 Welcome to our first seminar of the fall semester 2013-2014. If you don't know me, I'm Terri Stratton. I'm Director of Education and Outreach here at the Guild, and I plan all of these seminars for the Guild. As always, if you have any requests or questions, there are people you're dying to see, please feel free to e-know me. You can find my e-mail address on the website, or I'm at tstratton at dramanessguild.com. Let me remind you to put your phones on silent. We'll try leaving them on. If you want to tweet or do anything like that during the session today, feel free to do so. We are live streaming on the internet. If you have a question later on, please make sure you ask it loud enough so that our online audience can hear it. That way, if they have the same question, they know not to ask it also. Without further ado, I'm very excited to have with us Ann Morgan from the Emile Center. She is going to walk you through the application process, do the don'ts, and answer any questions you might have about that. Thank you very much to the dramaness Guild. It's a real thrill to be here talking to you and to everyone on the internet as well. My name is Ann Morgan. I'm a honorary manager at The O'Neill. The bulk of my work there is really overseeing the submission and selection processes for the National Playwrights Conference and the National Music Theatre Conference. A little general background about The O'Neill before I dive into those two conferences. The O'Neill is located in Waterford, Connecticut, right on the Long Island Sound. And we were founded just about 50 years ago, 2014 is our 50th anniversary. The National Playwrights Conference was our founding conference, but since then we've developed a number of different programs all to discover and develop and nurture new work and new artists for the stage. So we have the Playwrights Conference, which I'm going to talk about in depth, and the National Music Theatre Conference as well. Well, we also have the National Puppetry Conference, which is developing new works of puppet theater. It's about a little over 20 years old, and it was founded by the Henson family, among others. We have the Cabaret and Performance Conference, which is developing new works of cabaret, intimate performance, usually with music, with the audience more engaged in the action. We have the National Critics Conference, which is one of our oldest programs, training theatrical journalists and really getting them inside the rehearsal room so they know what it is that happens when we make plays. We have the National Theatre Institute, which is our undergraduate study-away training program. Students come from all over the country to study nothing but theater very intensively for a semester. And then we also own and operate as a museum, the house where Eugene O'Neill, our namesake, grew up. With the National Playwrights Conference, our founding conference, I thought what I would do is give a little bit of background on what the conference is, and then sort of walk through the application process, how one gets to the conference, and then do the same thing for the Music Theatre Conference, what it is, and then the application process, and sort of some questions I get frequently. The National Playwrights Conference takes place during the month of July. We develop anywhere from six to eight plays over that time. We are doing two plays a week that are slightly staggered, but the writers are in residency for the entire time, so they may do their week of development right at the top of the month of July and just be in residence writing and watching the other works for the rest of the month, or they may be writing solitaire by themselves for much of the month and then heading into rehearsal later. So it's staggered, but the writers are there for the entire time. Each play gets about a four and a half day long rehearsal process. One of the things that makes this rehearsal process really unique is that it begins with something called the dream design process. We have a team of resident designers at The O'Neill, which is a little bit unusual for a developmental organization. We're not going to build full sets. We're not going to build full costumes. But what this conversation is, it's between the designers and the writer. The director and dramaturg are present, but they're asked to be silent, which can sometimes be a challenge. And the designers have a conversation with the writer about if money were not an object, if the laws of physics were not an object, what would the sensory world of this play be? Really sort of exploring it inside and out. And then the designers go away and they do some research and they do some renderings. And the writer gets to take all of that with them when they leave The O'Neill. So that's what starts our process. And then four days of rehearsal, table work, some staging if the writers need it or just all around the table, if that's what the writer needs. We try to be flexible in our process with what the writer feels will help them the most. And at the end of that period of time, there are two public staged readings. After the first stage reading, the director, writer and dramaturg will go away, talk about how it all went. There are two hours of rehearsal the following day to put in any changes. I've seen some processes make no changes during that two-hour rehearsal period and some totally change the play. And then a second public reading. We bring in a full team, director, actors, dramaturgs. We really try to get the best of the best people who get really excited about new plays. And then the rest of the time, once the writer is finished with that four and a half day process, like I said, they're in residence on our beautiful Buchalic campus. They can keep writing the play that they were developing. They can write a whole other play. They can go hang out on the beach. They can use the literary staff to help them research for their next project. It's really sort of time for them as writers to do whatever it is they need. And we really try to support that. And then at the end of the very end of the whole conference, each writer sits down individually with our artistic director, Wendy Goldberg, to talk about what might happen for the play next. Where the writer might want the play to find a home, who the writer knows, who the writer's agent, if they have one knows, if they don't have an agent, would