 A myth like the girl at the drug store, which you probably most of you don't know what the amazing art is, that you could just get discovered and become a movie star. Having a play come in over the transom from a playwright that you don't know, that you've never heard of, that in a theater where you're reading five to eight hundred plays a year, that you're going to find that one and go, oh my god, I have got to do this play. It just doesn't really work like that. How many pieces are you looking at in a year versus how many are actually going to produce? We produce six on two different stages. And we take, we really process, read probably around 750 sprints a year. So your odds are slim if you're coming in over the transom. And the fact of the matter is, I mean, I think there is a lot of conversation about whether open submissions policies are really the best policy. I think that people preserve that in order to preserve the notion that something could come in over the transom and that you never know what you're going to find, that you never know who's going to rise to the top of the heap. But one of the flaws of that system is that when you're dealing with that many scripts, you are dispersing those scripts to a lot of different people to read in order to get them attentive to in a reasonably timely fashion. And so that group of people tends to change a lot, because most often you're not paying some of those people. There are eight times of their volunteer readers and sometimes paying readers. But you're having to base your judgments on scripts also on the subjective points of view of people who come and go a little bit and who, you know, are, whose tastes you have to get to know over time ideally, but sometimes they're not around well. So there's a lot of ways in which it's hard for even the best material to come in on the transom to kind of work its way out of a food chain sometimes. Because, you know, for a general who lived out like I have, a lot of my day has really spent producing the work that we're doing all night or working with commission writers on a place that we've actually asked for. So I don't, I couldn't possibly read some of them, as it was in the air, what I want to. But I, you know, when I look at the stuff that's come in, whether it's through a sort of a general's admission or an agent or whatever, I tend to call from the top, I call from the things that I think already, I have some previous position to think are going to be interesting. Right. So, you know, it is the submission system that exists in both theaters, whether it's a fully open system or a somewhat closed or somewhat fractured in somehow process, it's an inherent reply. And it's a way, it's a big problem both for theaters, because you spend a lot of time on it, which might be spent in some ways better spent with a fewer number of artists, I would argue, but it's also often, it's very frustrating and limiting to writers because presumably there are kinds that should be put to the top of the job. That's what you're doing. Yeah. John, you got, you probably have a little bit of a different process than other people on the panel talk about, because you guys do take Yeah. We probably have a more fortunate system in that, because most of what we're reading for City Theater is 8, 9, 10, 11 minutes. I can afford, or Susie can afford to look at what comes to the trend. And we do. A very large percentage of the plays that have been produced in the couple of years I've been here have come from open submissions. Frankly, if I was reading 90-page scripts, that number would go way down for the same reason. Right. But we're fortunate in that way that we are able to kind of take the time to look at them. Right. John, as a commercial producer, how does that, how do works come to you? Most of the time plays come to me through projects. And frankly, I rarely take an unsolicited submission now, which I only, I mean, I really started doing just about 10 years ago. I was working at the Carsey Werner Television Studio. And for legal reasons, we were not allowed to take unsolicited submissions. Right. And I, for the first time, I understood the value of that. And I, for the most part, incorporated that into my own personal business mode. Sometimes I'll read something by somebody who's, you know, recommended to me. But a lot of times I feel like I'm bombarded now. I'm not running a big company with a lot of people. When I say I'm going to read a script, I actually am the one who reads the script. And I'm a very slow reader. It's very challenging. And I take it seriously, and I really do whore over it. That said, if I'm reading a script and in 10, 15, 20 pages I'm not engaged, I often put it down to me. What would? I know the process of let's produce a play and then get it published. Do you always take things only that have been produced? How does it work? No. There's no hard and fast rule about it. But statistically, if you look at what we publish and then collections, it's most often, yes, they have been produced before. And even more to that, there is some commercial moments behind the piece. But because we're a licensor work, the idea is that there is kind of a licensing demand for the play and that there are theaters around the country that have heard about the play and want to put it up at their theaters. Or in the rare case that we do go ahead with something that maybe came across, we found random leaders, a very, very specific target market. For example, I just heard from a person at a conference that high school teachers want to play and it's like twilight. So it's something here. Something came across minus that was about... Start writing those things. Do it now. Stop it here. Roll the things. You can only continue to be on fire. Great, you are. But you know, there are those rare pieces that speak with us. I mean, we get anywhere from... We don't take full length plays. We