 Bruce, let me just say that correctly, Bruce Lazarus, who is the Executive Director of Samuel French and before he was at Samuel French, what's so fascinating about both of these gentlemen is that they had huge careers before they took jobs over that they take now. So Bruce was- We have careers. We actually have paid now. I don't know how huge they were, but they were careers. So Bruce was an entertainment lawyer for many, many, many years before becoming the Executive Director of Samuel French and to his right is Peter Hagen, who is the President of Dramatist Play Service and Peter before going to Dramatist Play Service was a literary agent for years and years with Gersh and Abrams. So thanks you guys for coming. Thanks for having us. Thank you. I'm going to start by saying that most of your clients, by the time that we become aware of them, they have already had some probably significant measure of success. And then we see them show up in your catalogs in printed form, in one form or another. But I'm curious about those early to mid-career playwrights that haven't yet made that mark of success necessarily, just yet. And so this panel is about how do those folks get noticed? So here's my first question and these are all really straightforward. There are no trick questions here. What would either of you say, or both of you say, is the quickest, easiest, if there is such a thing, way to become published if you don't live in New York or Los Angeles or Chicago or major metropolitan area? And kind of part me to that question is does it necessarily follow that you have to have a major review by a major newspaper to accompany that? That's a trick question. It is kind of. Yeah. Peter, you want to take it first? Well, yeah. Sure. First of all, it isn't necessary, but it sure helps a lot. If you have a play which has received a production, obviously it's going to help the most if that production has been in a major market like New York or London or LA, but it doesn't have to be. And we both, as do the other licensing houses, we publish and take on plays that have not had productions there. We even take on plays sometimes that haven't had productions. They asked me just a little bit ago, knowing that I was going to be on this panel, what makes a good query letter? Well, we do take query letters and we read them. And as much information as can be told in the query letter about what your play is, what its potential is, if it's had some life somewhere, everything that can go into that letter. That's all important. Does it happen a lot? No. I'll be honest with you. It doesn't happen a lot, but it doesn't happen and we don't, I think it's safe to say we don't shut the door on plays which haven't had the big productions. But it is harder. I don't want to be, you know, give you a disingenuous answer here. You know, I really appreciate that because I think, you know, there is, I don't know about all of you, but there have been so many myths around this. We all have our own personal stories about this. So these, you know, the straightforward answers to these questions, I think it's exactly what people are looking for. So like DPS, Samuel French does take on new material, rarely do we take something that's been unpublished unless it's from an established author or an author that's already in our catalog or someone we are watching, you know, for other reasons. The bottom line is, it's an economic question for us. It costs us money to publish a script. It costs us money to market it and to license it and to do all of that. If a show has had a Broadway or an off-Broadway production, it's a lot easier to do that. People have seen it. People have heard about it. The newspapers have written about it. Without that, it's a really an uphill push. Now, we have a large marketing department at Samuel French, but we also have a large catalog. And we feel a need to be loyal to our writers that we have. And so we can't publish everything that comes over the trance and just can't do it. So we're looking for things that have heat, that we know we can market, that we know there's customers for. And on the flip side of that, we're also looking for the next great play in musicals. So wherever it comes from, we're looking for it. I mean, I can say, on this trip, I'm old-fashioned. I don't put all my stuff on a tablet. And I brought four, crammed four manuscripts into my suitcase. And of those four manuscripts, two were plays by people that we already publish, who want, you know, their agents have, or they have been in touch with me saying we want you guys to take these plays on. One was a totally over-the-transom script of play that had been sent to a colleague at the play service who's in our non-professional licensing department. He read it. He liked it. He said, I think we can do something with this. I don't think this play has ever been produced, so I read that. And the fourth, what was, Bruce and I are talking about how, you know, the problem is is that we both have teenage children. So that's why we, we can't remember, it takes that part of our brain. The fourth was a play by a young writer who has not been published yet, who's very hot, who's about to have a couple of very major productions in New York, has already had a major production out in the region. Should I be looking at that? I probably are looking at it right now. And that's the fourth one. So, you know, it really, we do consider everybody, but as Bruce said, it is an economic decision that ultimately has to be made. So if the play has not had any productions so far, it has to be something that we think is going to have productions. Right? Actually, that