they like one? And how can we set up those conversations in a way that's helpful to them? If Wendy knows directors or artistic directors, is that the best channel to get the work out? So we do try to think very consciously where the work is going next. That is NPC in a very brief nutshell. How do we get there? That's July. It starts now. We are now accepting applications for the 2014 conference through October 25th at 11.59 p.m. Pacific time. So you folks here in New York can actually stay up until three in the morning if you want. Some people do, but you have until October 25th. And what happens to your application? You can apply online or with a hard copy. There's a $35 application fee that supports the open submission process. We don't sample for the National Players Conference. We want your full script, and we guarantee that it will be read all the way through at least once. It is a blind reading process, which means that when you give us your full script, we ask that your name isn't on it. This is something I feel really strongly about. It means that our readers are judging your script by itself without any... I've heard of this writer. I haven't heard of this writer. They're just reading it blind. The application also asks for a little bit of background about you, your bio, things like that that is internal to my office to help us process your application. And then a statement of objectives, which does go with your script, and that stays both within my office and goes out to our readers. We anticipate getting between 900 and 1100 scripts. 20 to 25% of those will advance to the semifinal round, where they are then read again. Then they're read, if they score well in the semifinal round, they're read again by my team, and then about 20% of the semifinalists, which is about 40 to 50 scripts total, will advance to our finalist round. And from that, we will select our summer selections. All applicants are notified in February about their status, either way. And we make final selections in April. One question I get asked a lot is, who is reading my script? Our first round of readers are people that are connected to the O'Neill family. They are actors, directors, students, former interns, people who have seen the O'Neill's process in action, and understand what it is that we do. We have over 100 readers, and I believe in them so much. I love them because they volunteer their time. And what I do is, with readers that are new to us, if I can, I assign a second reader to make sure that there's no way a script is going to fall through the crack. And I read every single reader report that comes in, just to double-check, to make sure that, because readers and scripts are randomly assigned, if I see a report that says, this plays, politics really offended me, I know, okay, that reader is responding to the content and not the quality of the writing, and then I maybe assign it to a different reader, as well, to make sure that we're really trying to be as fair as possible in a process that has a lot in it. And then our semifinalists get read by members of our artistic council. Our artistic council is a much smaller pool. These are people who make their bread and butter working on new plays. Directors, artistic directors, literary managers from around the country, people who are really sort of at the top of this field. And then if they value something highly, then it comes through my office and then goes, like I said, to Wendy, and she makes the final decisions. The NPC application process in a nutshell. Concurrently with the Playwrights Conference every summer is the National Music Theatre Conference, which is just about 35 years old. It was founded with the same principles as the Playwrights Conference to give writers an opportunity to hear their words, hear their music in this case, in front of an audience, pull it apart, put it back together, see what works, take chances. You know, there are no critics. There's the Training Institute, but that's kept very closed. But there's no very low stakes as we try to keep it really focused on the writers. So that starts in mid-June and goes through mid-July. We'll do two to four pieces a summer. And we really, it's the National Music Theatre Conference rather than the National Musical Conference, which is a slight distinction. But we do opera and we do sort of non-traditional music theater pieces. So we try to keep that open. Those pieces get two weeks of rehearsal because it takes a little bit more time to learn the music. And if you're writing a whole new song, that takes a little bit more time. So it's two weeks of rehearsal and they get four public stage readings, two during the first week, two during the second week. Again, a whole professional team brought in. They also have mentors brought in after who see the show cold and then respond privately with the creative team. But they're very much the same principles focused on them and what they need for the piece. Music theater applications open October 28th and go through November 25th. So if you want your deadlines, it's October 25th for playwrights, November 25th for music theater. We try to keep it simple that way. This is the very first year we will be doing online applications for the Music Theater Conference. I'm very excited about this and hope it all works out. But we know it can be a burden to put those packages together with multiple copies of the scripts and multiple copies of the CDs. So we're trying to move things online there. You can also send in a hard copy if you prefer. That application process a little bit different. It's a 30-page sample with six demo tracks that we're looking for. Again, a lot of the same basic info about the applicant, statement of objectives, what you want to accomplish at the conference, and a history of the works development. The next step for this application process, because we only asked for the first 30 pages at the start, is we would then request the full script in January as the timeframe there. And final decisions are made in April. Both conferences make their selections around the same time in April. We anticipate getting between 150 and 175 applications for that conference. And that's that in a nutshell. Some other questions I get quite a lot. I think the most common question I get is what should I put in my statement of objectives? It's a tough one. I know. A couple of things I always say