take great outs. Right now, submissions have been closed for you, just because we're doing some kind of internal remodeling. But normally we take a query letter and 10 pages and then a production history, a lot of hard and fast info about the play. And kind of from there, we can make a decision as to whether or not it's the appropriate time or if it's something we need. There's a lot of other considerations for publishers just because our catalog is 3,500 active titles. So in addition to if there is a commercial demand, we also have to factor in kind of what our customers are asking for, what else we've published that year, what's coming on the pipeline. So it's a lot that weighs into that decision. Ricky, what's your submission policy? We have an open submission policy, but it's incredibly tough because, Chris said it, I mean, it gets staff to respond. The response time and stuff. Steven Chambers is our literary manager. He's a co-boner, so it's at his own pace. And he filters them to me and I am a quick reader, so I read them really fast. And I do know in the first 10 pages or 12, if it's going to capture what I'm about. And then we take, since we're part of the National New Play Network, we have definite different ways to get to see new work. We have showcases that we go to. We see six different pieces, if not seven or eight. And then they, our sister theater companies, all relate work that might be similar to our mission or that it's my taste, that kind of way as well. And we get a lot of agent submission as well. I usually read the ones that come from men who began first. Because you know, it's kind of a filter already. They know me, I know them, and we share a single cabular. If you're not familiar, National New Play Network is an organization of about 30 theaters, all of whom have a real mission to produce new work. And that could be anything from a couple of years plus a festival up through the Florida State School. I think we're the other ones doing exclusively new work. But new work being first, second, and third productions. National New Play Network is the organization that created the Continuing Life of New Place Fund that you're probably familiar with, where three artistic directors agree to produce a play within a one-year period so that a playwright gets three entirely separate productions with completely separate artistic teams in three different cities in what could be everything from a 99-seat theater up to a 500-seat theater. But you're guaranteed three productions and that you are in residence for the first one and usually the second and third one for a certain amount of time. And what that has done, it raises the profile of the piece so that they're spinning out much more quickly and people become aware of it because they're seeing the title pop up again and again and that's usually a pretty good way of doing it. We're publishing two this year that have had Rolling World premieres from Steve Ghiaki's Afterlife and Bill Missouri Down's The Exit. Which is awesome. Right, so that's one of those organizations if you're not aware of as a playwright you should definitely get on their mailing list and have a look at their website. Now one thing that I've been doing a lot of this year is reading for contests and that's another good way to get it's kind of as close to the over-the-transom sort of thing as you can do with a full-length play is by submitting yourself to, and there's a bazillion of them now. And I've read a bazillion plays this year. I mean I'm on the artistic council for the O'Neill and they've put 900-something players to their system this year. Those are being read by people all over the country. So that's a good way to get your work out there. It's one of the questions that I've been hearing from people. How do I get somebody to look at my play? And frankly, and that's generally why I end up with these kind of panels as I tend to be frank, you're not going to get someone to look at your play without it getting to the top of the pile in some way. It's why it's so important to develop relationships and so important to not be an ass. Because we do all talk to each other and we put it out there. And it makes a difference. You want somebody who you respect to hand you the keys. If I could just check it on that point. I hear from playwrights a lot of frustration because they've submitted things and they want it to be looked at. And all of us would agree that we really would love to look at them and we try to look at everything we can look at. We're trying to find plays. And when the connection comes and the opportunity comes that there's a, like you said, don't be an ass. To be a sort of respect for our process and your process, I had a playwright a year ago who I met, talked to a little bit, and he's a very nice guy. And he said, can I submit you something, please? And I said, you know what, sure. Send it to my email address and be happy to read it. And I just said to him, I said, thank you. There's no way I can read 24 play. And it says my fault was, you know, why did you do that to me? Now I can't read your plays anymore. But also, beyond that I can't read 24 plays, that's really presumptuous. Respect. You know, being respectful. And yes, I know it's frustrating and it's why a lot of us have gone away from the open submission policy because, you know, we had this conversation earlier this year with American Voices, you play Institute. If you say to people, we will take and read your play. And you have to take and read their play. But a lot of places don't. They're just piles and piles and piles. You can make furniture out of the space. And that's where they go. They go in a pile. If they don't go in the trash, they go in a pile. And only when you've had an intern who's done something really terrible that needs to be punished for where you say to them, go to the bottom of the pile and start reading. And