was going to, that leads me to my next question, was so do you, is production a pathway to publication? Do you often see people submitting scripts to both of you that haven't had a production yet? And so, and what might you think that is about from a writer? I'm not quite sure. I understand. Well, in other words, you know, a lot of writers will send you a script because they just want to be published, not necessarily because they've had a production, right. So is production the pathway to publication? Well, we're licensing house is, you know, we're, that's what we do. We publish in order to get production. Yeah. A third of our business is publication, a third for us, I don't know whether it's the same for you, a third is non-pro and a third is pro. Actually you probably have four. We actually have four thirds. Because of Samuel French, as those of you who were in the meeting this after the seminar this afternoon, Samuel French, on certain titles, earlier titles, they have the pro rights and we have the amateur rights because of the way the play service was set out. But that's another story. I'm curious, because both of you are relatively new in your jobs. When you came in, how much homework did you have to do? And have you seen, even in your prior jobs, have you seen this industry change dramatically and if so, in what ways? And in what ways might you expect it to change even more? Well, I had to do a lot of homework because I was not in the literary field before I came to Samuel French. I was the director of business affairs for Disney and before that I was, before and after that I was a theatrical attorney representing writers and producers, but not really someone who was looking at scripts. So Peter, you may add a literary agent. Yeah, it was easier, I think, for me because I had been a literary agent for many years. I had been dealing with DPS and Samuel French and dramatic publishing and all the others on the other side of the table trying to sell my clients to those companies. And then for the last, I think it was six years before I started, I've been the president now for almost two years. I was on the board of DPS. So I had a knowledge of the inner workings of the company by virtue of being a board member and knew how it worked in terms of how it was structured. I had never been the head of anything. I had been the head of a department in a literary agency, but I had never run a business and that was the part that I was kind of like, my husband said to me, you know, you've got to do this, this is a great thing for you to do. And I was like, I can't, you know, I can't do this. And actually the business part of it, the personnel and running it in the money and all that stuff, that's been the part that I've had fun doing, you know. So that was where I thought I was going to have to do a lot of homework, but didn't. And is there something that both of you guys see in front of you that you're like, oh yeah, this is coming? I mean, I know digital, the world of digital media has certainly been a discussion for both of you, for example. That's the big thing, wouldn't you say? One of the like one of the big, that is like the big thing, I think. Well, what's happening to our publishing business? Well, we use digital a lot. We have digitized most of our enormous collection. Not only do we have e-plays, but we have, we've just published our first enhanced e-play. It's Agatha Christie's and then there were none. And an enhanced e-play has video and audio and all kinds of other materials for producers and directors and readers to look at. So if there's the sound of a foghorn in it, there's a sample of the foghorn. There's commentary by directors that have produced it talking about various aspects of the show when you get through it. There's a way to follow the characters who's on stage, who's off stage through it. It's a beautiful piece. We're actually also talking about using the enhanced e-play as a delivery method for some of the junior high school and high school versions that we're developing for some of our musicals. Oddly enough, we're putting out a junior high school and high school version of Rock of Ages, which is kind of, you wouldn't think you could do a junior high school version of it. Can they drink while they're in the, in the, in the, in the, like they did do Jell-O. We have Jell-O, yes, but they just, it's just Jell-O. And there's always room for Jell-O. But also, we have just launched a, it's actually in its final beta stage, a subscription reading service where, sort of like Oyster for novels, where you can, for a subscription price, read our, all the plays in our catalog. We're actually working on some sort of initiative to make some of that available to the Dramatist Guild members, so that they can learn their craft by reading, you know, the plays of others. It's not so easy for playwrights to have access to their peers' work. I mean, it's expensive to buy plays. They're not readily available at the library, and we're also working on the, the same thing with, with tickets for, for playwrights to be able to see their peers' work. The digital is, is here, and we're in it. There are, there are a lot of companies, and I, and I know they've been in, in touch with Samuel French and with us, that are taking, you know, they want to be able to create these apps that you can, you know, that are set up so that the director of the play or the stage manager has all the tools for the, for the particular play that they need to have in hand to be able to help them during production of the play. And I think ultimately, rather than making associations with some of these