 We are being live-streamed today so with all that we need to say we're capturing the meeting for people who want to access it later or who are watching from home or listening from home and it means that if you ask a question you'll be voice-recorded but your face will not be captured because we're not going to spend the wally-type creatures. So I guess I'm going to welcome you to Diplomatis and to what has become our annual panel meeting. We started these meetings this session a couple of years ago as a way to both explain and demystify the admissions process for those who are interested in applying, those who have applied in the past and want to know more about the procedure and also to field any questions you might have about the residency itself so it can help answer this question. I'm Emily Morse, I'm the director of artistic development and I'm the incoming artistic director and I'll introduce our panel. I would love to then just hear, I would love you to interview Storzelt so we have faces and names attached and we can face in the room. That's Morgan Allen, our tech crew, over there is a step to Diplomatis. I've been the artistic director here for the last 18 years and I have five more days. Three seconds. Uh, let me hold that and I'll put it right here. We'll shut it for five seconds. Right? Three seconds. Yeah. Yeah. Stacey Morse. I can see the plan. I'm John Allen, I'm the director. Uh, I'm Julia Dewey. I have someone to be out for a while. I'm John Morse. I'm Stephen Hatton. I'm Stephen Bowling. Oh, there you go. You're a friend. Hi. We're Dave Lombs. And just coming up. John Steeler. He's the director of the Playwrights Lab. Also will be great resource for any questions you might have about the residency. Um, so, Todd. Yeah. Yeah, we just need a little context and uh, I apologize. I have time that I'm going to slip out early. I'm about to move my family 3,000 miles across the country. And there's a lot to do. But I wanted to be here today. One final time for me for this. Um, so I've been working for 18 years at Neutron as an artistic director. And one of the things that we've all inherited, which I feel proudest of in this place, is the admissions process. Um, and I know that's what we're here to introduce everybody to today, or try and clarify in this way, so be mystified. Um, the reason that I feel particularly proud of it, is because despite the fact that it is immensely frustrating to about 495 people every year, and despite the fact that those of us who are on staff here have always wished that we could serve more playwrights directly, it is in fact about as fair as any kind of selection, any kind of selection in houses I've ever seen. And part of that fairness, I think, is in the integrity of the conversations, in the way the process is articulated, and I like that clear today. Part of the fairness is in the very randomness of it. And the fact that the people who decide each year we are not sitting on here, because we only facilitate the process and don't weigh in at all. But the fact that the people who decide every year have a level of sentiment made up of three current writers, and we draw in the resident playwrights, two former or alumni resident playwrights, and two outside theater professionals, part of the fairness is that they change every year, so that there is no monolithic group on you as a playwright. There is no sense of, like, new dramatists looking to do this kind of playwright or that kind of playwright. And as the person who has principally and with Emily facilitated the discussions, which you'll hear how they go, for 18 years, I've really, I've seen a years that the process went better than others in terms of everybody being heard and reaching a true consensus. But I've never really seen a process that was whimsical or in any way monolithic that wasn't a true and incredibly passionate and honest attempt by the panel to define their collective values on behalf of this organization. So I'm part of the way that I've known from year to year that it works even though, again, every year only about 1% of the people who apply get in is that it changes so rapidly from year to year. So that one year someone will be eliminated in the first round who will be, like, a shoe-it for next year. Sometimes someone, I think you said four times, sometimes there will be people who apply 10, 12 times and get in and they, even they feel it's the right moment for them to get in. You know, I was looking at, as I'm cleaning out my office, I came upon a piece of our oral history that we've been doing for the last, I don't know, 15 years or so. And one of the stories that was a mystery to me until about a year ago was how we came to have seven-year residencies. Because when the drama started 65 years ago in 1949, there was no sense that it would be a lasting organization at all. There really was a sense of we want to help playwrights. There were no kind of aid programs at the time. There was no awful program, really no awful program. No regional theater to speak of that was just beginning. There were no opportunities for playwrights to learn their craft, except on Broadway, and who learns their craft on Broadway. So the sort of that catch-22 that every playwright always feels, which is, how do I get my plays produced, you know, if you haven't produced my plays, you know, if nobody knows me because I haven't been produced, was like extreme in 1949. And so the organization was created by a playwright and for friends in the support of some of the lines of the Dramatist Guild through their, you know, through the deceitful of these online playwrights. And it was just established as kind of playwrights in a room with free tickets to Broadway, a chance to have craft discussions with their seniors, their elders in a way, a chance to rebuild work to each other. And these were very