honestly, they don't get read that way. So what you want to do is develop a relationship that would allow you to get that script really into someone's hand, not into the pot. I love when playwrights, local playwrights come to the theatre and see the shows and buy a subscription and support the theatre that they want their plays to be done. And I develop a relationship like that. Their play might not be the best play in the world, but you know what, I'll take interest and I'll be like, okay, let's work on it. And I take my year and I help them workshop the play independently, me with them, to make sure that they strengthen the vocabulary of the play. Even though I might not produce it, but I give my time to them in that sense. Because if I'm not going to produce it, I want to make sure that they get to produce stuff on it. That's just me, you know? You know, as a producer, I am often looking for a place, a theatre to develop a play. And it's exactly the same thing. I go to the theatres, I'm familiar with their work, I develop a vocabulary, and if I don't know the people who are running the theatre, you know, I can pick up the phone and call them, but I make sure that I'm knowledgeable about the place before just calling insanely the rights to display when you do it. As a matter of fact, this summer I'm going to visit a few different theatres because I have a play, and I'm looking for a home for it. And you know, if you don't show up, you've got to be able to win it. So it's not that different for me as a producer. It's like, I want somebody to pay attention to something that I have. And in order to do that, I've got to go more than halfway. Well, the other thing it allows you to do, you were talking about this, in the cover letter. You know, when you're just saying, I used to love where I get cover letters that would say, you know, have my name and address on it, and then it would say, dear Mr. Jory, because you know, you're just churning them out and they haven't paid attention. If you can say in that cover letter, well, I just saw your production of Bicycle Country, and I loved it, and thought it was really special and wonderful, and it made me think that you might be interested in looking at this play. That's so much better than, dear Mr. Jory. Yeah. So being out there in the world and participating, someone yesterday was talking about writers that don't go see other work. It's like actors who don't go see other people's work. You have to be a part of your community, and your community helps you develop those relationships where, like Ricky was saying, even if it's not the right play for him, he might say, you know, I go, wow, this is not a play for me, but Mixed Blood, would love this play. Send it there with a note. And we've done that several times. Yeah, we do it a lot, swapping around. I just want to add this real quick. It's kind of interesting with our festival that we do. We're really one of the only publishing companies that host a festival. And it's open submissions, and each playwright can submit three plays. And so those three plays that you submit get two reads by a Samuel French staff. And it's really the only time that a Samuel French staff is reading it gets two reads. And we've made a ton of connections. I mean, Gabe McKinley, who just had a show at Atlantic with the festival baby, and they're your voice. And there are people who aren't necessarily they only participate in the festival, but we are interested in them as playwrights and we start to watch them because we become familiar with their work from a 10 and 30 minute play, but you know, you just have to... And I would even go, just to extend on that idea, most theaters and us as a publisher have a development stage two where they're making these introductions through, like, so a rep has their writer's lab and our stages has a reading and to kind of maybe aim for that, and that's a really, really good way for a theater to know your work and kind of build a relationship with you. We have, in addition to the OV Festival, two other concerts and festivals, although they're for Canadians and high school students. But we also have high school students here, so patient. We also have some partnerships with major awards where we give the option to publish to those winners. And so, you know, figuring out which awards we become with those kind of introductions and kind of targeting your work. So I think what we're saying is cultivate the companies that you want to submit to and then follow the proper procedures. You know, talk to people, find out what they're doing, get it in the right hands. Those like, it's like actors that, you know, I think they kind of stop now, but there used to be that when you finish college they would say, here, centrifuge and resumé to all these places. Well, they go in the garbage. They really, they really go in the garbage, and so doing that makes no sense. In fact, it makes me think, wow, why did this kid just waste money? It's a little better that you can digitally print your own pictures. I think, like, give your work to people that you trust who whose feedback you actually might want to, but who might know someone. So that you can pass it a wrap. So that somebody else maybe will hand it to somebody that they know. And it's not about pure manipulation, but if you know somebody who knows somebody, make sure that that person has it. And if they like it, that they'll pass it on. Or they might be the person to tell you, like, you know what, I know that 80% and I know that. He's never gonna like this. So spare yourself. Use those connections that you have. Because then, which essentially is like having a good agent. Right. I don't think agent behavior has changed. Well, no, in the digital age their work, they don't want to tell you this. But, you know, a lot of agents are more passive about how they select the viewers that they work to. And they tend to