companies, we're probably going to be ending up doing what, as you're saying, just doing it ourselves. And that's the, the sort of the future in terms of how we're going to be dealing with the, you know, the digital age in, in, in reading scripts. The, as the people who use us, the actors start, you know, the people who use the books are age, are going to age out. And the people who use their tablet or whatever that next, you know, innovation is to take their blocking and to write their notes in the script. We're going to have to be able to keep up with that. And that I think is the biggest challenge. Let me just mention the, the subscription reading service I mentioned is called Abbot, named after our illustrious president for 50 years, Abbot Van Nostrand. How many presidents have there been of Samuel Grench? Oh, God, we're a hundred, 184 years old. No, no, no, since the 30s. I'm curious, because there have been six only of DPS. I don't know. Probably not, not even as many. Maybe the same. About the same, yeah. But I wanted to mention also we have a new, a new product that might be of interest to some of you, because if you cannot get your play published by a, a, a major play publisher or get it licensed, we are about to launch what we call Playwright Direct. It is a self publishing and self licensing model for playwrights. Where we will, we will license your play for you. It's got pretty good terms to it. And we will also, if you want, you can publish your play. And we will list both, both the, the play and the licensing of it in our website with our catalog, so people have access to become aware of your material. I'm not sure if our website for Playwright Direct is up yet, but if it's not, it should be pretty soon, but take a look at it. I think we have an extraordinary opportunity, which is Bruce, you were an entertainment lawyer, Peter, you were an agent. And so, you know, I think one of the questions that I'm curious about is when is it most appropriate to seek an entertainment lawyer and when is it most appropriate to seek an agent? Or is it, you know, are they one in the, I know they're not one in the same, but is there overlap? Is there a non-overlap? Sure, there's overlap. They are not one in the same. I don't think it's the same. I'm going to tell you something. I used to, I used to manage actors and I used to be an actor. And I discovered something a long time ago, which I, it was like a revelation to me. You know, it's very hard to get an agent because an agent is going to make 10% of your living, of your income. And if you're not making an income, there's no incentive for the agent to represent you, but you can pay a lawyer. I paid lawyers to help me, you know, before I was an entertainment lawyer, whether I was an actor or I was in business, I was trying to do things. It's interesting. I mean, I think, I mean, it's true. And the thing about an agent is I would, you know, I used to say this to people when I was an agent, I would be very leery of, if I were a writer or anybody in the business, designer, director, actor, of signing on with an agent that wasn't interested in you for the long haul. And that's one of the reasons, as Bruce said, you know, an agent takes 10% of whatever it is you're getting. The agent can take 10% of your hit play, but I defy you to find me a writer who only has written hit plays. Every writer has written a play that just, you know, tanked and then make any money, and the agent has to be devoted to that play too. So sometimes when I was an agent and, you know, there was like one, it's a one off and this play was going to have a production, but you weren't crazy about the rest of the writer's work or whatever. And I would say, you know, maybe for this one, get an entertainment lawyer to do your deal for this. Now, there are exceptions to that. I, you know, there's a very renowned entertainment lawyer, Rick Pappas. Rick represents now, Stephen Sondheim, Susan Strowman, who else? Cameron McIntosh. Cameron McIntosh, so he has producers too. There are some who, Mark Sandroff will be, you know, he's an entertainment lawyer. He only, you know, he will represent some people who only be writers and not have an agent. But it's generally, you're going to find that agents want to be with you for the long haul. And entertainment lawyer will do a great job for you, usually on the one deal. You know, from once you start to become successful and you're rolling, I'm a big believer in having a team. Yeah. So, you know, an agent and a manager and an attorney and if you need a PR person or you need a business manager, yeah, you're going to give away a little piece to all of those people, but better to have 70% of something that's really rolling than 100% of, I'm not giving away a piece, you know. A lot of people have, like if they have a big Broadway show coming up or they have a movie deal or something like that, they're going to have an agent and the agent's going to say, you know, you got to get, this is getting a little too complicated. You should get a good lawyer as well. So that happens all the time. That actually leads me to my next question and Peter, because I heard you mention this and I'm curious how you both might weigh in on this. Is there a, is there a sweet spot, a golden point, a pinpoint in the map where here's where you go to an agent, here's when you go to an entertainment lawyer? Because let me, I'll explain the nature of my question, you know, oftentimes folks will call us at the gild and say, you know, I have a production going on and they're talking and I, and I don't have an agent and so they're talking like, who's your agent and