sort of small and formative programs, but it was the only way for playwrights to be together. And what they never thought about was how long people would stay in the organization. So there was kind of a sense that everybody was in it forever. And then there were years where one half of the membership decided the other half was no good. They should get the frick out, you know, or that they hadn't been around and so they weren't helping. And so there were all kinds of formulations. And then sometime in the 70s, by named Steve Hardy who was on staff, was dealing with this kind of internet, not seeing, you know, struggle between the playwrights who showed up in the ones who were actually working playwrights and the ones who've been in forever. And they created as a community the idea of setting their residency. So the very churning of this community and the kind of natural mentorship that happened as people in their fifth and sixth and seventh years help people in their first and second and third years figure out how best to use the lab, how best to use the staff, how best especially to use each other is something that is always evolving. But the thing that was developed and I cannot tell you actually how well it has developed, I know I'm inherited at 18 years ago, is this process, the equation of the three current writers, two former writers and two outside theater people. We do pick the writers for the committee and our attempt is always to get all sorts of elected aesthetics in the room, generational difference, ethnic and cultural difference, gender parity, every kind of difference and array. The regional, yeah, even regional and also professional so though there are five writers each year, we change with some theaters, we have a drama tournament and designers sometimes an actor and director, sometimes a non theater writer, but always a chance that over the course of four years or eight years or 12 years or one year, everybody has a chance to find their room and the room has a chance to find you. So I'm immensely proud of the process. We work every year to make sure the conversation that happens is real. Emily and everybody will talk a little bit about some of the changes we've gone through in the last few years as the numbers of applicants this year is because of Bill and April as and having a long first round and so on and so forth. But I just want to, you know, and of course I have a course in the game, I don't know how to erase or whatever the metaphor is. I really care about the project but you hear it again and again and you hear it when you go through it. You know, we spent 45 hours between January, March and May in our room together and discussing everyone who's been read. The numbers follow towards the end by the end of every one of the panel and you know all of us has read all of the finalist plays. The discussions are deep. They're searching, they're honest, they're passionate, they're full of conflict and disagreement and what we do is we remain always for consensus which we define very clearly in the panel. And although there are hundreds of playwrights in this country who shouldn't be here and aren't, I have never had the experience that I can recall in 18 years of someone getting who I didn't think got in the wrenches or deserved to be here. So I say that for what it's worth at the beginning of a new year of this and because I'm proud of it and because I feel like it's one of the best things about this place because also what it does is it ensures you when you do get in or if you don't that you know that the staff was not working for or against you that no one is chosen by anyone who remains to run the programs or unchosen lives so that we can be as fair, impartial and as dedicated to advocating for all playwrights even as we serve maybe 50 at a time. Which seems to me, you know, it's always felt kind of like the people who are, you know, getting settled and not getting involved in the process, which feels exclusive but trusting for a staff of eight or nine to be serving 50 playwrights over a period of seven years during which another 50 cycle in doesn't feel exclusive at all. It's super important. So those are my credit shots. Good luck. We have a lot to say. I'm going to delve out in about 20 minutes or so. Thank you. I'm going to echo some of the things that Todd said about the procedure. I think we'll go through the procedure. Rachel is able to provide a live demo of the process through which you would apply and then I would love to be able to feel your questions because that's ultimately why we're here is to make sure that you get the answers that you mean about the residency, about the procedure. I would just add a couple of things to what Todd said in terms of us picking the committee. I mean, I would say it's more like an assembly, we assemble the committee because a lot of people, we invite them to participate. They're not available one year, so we build the committee with all the intention that Todd had mentioned, but sometimes it's about, oh, this person's available instead of this one, okay, so then what does that provide for us and how do we complement that? So it is almost individual to individual building process that we go through to make sure that that committee provides as broad a leadership as possible to be able to speak to and respond to all kinds of writing styles, content. So I would just say that. And then we've also done a very good job in encouraging the writers to let us know when they're available because it is, as Todd was explaining, it's a nine-man commitment and it's a very rigorous one and so often they all know better than we will about what their schedule will allow in terms of the reading, in terms of the meanings and the decision they make. So as you... So the other thing to know about this while we're in it is that the people on