blind the world with submissions. And that doesn't mean much. Doesn't mean more coming from an agent that he doesn't already have. Not really, no. The agent helps with the contractual more nowadays. The new agents are more contracted than they are. They have an amazing old school agent. She will grab the play and she will send it to, you know, make sure that it gets done. I love that. But she's hands on. That's a lot of agents that are hands on anymore. They're very contractual. I've always wondered, and maybe I'm not a playwright, so maybe this is a terrible idea. I apologize. But I've always wondered why actors very often will in LA they do this all the time. They'll produce their own shows to showcase themselves. I've always wondered why playwrights don't sort of have reading nights publicly of their stuff self-produced more often. We've been talking about self-producing a lot this weekend. Actors are very gregarious human beings for the most part. And I know a lot of the stuff that I've produced has come to me from an actor that I know and love. So, you know, use them. They like to read. They like to talk out loud and let people hear them. That's use them. And they want jobs. And they find a play that they know, Leslie was saying, it's got a great role for me in it. So, they want to take it to the directors they know. That's another great way to get your scripts seen by people. Yes? I was just curious, the panel seems to be in agreement that the submission system is, I don't know, whatever broken, whatever you want to call it. Except in a festival situation where I can understand, of course, that's the whole point. So, I wonder why then, does anyone ask, why are we doing it then? Like, why is it necessary? What purpose exactly is this? Sorry, because I've heard for many, many years the same thing. You've got to shake hands with people. You have to build relationships, which makes absolute sense. So, why do we go on with this disingenuous kind of thing by... We had a whole conference about this, didn't we? Why not just say, no, build the relationships. Let's go brass roots and let's be together in this, and let's cross-pollinate each other, blah, blah, blah. It's happening more and more, I think. I think we're going more towards that. More and more years are closing their submission, or changing their submission policies. Someone yesterday mentioned, you know, arena stage did it and caused this huge hubbub where everybody was screaming and yelling, and what it came down to was honesty. You know, honestly, we're not going to read your play if you submit it to us in this manner, so I think the conversation is opening up about being more honest about what the procedures really are. The problem is, there's a bunch of merit in really looking at what their policies are. The policies I think also should be in line with the particular mission of the theater. So it doesn't make sense for the public theater to have a totally closed mission of this policy because of the particular mission that they have. So I think that should be part of the rigorous self-examination that the theaters do about how they defy their mission in every way. It's a broken system that was built with good intentions because most theaters want to believe themselves and be perceived as being accessible and being ready to receive something that they didn't know they were looking for and that they weren't expecting that there could be somebody out there that they'd never heard of who really took that play. I'm sure there are plenty of examples of it. We found one of our Steinberg nominations with Catherine Bush just to kiss. I've never heard of her. I read the script and I was like, boom, this is an amazing script. And, you know, that's why we keep our doors open, but we have to look at it as a new theater because we just, staff-wise, we just can't. And as a playwright, it's terrible for response time. You're dying. You're like, I don't care if it's a bad letter, I just want something and you're dying, you've been. I know. I've submitted my play in many places. I know what it feels. And when I read the script, if it comes to me, if it gets to my little level, you know, I actually write notes on the script. And if I'm not going to produce it or if I'm not going to hand it off, I'll send it back to the playwright with my notes, you know. But then I get dirty letters from the playwright. There's no winning with you guys. I'm like, you got that for free, you know. So, I mean, we do have to look at ours, but we are starting a new program next season. I think we're going to change our submission process as well. I just wanted to say something else. I know with the New York Theatre Workshop, there's a very active play reading program. And most of the plays, of course, don't get produced there because they only do a certain number a year. And they also have the Dartmouth program during the summer where plays are looked at, developed, read. And sometimes people come and they volunteer at the theater. And that's another way of establishing relationships. And then it's, would you take a look at my play and maybe it could be read one night. You know, I'm willing to cast it, direct it, you know, bring the Peter butter Jones sandwiches. But you know, I always respond more to people who are proactive than somebody who says, you know, to me, you know, well, I can't get it done. How am I going to get it done? Now, I mean, I have a career that started with no contacts. I don't didn't have rich parents. I think my cousin Pearl's cousin was Murray Balsam. You know, so right. So, you know, and I didn't go to a fancy school. I mean, I was just like, I was like, I want to do this. And I started at a company. So, you know, you've got to be hungry enough to want to do it. And then when you just feel so frustrated and angry, that's when you turn it upside down and do it. Do it and be positive and be