressing with your submission up now so even though there are five writers there are actually different generations of the theater and then we rotate those other two positions you know one here would be a designer an actor, an actor would be a dramaturge and a director they come from very different aesthetic backgrounds and often with for example producers they are it's harder for them actually to ask the play to the writer or to the writer that might in this gross generalization what why not you know a writer might be much more in tune with voice and you know the excitement of voice so that makes you the other thing that I would posit to compensate an extreme is to submit your most well known or well produced play from 1993 so what inevitably happens is there are people who submit an old play that they know is their best play or a really good play and inevitably certainly by the end people are going to say well we know this play what is the writer doing now how can we make an evaluation based on this play that was you know done a phenomenal like me do you know what I'm saying here and so I think these are in a way they are the poles that you're navigating between between the thing that you're doing you're alive and the thing that's mentioned is not true but ideally you have two things that are somewhat closer to the finish and I have an online question and then I have to see that there's two from Tom what is it? Julia Julia thank you online okay so it says are you open to new forms play with songs, audio play, dance, text site specific etc both in terms of submissions or or yes I mean that's I think that we have often received plays with songs I think that what ultimately needs to be delivered is something that is assessed by a committee of seven people who again who are including you as an artist I think that it's it's often hard to assess something that requires the collaboration of other people in order to have it fully realized when it's in a meaningful one doesn't mean that they would be interested in it it just would be more difficult I mean as it's come up in the past this is really interesting I think it needs three dimensions to be fully to fully experience it and so sometimes that's a hard thing to assess in a committee of seven people for example it's a site specific arguably the primary part of the dramaturgy is the site so how does a committee of readers assess that in relationship to other things that might still be experimental are still largely text based however once you come in here we have people who are working in very experimental ways whether it's you know devising work or with companies or with movement theater and then exploring the various kinds of dramaturgy that I think you definitely support that with the space and resources here so that's what I would say you know once you're in new drama this once you have gone through that admissions process in terms of what you work on and how you work here is supported fully if people have asked about something as you know conventional as screenplays and many writers because you know find themselves at a period of their time or their writing screenplays we can help support those three things here or so yeah once you're here that's the easy part of the answer the harder part is to answer how that goes through an admissions process but we do the best that we can we try to have people on the committee who are working in unique ways in order to be able to continue to broaden the kind of work that can be supported either you know the playwright or author somebody who author to work in three dimensions I hope that was please follow up if that was clear yeah I think I might say exactly so anything I would add would be for reiteration but I guess I want to underline one part of it which is you know we have and have had layers of all stripes here we have you know several writers who essentially self-produce or work with a company currently a retailer Matt Rich Maxwell, Gene Lee we have wildly experimental writers here experimental opera writers and and yes so the hardest thing is convincing a panel who does not have that other dimension and the easier thing is supporting the work here and that's the one thing I would add to it I only said is that we've been confronting this as an organization and as a community especially for the last decade or so because we draw this which comes out of very different traditions people sitting around tables and then later adding music stands for the development work now as a community of people who are you know a playwright fight director someone who does drag and writes plays people who work with photographers people who work with the animated forms and so on and so our job as an organization as a staff with that separate from the playwrights is how to create spaces that can support work and involves projections sound design choreography fight work for souls you know in a space that's basically this small space where upstairs a larger sanctuary a church that are basically stair spaces with tables chairs music stands and pianos so we're working to create more flexible spaces movable audiences so we can play environmentally adding sound equipment adding lighting equipment which used to be anathema in the old days because it's all about the text the text now means so much more that's for a long time but we've been exploring what that means in the development of the organization so that's another part of the answer in terms of how many people get here and we're trying as the community evolves we try to develop the resources that are available really and then Tom actually that was mostly what you were talking about which is when you have to decide on your name playing I would say and one looks a little bit more like a normal play though it's all a part of the answer but you're talking I'm not going to say I'm just going to say that I'm having one would that be a better any play than the one that starts in the what's called more experimental plays I just want to say too this comes up every year that it is impossible for you to second guess I mean because it changes every year I mean I can guess where they where they will end up so all of you can do as applicants the potential applicants is to go with what you feel represents you the best and hope that there is somebody on that committee that gets it interprets it and persuades the entire the other six people that this is somebody to be reckoned with in that final do you know I really feel like I want to you cannot second guess where they will go so the way I feel like the best thing you can do for yourself so you're not second guessing your choice is to go with what you feel the most strongly about or on fire about the hope that that it makes the community of people honestly it is the only thing because you could sit and fuss about A or B, A or B and then you'll make the choice and then say hypothetically you don't get it you'll be like oh that E question behind you or whatever you just torture yourself and really to reduce that is just to go with what you know because if you want to get in based on who you are you're trying to appeal to a committee and our job is to make sure that the committee again it says why your leadership is he can possibly get in seven people which is a hard situation you said that because I am I'm more experienced in why the more highly terminal stuff it doesn't have people that have to blow up my more experimental for me is one that actually looks you know what I'm saying it's a hard situation but it's also my most recent thing so it's kind of like I'm just trying to figure out which one he is can I answer that? I think that's what Emily said but the committee is what do you feel what do you feel is your best friend that what do you feel what do you feel is your best friend I guarantee you know which is your best friend it's so instinctive that's where it goes I don't answer yes no one knows me thank you Julie so I'm still just proud to see together a sense of how the place will be in the process and I just got out of it and they have the first great meeting where they do a bit of narrowing down to the semi-finals that was a lot of the place well we have a number by one person we've got to describe it and talk about it in the process we're going to do a program that will help somebody to understand what it's like that happens in the finals in the final round in the first round we just took really boil it down to numbers is that in the first round every play that should