I don't have one and so should I get an agent or should I get an entertainment lawyer or, you know. Well, let me just answer that. If you already have the deal, get a lawyer, you know, you don't need, the agent's going to get you the deal. If you already have the deal, I mean, I mean, you should, you should use the deal to get an agent. I mean, you know, I was going to say, I don't quite, yeah, I would say, yeah, use it to get an agent. But you know, but in that moment, if you don't understand what's going on, get an attorney or an agent or both. See, he's coming at it. What you, what you don't want, let me just say something. What you don't want to do is to get your uncle Henry, who's a real estate lawyer. And trust me, I have, I have done many deals with people that did not know the, did not really know the business and they argue over the wrong things. They, they, they miss the important things that they should be asking for and they argue over things that have been that way for a hundred years and you're not going to change it. It's even tough with, you know, people who are entertainment lawyers, but they're entertainment lawyers on this coast and their experience is going to be with movies and, you know, the theater is a very different animal and very, you know, there's nothing that's going to turn off the producer more than having to explain to the person with whom they're negotiating, you know, no, it doesn't work this way. So yeah, don't get your uncle Henry, who's a good real estate lawyer. Absolutely. I'm curious if either of you gentlemen, from where you sit, how you see, I'm just going to take it away from writers for a moment and just think about the world of theater in general, how you see this community or this industry changing in a more global sense, whether that's, you know, how we do productions, where we do productions, who produces that kind of thing. Well, I'll just say right off the bat, from the time that I started being an agent, which was in, well, I went to work at the William Morris Agency in 1983, you left out, I think, three of the places that I've worked. I've been a very parapetitic, parapetetic agent. What does that mean? I moved from place to place to play, and but the agency business has contracted enormously, you know, back in if you go this fabulous exhibit of all of the drama's Guild, if you haven't looked at the archives, it's fantastic. I just have to say you will appreciate this. I have to mention this. This is totally off the subject. There is a letter in that exhibit in which Lillian Hellman writes to the Guild and says, Herman Shumlin, who produced The Little Foxes, is traveling to Los Angeles to talk about the film sale of The Little Foxes. And because I will share in 60% of the income of The Little Foxes from the film sale, which she would have, he would have gotten 40, should I be paying 60% of his expenses for his trip to Los Angeles? I was like, if another writer, I would love to know what the Guild responded to her as to like what, it's amazing to me that, that any writer would even think that way, but good for her. It's so altruistic. She needed a good agent. She did. She had a good one. Um, but the agency business has, you know, contracted enormously back in those days and the days of Lillian Hellman and Tennessee Williams and all of those people, those gods and goddesses of the theater. There were mainly women who had just single shops. There was, you know, there were Audrey Wood and K Brown and Flora Roberts and Lucy Kroll and Lois Berman and Blanche Gaines and I mean, and they were all women because it was a, an area that women in those days could be successful business people. And they all, those agencies, you know, then men came in and worked in these agencies as well. When I started in the business in 1983, there were still a number of those agencies existed. They're gone now. And that makes it very difficult, I think, for writers to find an agent these days because with the exception of just there, you know, you can count them on one hand. Most of the agencies now are big mega agencies, mainly based in Hollywood. Um, they do look at the theater as a business where they can make money because if they didn't believe me, they wouldn't have these agents. They wouldn't have theater agents, but that's, I think, a big part of what has happened in the theater business. It has become much more of a corporate kind of world. Now we're talking about the commercial theater, of course, but that has changed a lot and it has affected, you know, the rest of the theater. It goes out, you know, to the regions and the, you know, amateur and community theater as well, because that, you know, it informs what ends up getting produced. Do you agree? Yeah, I'm trying to think of what, yes, I do. Um, I was trying to think of what else was, um, was different than changing. You know, for a while there, the Broadway scene got very corporate with Disney and DreamWorks and the like. There's a little more independent producing going on now, um, off Broadway, um, doesn't exist. Yeah. Anymore. Well, you can't make money off Broadway. Commercially. Right. There is no off Broadway commercial theater anymore, very hardly any. Right. Um, actually, which reminds me of, uh, Bernie Jacobs once said, there's no profit like non-profit. Yeah. I think we're a little more international these days. I have a, Peter mentioned in his earlier, um, uh, seminar that, uh, DPS handles, um, North American rights, Samuel French handles worldwide rights, mostly in the English language, although recently we've moved strongly into the, uh, musical market. And so we get, uh, usually