optimistic because nobody is interested in a sour plus. I just want to, I know we have to talk about commissions, but just one more thing just off of that one, one thing that I I actively like when people submit and keep working on their play while their play is in submission. I think that some of the stuff that's come through our open door policy or query policy, I've been skeptical of it at first, but then the playwright has shown me over the years so that it's with us that they've really built the market for it. And so I think it's important to remember that even when your play is out with people and pending that you're still considering, you know, you still work on it and you're still kind of actively trying to build that network and communicating with people you have it out with about that. Switch to commissions and we'll do some questions when we get past this. Commissions. I for a stage in the twenty four years probably commissioned ten or fifteen plays none of which we ever did. Some of which got done in other places. Some of them we were talking about mostly because of lack of communication between the organization and the writer about what it was that we were looking for but didn't mean that things didn't get done in other places. It's a tricky thing because, again, it's all about that relationship. I don't know anybody that just hands out random commissions. Right? I mean maybe there's something but I don't think so. So it's going to be a theater that you have a relationship with that is commissioning your work. Can I just say something about the underlying circumstances of commissioning? Yes. Because I think it's something that maybe writers don't think about. If you want to be a theater that conditions playwrights to write things that means you have to raise the money to pay for those commissions, obviously. That is also money that just goes right back out the door again. What that means is you are dedicating the time and resources of your development staff to raise money that is not actually fueling your organization in any way. That is because it's not that we should do it or that that's inherently a bad thing. But what it means is it frames the experience of how precious a resource that commission money is and how much time you can devote to raising money for commissions. And so I think oftentimes clarity is frustrated that there's not offering more of them or they're not offering more money or they're not. And in fact it is largely to not grab organizations to devote an enormous amount of time and human resources to raising money for commissions doesn't make financial sense for the organization. So that's just an underlaw. Although it is a thing that patrons like to pay for. Yes they do, which is a good thing, but it's then you are still taking money from a patron which is not going into the production. It is not going into the general operating. A lot of theaters do have programs because it's something their patients like to do. Absolutely. And sometimes you know when you're working with some of our corporate sponsors for example in the Atlantic we've had a very healthy relationship with Time Warner which has been a very generous business for a time part of their gift each year was supporting a couple of commissions on certain parameters that had to do with their own film profit guidelines. They had to commission specific kinds of writers that would align also with the interests of the funding source which is often also the case. So all that to say those are kind of some of the background circumstances in which commissions even come to be but then beyond that really because of that they really do evolve over time that theaters are very particular and careful about how and when they are commissioned and it's not because they're guarding those resources it's because you want to have a firmest investment in the possibility that this might bear And it is specifically we're talking about not for profit. Yes. In the commercial world it's a whole different thing. Commissions don't exist as commissions do they not? Well, I have commissioned a lot of work. I mean certainly for mother-in-law we commissioned over 40 pieces. Wow. And are those were those done with the subject matter obviously they were done with some parameters around them. Well we would we would agree on the subject matter you know so we would approach a writer because we admired her work. We have two male writers in the show but for the most it started with some of the lesser women. But we didn't say we want you to write a story about X, Y or Z. So you know I would call a writer and say I've read this and I've read this and I've read this and I like your voice and I am interested in you and this is a project I'm doing and does this interest you? And think about a subject matter that you might like to write about or I might call someone I did call people and say we're looking for a piece about this subject and we think that you might be able to wrap your brain around it. Are you interested? But I never mapped out a story for anybody. And I did the same thing with standing on ceremony and you know often times when you're developing a piece especially musical you know basically you're hiring composer or lyricist or book writer and you're kind of commissioning. I guess I just didn't think about the term commission being what? It seemed like an advance or a higher job which I guess really is what commissioning is. You don't have an obligation but you are paying somebody on the hope of a promise on spec. Do you guys John? Generally no just because the risk is too difficult for us. In the last two years we've actually commissioned two pieces. One was in the show, one was not. We took a shot and there was specifically when I knew there was something I wanted in the show that I didn't have. That's what I did. Then I said I think this person can give this to me. Can you write