the committee, so they read, they're going to read over nine months, they're going to read ten plays every two weeks, have three meetings in total of about 45 hours. This is in the middle of their busy family teaching, writing, TV, theater, crazy lives and they essentially don't get paid. You give them a little bit per play to compensate them and we feed them when they're in a room together. But the reason they do it is out of their commitment to this community. So there's no sense of like, oh yes, once a year I get paid a buttload of money to learn it over a bunch of fledgling. It's pure service. That's all. Yes, no, that's good. We ask the writers, once they're members of Neutrometers or residents of Neutrometers, to do two things or three things. Rather, one is to use the resources of this place fully and openly and frequently. Second is to put Neutrometers in their vials and the third is to serve on the admissions committee at least once during their residency. And many do, and then many come back and do it as alumni because then they're, you know, that's the spirit of it. They know what they're in for and often enjoy it. I mean, it's kind of an amazing process. So as you know, so our mission window this year open on July 1st. So we are now accepting applications for the 2014-2015 admissions process. As Todd said, so as that's happening, as you're applying to Neutrometers, we are going to assemble this seven-person committee. So I'm in the process of those asks right now and building the next committee who will go on this nine-month journey with us. Two years ago, we went paperless. And astonishingly, I mean, we were all kind of underestimating. We knew we would get a job in applications. Prior to two years ago, we were getting about 325,150 applications a year, which seemed like a lot. Once we went paperless, we jumped to 536. And so we had to put into place, which is great. It's like, wow, there's a lot of playwrights around. And one of the things that we needed to do in order to maintain the same schedule of the timeline as well as the thoroughness and the ability to communicate to the applicants in a timely fashion, we had to make some adjustments to our procedure in order to accommodate the increase of applicants. So we added to our seven-person committee. So the seven-person committee goes on the nine-month journey. In the first several months of the process, to assist us with that reading, we added a group of 30 alumni basically volunteers. We went out to our alumni and invited them to commit to reading between 10 and 15 scripts in order to assist the seven-person committee to window the numbers in order to maintain our timeframe. So that was a major change that occurred in response to that increase of numbers. So now it's kind of been set as what we're carrying forward as our procedure. I mean, the other thing I would say about this process, I think in the same way that Todd was explaining how this organization has evolved how the seven years, this process evolves every year. We learn things about how things are done, what works, how it works, and we continue to adapt it in order to serve all our applicants. So in addition to going meaningful as two years ago, the other part of the significant change was that we eliminated letters of recommendation. So prior to two years ago, we had one advantage that could be gotten in this process, which was for an applicant to have a letter of recommendation from either a current resident playwright and a law firm or a member would automatically put both your A play and B play into circulation to two different readers. It didn't change the status of your status, but it was just ensuring that there would be, you would not be rejected until both your plays were automatically read. So that, because otherwise we commit to reading your one play, we commit to reading your A play first, and then as we advance the process, we introduce your B play as well. So we know that you applied two plays, and determine which is the A play, which is the play that's read first, and which is your B play, which will be added in as you advance the process. So that was the one advantage that could be had, is that you had these letters of recommendation from a current resident playwright and a law firm or a member. These letters of recommendation were optional, and were really of very little to no consequence in your application. Letters of recommendation were not really read or introduced in the actual meetings. The focus of the first two meetings and half of the second meeting is all focused on the work. The conversations that are had by the committee in those meetings in January, mid-March, and early May, were really focused on the quality of the work, the passion for the work, the passion for the voice. There were no sort of candidacy matters that were raised, or who knew who or what prizes anybody had. It was all about how the committee was responding to the work, and the questions that the other committee members might have about what you read. So that was the content of the course of the discussions, was all work focus. So it seemed that Henry had these letters of recommendation. Dear friends and colleagues of ours who were spending a lot of time and their energy and passion to endorse and support the playwrights who were applying, and it seemed that without any consequence whatsoever to where the leverage, there was no leverage to be gotten. And so it seemed disingenuous to continue accepting letters of recommendation because we say, it doesn't matter who you know, it's really about how your work meets the committee and the passion that the committee feels about the work, and then how they buy consensus as a group of seven without the list and ultimately determine who the writers were. So we eliminated them kind of just across the board, no nothing