we get, uh, all, all territories in all languages. Um, this season we picked up, um, Rock of Ages and Natasha Pierre and the great comedy of 1812 and, and Fun Home. Hey, Fun Home. Love Fun Home. Um, and, um, so, um, I think it's the, the, the expansion into, uh, Europe and Asia. And, uh, now, you know, China is going to explode pretty soon as soon as some of those restrictions are lifted. I think there's an expanding market there. Um, so I think that's what's, what's changing. I just, I have one last question and then we'll open it up to folks in the, in the house. Oh, I'm curious how your organizations are dealing with device theater. If it comes to you, if it is presented to you as, um, I'm just curious what your, both your personal reaction and maybe what your, your organizational reaction is to it. Once it's been devised, um, we'll take it on, you know? We handle a lot of device. You do. Debate society and, um, yeah, a lot. I mean, it's, uh, really the, the only question, at least from, from, if I were to be presented with something which was device theater, ultimately my only question would be, okay, how are the royalties divided? Who gets it? You know, who is the actual owner of this copyright? Um, it's just a different kind of theater. Uh, you know, I think there's, um, an area that I'm interested in and, um, it's, it's gaining some momentum, but I think there is a, I think there's someone needs to do the, do the great thing, which is, um, transmedia. Um, transmedia is not multimedia. It's not telling the same story in various media. It's not, you know, having the Star Wars movie and the novelization of the Star Wars movie and the same story of the Star Wars movie done on television or on the internet, but it's telling a story that you need to access in various different media. So a piece of the story is told in the theater and a piece is told in a movie and a piece is told on television. And there's a piece that you get from a book and one leads you to the other and it all sort of comes or comes together. Um, they've been using a lot of transmedia elements to promote movies, not so much as a thing in and of itself. Um, but I think there is, um, a future in that. And, uh, um, I think it's going to take someone, I was talking to somebody about this and they said something which I thought was so interesting. They said, you know, there were silent movies before the jazz singer, but they didn't catch on. The jazz singer was a hit. And once they had a hit, then talkies were real and talkies. Everybody wanted to do a talkie. And I think the same thing is going to be true for transmedia. Once it actually works, then people are going to pick up on it. It's going to be an area. I think we're seeing some movement with, um, it's been going on for a while, but I think it's, it's getting there, which is, you know, um, experiential theater, environmental theater, site specific theater, immersive theater, all different variations. Um, and that's kind of hard to write for. Um, but, um, and it's also hard to license. What we'll figure it out because I think audiences are becoming attracted to that. It's a new thing. And you know, it, what I, it's one of the things I think actually that sort of caused the death of commercial theater off Broadway. It's, you know, I, not very kindly, I, I call it bang on a can theater, you know, places, places like Stomp and Slava Snow Show and things like that. You know, that's like going to a theme park and that's not the kind of theater that I think we can, or at least that we DPS, I don't think we can license that effectively. Maybe somebody can, maybe you guys can. I don't know. It doesn't, it doesn't appeal to me. We're going to open this up for questions, but before we do, you know, I've sat on a lot of these panels and I'll just give you an example with agents when I, when I've talked to agents. And, and it's probably not the time to air your grievances. You don't know, I mean, I know everybody has had maybe a frustrating time or two and, and their experience. If I rejected your play, please don't tell me. I don't do that anymore. And while I certainly don't want to filter you at all, what I do want to say is, if you could really point that in the direction of a question, that would be really fantastic. Okay, yes ma'am. With who? Norton. Right. W. W. Norton. It's a book contract. So how does, how is that different from publishing a play? Because I know from the contract, they own everything I, I'm about to deliver to them. We publish, we publish the acting editions, although it sounds like with the Christie thing, you're getting kind of out of just being an acting edition, but we, but by and large, we publish acting editions, which are different than what's known in the business, trade editions, which is what yours, Norton is a trade publisher. So the, the custom has been that acting editions are kept separate from the trade editions and we're supposed to be able to exist, you know, happily side by side. It hasn't always worked that way with the electronic editions, but certainly with the print editions. Let me just jump in for a second. We're in two different businesses. We are, we both have the same business model. We are publishers and we are licensors. When we license a play, we are agents for the play and we take a commission, 10% for professional, 20% for amateur. When we publish a play, we are publishers and we pay you a royalty of 10%. 