this for me? That's the time I thought about it. I would add to that and again this is about relationship building. When for example we have gone through the whole relationship process and the 800 to 1,000 plays have been read by me there are often kinds of plays that are missing and I mean the traditional theater season is a play a month. Something to that effect. We essentially do a season in 90 minutes and it takes us a year to build a season in 90 minutes. Some seasons of summer shorts have been much larger. This is our smallest season of summer shorts which actually put the pressure on for us. But it has meant that if all I got out of those 800 plays were 602 handers and of those 602 handers a certain portion of them are about couples in love or about mothers and daughters fighting or about whatever it becomes a question of what elevates this particular play above these other plays about this same idea if it's an idea that we're interested in. So when we know that there is a play that we have not seen or gotten or want there are a number of friends and family playwrights that we contact and say is there any possible way you can drum up a 10 minute 6 character comedy with music and I don't know in a month can you do this do you have this in your drawer and oftentimes yes you know what some out of this 25 or 35 or 45 playwrights something will come in and out of those a few things might be appropriate and then they might actually be appropriate to the cast that we've chosen and then it might be I still hang on to this play for next season or for another opportunity or for the tour it's because I'm not getting those plays and one of the things that I hear back from playwrights is well nobody wants plays more than two or three characters and I say that might be true for a full length but it isn't true for a 10 minute play so think about your genre you know think about your genre when we get these plays they often don't say oh this has to be a white person or a black person or a this or a that so we have a company that may be all mixed up and what a lovely opportunity so playwrights have come in and said jeez I've never imagined seeing my play in this way that you've done it meaning in a good way but because we've had some that said oh my god why did you do my play but we've all been there so read the guidelines for example our guidelines say that we don't punish playwrights so we accept plays that might be a premiere we accept plays that have done two and three times four times because because those are the hardest productions to get in and because in south florida frankly Christine really who else is doing what we're doing really so it's not like we've done a revival of something and we have done revivals of plays we like but go look at it go look at what we're asking for and understand that we go to see a new french our relationship now with seeing a french is such that we're trying to be value added to them and one of the things they get to offer the playwrights who go through the whole vetting of their festival is that they say soos do you want to read these galleys that are going to be the plays that get published in the next collection before they're going to be published which is how vetfellows came about and it's how the student is in the hopper but again it's a two character play it's a little quirky and we have clunky when I'll be there so just understand that when you're looking at those submission guidelines and it's really I think I say it three times don't send me a phone like don't do it I think that's really important everywhere, you know if you're sending your new play to a company whose mission is to do 20th century classics you're wasting your time and your energy if you're sending a full length play to a company that only does shorts it makes you look like you didn't do your homework it makes you look like you're not paying attention yes but the submission guidelines don't include that kind of information I've read a lot of submission guidelines and they don't give me the the gist of what the theater is about that's the beauty of having the internet you can do all that research what I recommend being on both ends is that you look at the season what they've actually produced and they're producing history and their vision they've produced 10 minute plays it's important that your work is appropriate if you have a 7 or 8-hander to send to them we've got to do more research we've got to do the research we've got to do the hands-on because if not you're going to be wasting your money sending 1,000 plays everywhere and they're never going to get time we as playwrights don't need to grate on the nerves of the and we want you to be fabulous I never get up in the morning and say wow I hope I read a shitty play together you know I mean you want everything that comes to you to me nobody goes to an audition I hope I see 300 terrible actresses just real quick kind of dovetail what you're saying I've lived in South Forrest since 1984 coming from New York and most of them are dead because of the exhibit so I'm starting fresh in this environment and I am going against theaters that only do Oklahoma, 42nd Street they don't want New York but you only do shorts and I write so helping people like me who are in South Florida who want to find work in South Florida who want to workshop their work in South Florida before we go back to New York or go to LA where do we go because the doors are all slammed in our faces and go we don't do that we don't do workshops and then to get a place it's $3,000 a month to rent a place and no one's willing to give you money I mean honestly in South Florida I'd be happy to talk about this with you off the panel I ran a small theater company that didn't spend $3,000 on a show to be honest with you so it's doable that's what I'm getting South Florida probably does a ton of if not if it works out there so thank