from anybody. When we took this to the Writers Executive Committee, our Writers Executive Committee is a volunteer group of writers. Once you're a resident playwright, you can volunteer to be on the Writers Executive Committee and they are essentially the policy-making body of this organization. To them we take all matters of policy, staff and personnel programming and they either determine the outcome or influence the outcome or give us some background on how we should go. So if we propose this to them before making the outcome of change, we say, well, this is great. We want a little bit of influence though. It's a community. This is a place that is about community and how to build and support the community. So could we still advocate and favor of someone? So we thought, okay, we can do that. But then to balance that out, we decided to make the whole first round of reading blind. So what happens is after we get all the applications, we circulate the list of applicants to the current company only and they may advocate if they were one person having both their A and B playwright in the first round. So that's what the advocacy is essentially the same as letter of information. They don't have to provide a letter. They advocate, we note it, and then we circulate the A and B play to two different readers in the process. I've announced to them which is the A and which is the B and who even wrote it. So all of that whole process is blind. So that was a fairly new, while that was a significant change, as it was all pointed, paper lists and then taking letters of recommendation and balancing that out of the advocacy and fairness to all. And so that was what we did two years ago as part of our new process. So... Well, you're not missing this book just to elaborate on the thing. The other thing about that is that there was something that we lost that was, I think, an important value to us when we went to paper lists which was the ability based on the numbers to discuss every play that was read. So once we had this other reading in the first part, we suddenly had to... Because we had two... Remember, 500 playwrights is actually a thousand plays, as opposed to 300 playwrights, which is at least 600 playwrights. So we could sort of get to most of those plays that the panel read, but we can't have a conversation with all of the 30 readers now. So what we try to do is... It's kind of this balance-less mitigation of the anonymity of that first part by going blind, by not having the cloud of recommendation, so no one ever sees the recommendation, and by making that little advocacy step where a writer on the current resident playwright can in effect kind of save a playwright or make sure that both of their plays get read, to make that anonymous as well. So I don't know, for example, that you are the person... My dear friend, whose taste I value above all others is the person who advocated for this right. I don't know that we are blind to each other until the second round at which point people start discussing plays in a room. So it's all our attempt to sort of balance, you know, the manic sides of the process with the integrity of the small, more intimate process while eliminating the other thing that Emily didn't say, which I think is important to know is that we retire having our beloved playwrights who have to ask for recommendations all the time. It's one thing for our colleagues to waste their time writing recommendations that I haven't even read, but for you guys to have to, like, call out the favors again for no reason is ridiculous. So that was part of it, too. We also didn't carry materials forward. So after each round, you know, all those letters would be shredded when they weren't in paper form or online and put digital equivalent at this point. So that was the only reason that those annual calls to people to write those letters of recommendation became onerous to people both from the asker and also from the writer. So that is true. And then also an important point to add with this new sort of screening process with the alumni group that we did employ a numerical system that we use with our Princess Race applications as well or for adjudication process. And that was another thing between year one of paper lists and year two of paper lists, was that, you know, numbers really don't tell you very much about how we feel about play. So we also asked for comments from the alumni readers in order to unpack what those numbers meant. We took all of that data to the committee for their, we made recommendations to them about where we felt that the natural cuts would be. We posed questions to them that were posed from the readers. And, you know, and almost 100% of the cases if both year one and year two were ever there were questions from the reader, the committee decided that that person should be read and evaluated because, you know, with the question about how they felt about play or something about voice, that they felt that they should take that to the first discussion in January to be unpacked. So another part of that, that no one gets caught in that first round, that first pre-screening round, until the committee looks at all the lists of all the people who are recommended to be cut at that point. And they also may say, if you see the news for that, it's more about saving someone to go forward in the process, someone that they, at that point, wanted to make sure it was read by the entire committee. But then, so the whole process from, so does that make sense? Can I say something as important because I joined to leave? This is a lot of detail. Yeah, it's a lot of detail. But I really want you to know why we provide all this detail. It is our firm desire to not have any of this be a mystery to anybody who's on it. And the one thing you'll never know is who is in the room each. We keep that