be read will have everything up have been read by at least one person so that's the sort of first round what we consider the first round is to read by at least one person so again it might be your A and B play depending on whether or not that advocacy comes through within your office community current or alumni person yes, your A play will be read by one person and if you are recommended for rejection you will be discussed at that first meeting anybody who has received a recommendation for advancement will continue in the process is that acceptable so for the second round the committee reads 10 plays every two weeks until each applicant has maybe four different readers on their work so it might be two readers on their A play and two readers on their B play and the reason for that is so that there's more conversation around the person at that second meeting to come up with a list of finalists because the work of that second meeting is to come up with a list of finalists and then anybody who is remaining as a finalist at the end of that second meeting 15 hours later I'll add again that everybody reads both plays for that final meeting in A and then everybody's work is discussed by everyone with the exception of the staff at the facility so is that clear or is that okay great does the committee look for similarity in tone with play A and play B that is again it's no committee and everybody has to respond to that differently and again I think this is what I said is really well covered up they're looking for who you are so there are writers who's playing all that similarity and they go deep into one thing there are writers who are wildly eclectic in their bodies of work and that's what's so amazing about them and so what the work of the committee is is to discern for writer that even the best of that writer and the best of that writer at this moment is strikes on the box at this moment and so and then how they make that discernment is anybody's gas and it's different for every person so some people may hold it against you that your plays sound alike and others may think this is a mature writer who knows what he's about at this moment and then there may be a huge leak I think about somebody like Lucy Herbert who's finished with Dan here whose early plays were really about his there are the same location the same sort of intimate naturalism and then at one point in time there she started writing these plays that just were huge and different and the scope was different and the kinds of characters were different and I can imagine her applying at that moment to break and that would have been a very different candidate because that were almost simultaneously that certainly would that's about naturalism I'm going to go to Nostrum and then I think we probably have time for maybe one more and certainly I just respectful of everybody's time where we need to go and then we can certainly hang out and answer individual questions as well but for the group of Nostrum I wonder if you could tell me just about new dramatists what is the executive committee do and if I had a play and I wanted to do a two-week workshop could I do that here and then have a presentation or two at the end of the day or if there was an amazing book that I thought was everybody should read could we get together and talk about it are those all options? well first we should separate the executive committee and the process I know I'm just wondering I'll skip the executive committee but in essence when we talk to the new director we say this place is a laboratory so the answer is yes yes yes yes except except so that if you actually want to come in we don't do two-week workshops because part of it is what we do is we can do a 29 hour reading so we can do three to five day workshops and in fact the program here is expanded the time I've been here has been a huge expansion of programs and without going through all of them we now tend to the three to five day workshops where we actually pay everybody and we follow equity's 29 hour reading so that basically no actors call longer than 20 hours everybody gets paid 75 bucks a day to participate in that and so it's a way for us to actually and in fact they're probably making more money than they would if their rights were to make 400 to 4 billion but anyway so we do it all and I know for example okay but anyway the point is that we actually do pay everybody but so yes so you can do a three to five day workshop we also you can read the same piece over here so we don't want you to feel like like you being the artistic director of your process means that if you wanted to use new dramas to come in and just kind of hear how your place sounds so we can bring in a bunch of actors for reading one weekend bring in a different bunch of actors so you actually get a sense of what does my place sound like different people whatever it is that you can imagine whatever you can do so if you want to bring in if there's a book that you actually want to do we can figure out how you actually work around that process what is going to be the most effective for you to go to the next level in development of that process so we will try to bring in those collaborators and help you bring them in so it's always a conversation so we do it together we bring in actors, directors you know what it is, designers dramaturges et cetera et cetera but the point is we really do want you to think of this place as an opportunity to come in and really experiment with your work come in the same piece can come back and you can look at it from different angles you can just work on a few scenes if you want this week and then come back next week and work on a full act or just look at the physical life of the play that's what you're exploring three scenes to work on the physical life and then do a more a bigger reading that you may want to do when you fill the play because you can do a big public reading you can do a lot of small bits of private you know you can find it I just want to interject one quick thing that has to do with your question about the book and also it goes back to Tani's question about national residency but for example you could ask everybody to read the same book or you could sort of say onto a listserv it's a very active listserv that also indeed was the entire community local and nationally I just read this book because anybody who read it I need to have a conversation about it and then do something meeting in the building at a big loop where it got on Thursday morning at 10 I thought it taught me something about it you know what I mean so that's another just sort of yes question it's we just spent two and a half hours in the and that was it's a really simple it's really complicated in terms of popular music but I just want to see if I can sort of answer your question in addition to what John Emily has said you come here for seven years you're an artist, you're a human being you're a professional and you're a part of a community and all of those strands are ways of using this so one of those is I'm a person who lives in you know, deep theater and I need to I think this is great to be in New York to be a major event part of it is I'm a developing artist so I want to work on musical I don't want to be directors I don't want to be actors I don't want to do that part of it is I'm a member of the community I really like to work with governments I really see myself as a future leader so I want to be on this community and this community I want to put myself up for over 24 service down the road and part of it is those things are going to change over time so all of those things are available to you here somewhat programmatically described like we do 21 hour weeks we don't do two week workshops you can do an unlimited number of regular meetings and some of them are less prescribed but anytime you want to do a book this is your place for 7 years so you can just invite people in and you can invite your friends or you can invite the other writers or you can invite both you can do it publicly so on one level there are other programs on another level there's the kind of expansiveness of the lab that John's talking about on another level and I've been at one of my meetings for 7 years and helping this really fluid organization with really fluid support and a mail box and a few beds upstairs Feel free to if there are things that are pertinent to get in touch with us if there are any clarification if other questions come up but for now thank you for coming and thank you thank you