10%. You wanted to make sure. Make sure. Yeah, 10%. Right. But in exchange for that 10%, you own the work. No, you own the work. No, you own the work. Copyright is in your name. The copyright for a play for a playwright always. Now, I will say, you know, in your, did you say you've already signed your contractor? Well, right. Sometimes those rights to be able to publish a play or things like that may need to be able to be carved out of your trade publication. Is this a novel? It's a novel, though. Right. Okay, so they're all going to be changed. Yes, ma'am. There's a microphone right behind you. I was wondering, I am a writer of books and also a playwright. Now, I had an agent, a literary agent to represent me with books, but how necessary is an agent for a playwright and how do you get one? Well, I've been puzzled. I, you know, I'm just learning. I mean, I'm here because I want to learn the business right. You know, writing plays and the whole agent thing just kind of puzzles me. Yeah, it's a, you know, it's a, it's, there's no definitive answer to this question as to when is the right time to have an agent if you're a playwright. Usually when something is about to happen is a good time to start, you know, if you've got a production that's, you know, seems to be, you know, in the wings, that's a good time to start thinking about it. But, you know, you can also get an agent if you've written a really fabulous play and other people have read it and they say, this is a great play. You need to have somebody help you get that on, then start looking for an agent through references. I also, you know, it's, which comes first, the, the production or the, or the representation. But, you know, if you're busy looking for a producer to produce your play and that play has any sort of notoriety, agents will be showing up and looking for you. They'll look for you too, yeah. Okay, and do, just like with literary agents, major publishing companies don't accept unsolicited things, do most professional theaters require and agents to submit your work? A lot of them do, yeah. They sure do. Right, yes ma'am. You want to stand up for us and we're getting a microphone for you. Here you go. Thank you. Let's suppose I'm a playwright and I've had a production at a university or say a community theater and I really feel it's an excellent production. I haven't had a production in a big market like LA or New York. Would sending you, if I was going to submit my play to your companies, would sending a video of that production be helpful to you in making a decision about whether to take on my play or not? I'm going to tell you a funny story, maybe not so funny. Every time someone, and I've heard this from so many people, they'll say send me the video and the reality is, is that the video of a play is always terrible. It never works. But you'll always hear the person go, I'm a professional. I'll be able to see the difference and the reality is they watch it and they go, this is terrible. So videos of plays don't work. Send a video and, you know, as I said this afternoon, I'm sure you have the same guidelines. You know, we don't accept unsolicited manuscripts at DPS. We ask that people send us a query letter, tell us as much about, you know, the history of the play, the productions at the university or the community theater, a little bit about the play, you know, make the best case for why we should read the play and then we'll decide whether or not we're going to read it. I think most agents are the same way. Probably so. Yes, ma'am. You've mentioned that the trans media is a new thing. And to me, my first gut reaction was we're losing our attention span as a people because of all of the software, tablets and all of the other things going on. But I was also thinking you talked about a super packaging of your enhanced scripts. And today, of course, projections are a very important part of productions. And of course, there are producers that do video and other things that can be marketed, I would think, in conjunction with the place that can be used. If again, this might not be so much even for professional productions, although it could be if there are visuals, just as there will be sound effects. We do have, you know, if you go on our website, you'll see a little thing that says supplemental materials. And there are dozens of plays that have exactly what you're talking about. Some plays will have a soundtrack that we also license or projections or, you know, it just depends on the particular play. I'm assuming it's the same. Yes, sure. So yeah, it's definitely. Then I just have one other question. I tell you what, let me jump around and then I'll come back. OK, good, good. Yes, ma'am. She is not a ma'am. No ma'am. She is not a ma'am. Oh ma'am. A what? He called you ma'am. You're anyway. Anyway, hi, I'm Rebecca Suella. I am curious how you plan to interact with or if you plan to interact with the new play exchange. Hmm. That's a good question. I think we'd like to interact with them. I think we have similar interests. Our models are different. Though. And yeah, it's intriguing. I don't really know enough about it. But yes, sure. We're all interested in the same thing. We're all interested in getting new plays produced. It's just it's just another tool towards finding what we want to add to our catalog. OK. Well, I just want to be good. New play exchange charges people to to post their plays or read their read plays. Yeah. Bruce, I'm fascinated by what you touched upon with trans media. And I was wondering if you could give us some more examples of how you see trans media transforming your business. Maybe you could just give us an example or two of a particular property that you think is using trans media. I don't I don't know that I have a property. I just sort of see it in the future. Someone came to me