confidential. It's such a small community that we don't want anybody to feel that someone was passing judgment on, you know, when they can't know what the conversation was. We never say what the conversation was. We never send feedback. But what we want you to know, and we want everybody to not know who applies, is what the details of the process are. We want it to be as transparent as possible. And the problem of transparency with something like this, is it's a logistical nightmare. So to understand it or see it transparently means that you're going to go down into the details a little bit, you know. So I'm sorry, you know, you can certainly do nothing out of it. It's too much. But it's really our attempt to open it up to someone who understands it. And I think too, to the important part, this is exactly that. And also how it's an evolving process. How it is constantly being evaluated every year for that or how it is to be better. What makes, you know, so that's also, so you know that it's interconstant. You know, where it's in an annual state of being re-evaluated in order to serve you all and the community better. So, yeah, sorry. I'm sorry. If I didn't get to more coffee, I don't want to get to more coffee because I've never seen myself like this. And then the questions will come back later. Because then people are like, wait, how did that work? Anyway, thank you for coming today. I'm going to turn it over to these guys entirely and good luck. May it be all of your years that we've never had a class this big. Love that question. Thank you. So just because that was so detailed, did you have any questions thus far? No. Yeah. Oh, who has a question? Jay. Okay. I didn't quite follow. You're talking about the numerical. Yeah. So, are you saying that after we're all read by the readers, there's somehow a sign to sort of a numerical value? Yeah, yeah. And of course we have now, we have to implement a pre-screening, for lack of a better term, a pre-screening round where, you know, every A-play, at least an A-play, again, if you're advocating for the A and B-play, are read by the Seven Person Committee and the 30 alumni, right? And this first, it's called a pre-screening round, right? So it takes place between, say, September and November. And yeah, because we can't discuss all of those all 536 applicants, which is what we used to do, is discuss all the applicants we couldn't. So we have now, we have a numerical, as I said, sort of a quality. Yeah, we have numbers, and then we've assigned qualitative terms to those numbers to help standardize, at least for our process, what those numbers mean. Because the first year, we had just numbers, and it was kind of all over the place, as you can expect. So the second year, we added qualitative terms to help focus on how the numbers would be assigned to each play that was read by the amount of nine in the committee. Are they going to become a score or something? Essentially, yeah. I mean, it's like nine to two, right? The scale is nine to two, nine being the highest score. And then two being the lowest score. And then they also put comments. They explained why they gave that number, referring to some of those middle, especially the middle numbers are very hard. Five, five, six, four, five, six, four, five, six are sometimes difficult to gauge. So we would read the comments, and if there was anything that the reader was questioning about why they gave that number, we actually took those matters to the committee to decide, does this play move forward or does this play get tied at this point? Does that make sense? And so then after that, we have a meeting. We have a phone conference in November. I know, it's crazy. I feel more sorry for all of you now. Sorry! You know, I was just, it disappeared into a vacuum and then, you know, but you had this whole process. Yeah. One quick, I have a lot of other questions. Quickly, I'm trying some musicals today. I'm actually doing one song. So is that, listen to the first process? Yes. The committee reads 10 plays every two weeks. The alumni read 10 to 15 plays by a certain deadline in the fall. And if there is music assigned to the music, if they're assigned a musical that has music, absolutely, all of the material or the play are given to the reader to read and evaluate at that time. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Let me go back. But here, here, and then... I'm going to go here to sexy. I'm sorry. Shakespearean, absolutely. Shakespearean, absolutely. So if you were saying that in the pre-screen process, then the committee gets the list of people who are going to be cut, right? And that's when people on the committee can go, oh, but that's Tennessee Williams and he's great. They just don't get it. Like where they can say something, they can be like, no, this person shouldn't be cut. Right. Yes. They can do, yes. And it could be for any number of reasons. Not most of the time, if they want the committee to read, they want that person to discuss in the first meeting. Do you know? It may be that, yes. So they say you can save one person. Gosh. Yeah. No. Which is something a little reality-showing. You can save one player. I know. Yeah, because I feel like the other thing to say is that these writers are very generous towards other writers, you know? And so, you know, we want to keep their numbers manageable at the same time, allowing them to say in where people are going at what point of the process. So that's where that... Well, I'm afraid this is going to get me going deeper into the weeds. Sure. You know, you sort of get ahead and tell us apart. But it occurs to me, as you just described that, after following up with this question, and I'm sorry, I don't know your name, but J is a question. It may even be helpful to people here and people listening to us, but it may even be helpful, despite you