you one thing that is interesting I'm directing this because I'm following up on a comment that you made and I'm saying this not just to suck up because I sent my thank you seriously I read the submission guidelines from New Theater and it's very specific we do these kinds of plays we also have this kind of series if you don't hear from us in the next time it's because we're very busy and don't expect to hear from us in the next period of time I love that because then I know if I sent it to you over a particular time I know I won't hear from you next week I want to make sure that you know because I'm a playwright as well and I hate to be booted around I've gone into that more often times than I can count there was one time when I submitted a play I said I've never heard of this before I'm sure I've never submitted to it so I started filling in it and the email the email pop post says I've already done this address and I looked back and I had done it like four years before and they never heard from them but they never promised that they would ever get back to you so I'll put a little slack on that I think you'll be seeing less and less of that I'm not a playwright but I'm a director jumping on everybody here I'll be willing to direct the playwright's work and as far as theater is concerned there's a lot of theater my school has a theater it's not a small house it's a big house but with the local theaters in Miami allowed I'm gonna throw this on the out there once a month free open meeting where playwrights can bring their works directors and even student directors that we have I'm kind of bored and I'm like what can we do to house these people we're paying the rent and I'm not gonna charge them anything we try to figure it out we try to help them on a dead day can we as directors direct with the playwrights and on a day that we don't lose money just to get those playwrights out I can't say yes but I can say possibly we don't want to be here anymore but that's very much a relationship question I enjoy reading all the time my other job is a very university and we've brought Alliance Theater my office has done readings because I've met them they know me they ask we have the day if it's possible why not there's a ton of little companies down here right now too there's a lot of little companies and again that's about being out in your community and making those relationships and meeting those people out over a beer and you're with an actor and the actor says hey do you know this guy and this guy knows that guy and buh buh buh buh buh buh if you're suggesting they can buy me a beer and a ton of beer yes go ahead speaking on behalf of I guess student voices in theater being I just graduated high school but how much does necessarily I want to say experience or age play a factor as in would you be as willing to produce a playwright who's never had a full-length produced before a new work as opposed to a playwright who has a new work but has had maybe three other works how much does that play? it's all about that play it doesn't matter I don't care if you're good we just produced a play by a first play without a first play a first full professional production by a writer that's in Chris Durant's program at Julliard and she's 26 and she's never been produced before that's great, it's exciting and the play is wonderful and has a great youthful energy about it and I think it was a really valuable experience for her we're never going to do a whole season of plays like that it is very much about the alignment of a particular play with the taste and sensibility of the theater and the rest of the season and all the things that go into it I would also, oh sorry I would say that plays harder to sell I would say too that if you're of that age there are lots of opportunities out there directed especially for you and I think it's very very important to learn it's great to keep your hand in both pots just so you're not, but to also learn about the specific opportunities for high school age playwrights or for people getting MFA or college age playwrights because there's a lot of resources that exist a lot of competitions a lot of festivals sending those down can you just speak to sort of gender and diversity sort of in submission to the process I know there was a big blow up in the factory recently and just as you know as a female player as we have other female players just speak to that I know you all are very open people but how do you not get frustrated as a playwright in terms of that conflict in general how do we move to the end especially when we know the truth we do dinner I think it's that's again kind of one of those things that's about mission for a lot of producers you know if it is a part of their mission to program diversity if it is part of their mission to make sure that all of those voices get heard there's some people you know if you're doing modern 20th century classics you're probably not going to be as interested in that as if you're doing do you guys look at gender when you are part of that I mean as society continues to change that will get better but it also is a matter of trying to change society a little bit and trying to push I mean Christopher Paolo is a friend of mine and this is an issue that's been very heavily on his mind and so he has sort of brought that up to me into circumstances I've been around enough times it makes me think about it and we do we actually did I actually don't look at the playwright's names when I read plays to be perfectly honest with you I actually don't learn the playwright's names until I decide I like to play I mean that's honestly a lot of people rate the line I do have begun to factor that in and I think everyone has to begin to make those decisions and what we have to do now is go I am so sorry but they're giving me the high sign from every corner here's the deal you have from now 545 are open now bye