with this is before I was at Samuel French as an attorney. They had they had bought the designs of this of these fairies. They were very uniquely created and they were writing a story about fairies that they were wanted to turn into a movie and an interact a movie and a book and all of these things. And I thought that if they could develop if the story was good enough that they could develop into it into a musical. And so it's just this if you want to learn something about trans media, there's a book. It's called Kathy's book and Kathy's book is it was out years ago. You basically pick it up and it says if you found someone's diary and it says if you if you found this please call me and there's a phone number. And if you call the phone number she goes there's a recording that goes. I don't remember. You know it's a while ago. It goes. Oh my God. Do you did you find my diary. Please please call me. You know I'm doing this. I'm doing that whatever and it takes you to a website which takes you down another rabbit hole which takes you to somewhere else. This is really off topic but I'll see if I can tell it fast. They were doing the Dark Night you know the Batman movie and this was they were using it for marketing. Somehow people I don't remember how exactly the word got out. They left a dry flash drive somewhere and someone picked it up or it was a title in the credits of some movie and it led you to a website and the website was about was there was a message from a Robin Banks and if you figured out this puzzle it led you to a bakery in New York City and this guy went to this bakery and said I'm here I'm here for a package and they looked at him like you know I don't know what you're talking about and he said I was sent by Robin Banks and they gave him this box and he opened the box and there was a cake and the cake started ringing and he put his hand in the cake and he pulled out a Ziploc bag that had a phone and a charger in it and he answered the phone and it was a recording saying keep this phone with you charged at all times I will be back in touch with you it turns out that other people found it too in six other cities they started tweeting you know writing about it on the internet and that took them to another place where they were there was a rally in Barcelona and you want to license this no no no just telling you what trans how trans media can work anyway it turned out to be the biggest opening of a movie before avatar in history so what I'm saying is is that there are things that it's a kind of a all encompassing way of telling stories and I think there's a future in it for the theater the theater piece of it great yes sir I just have a question concerning an agent and when the internal sort of mechanism should set for a player or emerging playwright to think of one and if the usual the usual way solicit like in New York for example there's sort of a robust playwrighting community especially if you know there's little festivals like fringe and ice factory and you've done those we had works at here is places like that when is an intern a good internal gauge is it if you've been reviewed or is it usually that an agent should contact you or are the two major ways that one would get an agent if they're in that kind of realm to just wait until an agent reaches out to you or the references because it really I kind of I know there's no rhyme or reason but I'm just trying to gauge when an internal clock should take for someone who's like oh I should be thinking of getting an agent and if after that the clock has gone off if it's mostly just wait till they reach out to you because they've read your show or you know it like I said before there's really no hard and fast answer I wish there were it would make it a whole lot easier for everybody in this room but sometimes the agent's going to come to you and you know agents do I know agents have a terrible reputation but you know they they wouldn't be doing particularly in the theater they wouldn't be doing what they're doing if they didn't really love it and and be devoted to writers and to writing they cover all of those places that you're talking about you know they try to they go to the O'Neill they do you know they go to PPF they they they go to oh hi and they are going to pick up certain people and writers from in place from from those particular venues but at the same time a writer can't just sit back and wait for the phone to ring that's right and you have to you have to be a part of a community you know here's what that's what you're doing right now so you know that's not a you're already what at least one step there towards you know finding an agent or finding you know moving your career ahead but you have to do things like this I think actions action creates opportunities so you know sure pick up the phone call an agent to send the send the play actually I think a great way if you're a beginner and you're you're trying to get in is make friends with the assistant get the assistant to come they come back into the office and say you kind of see this thing I saw the assistant's going to be you know the head of the agency one day my assistant at Gersh is now the head of the William Morris agency theater department I'm not lying he is you guys I'm so sorry we have run out of time would you please help me thank you thank you Gary so what I promised just so you know what I promised before these two gentlemen came up was that we would not rush the stage so if you were just you know want you to have your time but we have to be out of the room in about five minutes okay we can we can hang out in the lobby but no autographs please