and Todd explaining to you that new groundless doesn't have the local core of a particular genre or content or gender or anything, whatever. But it might be helpful to hear what the quality of the descriptors are, because if we're choosing plays that we want to submit for you to evaluate, we know that you, since you have now come up with evaluation descriptions and categories, and a hierarchy based on that, perhaps if people share that the question might help us pick a play that we think might have a better shot at making it far beyond. I would say this about them. I mean, we keep them as open as possible. They're not, I mean, only because I would say, and I would share them with you, but what I would say is you can't second guess because ultimately the decision is the committee. I never know how that committee is going to respond if it works, so if you're trying to second guess them or then, the terms are more like great craft, great voice, you know, if you're passionate about this, so it's more about how they're reading than what you're submitting because, and then they provide the description because I guess we would never want to dictate or try to influence what you send. My response to what you're submitting is what you feel represents you the best name. You're on fire about, I say this every year, that send the thing you feel the most passionate about because, ultimately, that might ignite the passion in the readers. So in terms of the terms there, you know, strong voice, strong craft, this play, I want to know more about this. I'm not sure of this place to look on. This is a weak voice or the voice is interesting, but not in form. You know, and so it's more about that than, you know, this is a farce with six characters and it's, you know, it's not, there's no categories as far as what you're submitting. It's more about how they're trying to read or work. And it's definitely exciting to me. But you have certain readers who, everyone was in seven or nine because they went in really nicely. Everyone, no one would, they didn't even, no one was a one to six. Everyone was either seven or nine. And there were others who did go over six at all, so all their, their highs were six. So the point is, how do you sort of, how do you, how do you take those two points of view and kind of coalesce them, do you know what I mean? So that, that's the reason for that. So it's really because there's someone else who's like, I can't give anybody a roll of a seven. And so, so the, so the place that they got, they thought the weakest would get a seven. Whereas someone else that could maybe make like a week would give them a two. So it's really a way of kind of trying to figure out what's in the, in the heads of, of the writers, really, of the readers. So it wasn't about, it wasn't about, it wasn't about subject. It wasn't about genre. It wasn't about style. It was really just about... It's still basically easy in a subjective form for them, do you know? So it's compelling boys, compelling execution, compelling boys, skilled craft. I mean, these are things that they're also having to interpret. And that's why then we ask them to provide supportive notes, because then we see what they mean by that. And then we, you know, so that's part of how we track that for them. To, especially as John was saying, you know, we have some people far on this, the six category, which is evidence of boys, last craft, should this playwright continue? I think we, you know, I think inevitably playwrights push back and say, well, I would say they lack craft. But I think this is a solid six. So then we had to debate what do we do with those people and inevitably they said we should move them on. We want to talk about that. What does that mean? So, and then at the end of the process we're always asked, how did you feel about the process? And so these are things that were, that six category was the most challenging. And then they're really being asked should this go forward at this point? So is that, is that helpful? Yeah, okay. I have one thing. To what John was saying, and as far as the numbers and the priests running around, we really do look at, like for instance, if there is an alumni leader that is reading out for everything and not or you know, super high numbers, we also look at that and kind of make a special note. You know, because if if there's someone else that has read that given play and has rated it a really low number, we will, we will not take that. So it's, it's like any kind of system that you put on this process, which is a very idiosyncratic and complex and thorough anyone's process. I guess the I would say the comfort I would like taking in all of that is that there are the whole process is very human. So despite, despite like numbers in certain sections and despite that it's online, like you're submitting online, there, there's always staff members that are like, we're looking out for those instances where we're like wait a minute, like you know, oftentimes Emily and I will go back and forth about, you know, questions, you know, in regards to questions beginning part of the admissions process and we'll raise those to each other because we want to give everyone and that's part of why I just, that's part of why we put the terms, because we were seeing a lot more of that kind of like this is a nine, this is a nine, this is a nine, you know, than other people like John say, six, six. So that's what we've started, we have to kind of define what these numbers mean to us when they're forwarded. I actually am really clear after hearing all the processes that we have to go. As we move the piece on so there's no, there's no limit to what they do and there's no and they can keep working on the same piece. So quite often some of the writers will actually use the various different types of programs so the shepherd