about this. I assume, this is me personally, when I encounter a project, that you don't want the O'Neill to be the end of your work's journey. So a statement of objectives that says, I think my play is great and I want it to go to Broadway. I assume that you do want your play to go on to a long and happy life. And I hope it does as well. But we're looking for a little bit more meat than that. I think of it this way. If a writer friend of mine invited me to see a reading of their work, I would see a reading we got for a drink after a coffee the next day. And they would say, I thought the reading went like this and here are the things I want to work on moving forward. Think of it like that conversation. It's written. I know it's not as fun as going out for a drink or coffee. But it's really your chance to talk to the person who's just encountered your play. They have read it, so you don't need to worry about spoilers or anything like that. Tell us if it's had a reading already and what's worked and what you want to continue to explore. Tell us what excites you about the play or what got you started in the first place. I really want to know what your perspective of the work is and where on your journey you feel like you are. And we ask that it's about a page. And I've seen these take a number of different forms. Sometimes it's one lengthy block of text all sort of unpacking this one component of the play. Sometimes it's a list. Sometimes it's very, very, very specific. Sometimes it's an arc or a character that wants to be explored. It varies depending on the work, obviously. But help me understand where you're at with the play, I think, is the best advice I have for that element. Another question I get a lot is, will I get a response to the play? After it's made it through the selection process. And if we reject the work, will you get a response? And the answer is no, I'm afraid not. And the reason for that is we don't want to, because we have so many works submitted and that thrills me that there's so much, so many pieces of theater being written. We are going to turn away good work and I know that and it breaks my heart all the time. But we don't want to give you a response to a play that we haven't selected and have to encourage you to make changes to the script. Changes that might alienate another theater company that might like the play just as it is. So that's sort of our philosophy behind why we don't give responses. That is sort of the quick and dirty of the O'Neill and its application processes. Any questions at the gate? Yes? You didn't say how many of the finalists are in those programs? Sure. The finalists, we start with around 50 finalists for the playwright's conference and 40 to 50 and of that group 5 to 7 are selected for the summer. The music theater conference is a little more rolling, so the number is a little iffy. I would say it's less than 20 finalists for the music theater conference. I know it's maybe an impossible thing to answer because it's so subjective and it probably is fluid. It probably changes depending upon what script matches up with what statement of objectives. But you said everybody asks about this and that is what I wanted to ask you about. If you could quantify it at all, how much weight would you say you give to the script versus the statement of objectives and how much of one influences the other. Obviously you want a great script, but if it's a fantastic script, I guess when I was listening I was wondering, it sounds like maybe you want plays that are already in a more advanced stage because if you've just got a first draft but you think it's got brilliant potential, you may not be able to recognize without having yet heard it in a reading what's working and what's not working and that's specifically why you want to apply to the O'Neill. It helped me with this. I don't know what part of this is working and what's not working, but that's probably too vague. So what does that mean? Well, it's a great question. We accept work in all stages of development. We've had works come to us that have never been read aloud and I think that's certainly a valid thing to say. I've written this, but I've never heard these voices allowed. Do these characters ring true when given voice by actors? Those are all really valid things to say and if you don't know what questions come after that, then tell us why you're excited about it. I think there's still plenty there. As to sort of the balance between the script and the statement, I think the script absolutely is sort of where the bulk of the weight is. And I think it varies from reader to reader, but for me personally as a reader, if the script is incredible, this statement doesn't have very much weight either way. I sort of go with the feeling of the script. Where it has the most weight is when I'm on the fence. If I've read a script and I say, there's really something here, but I'm not sure about X, right? I'm really not sure if this one element is working and what is going on there. And if I get to the statement of objectives and the writer is like, I'm really excited about this play except I really want to focus on X. If their questions are the same as my questions, then I'm really excited to get in a room and start working with them. If their statement is, I think my play is perfect, let's go to Broadway, then clearly my experience of the work is different than the writer's experience of their work. So that's really when I'm on the fence is when it has the most weight. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Hi, I have a two part question. Two parts, great. The first part is I'm kind of assuming from what you're saying you want a full in play. Suppose you have a one act that you're developing to a full in. Can you submit that as well? Yes, absolutely. We absolutely welcome one acts stages. I would say that I think in my memory and I've just finished my fifth summer at The O'Neill, the shortest pieces that we've developed have hit around 70 minutes. We haven't really done anything much shorter than that. But if it's something you're working on developing, then it's going to fall. And it's kind of process ready to get to this point. So it's like, okay, let's take it to this level. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. The second part. Okay. How many people go on from the O'Neill conference? Who have been there for a summer? And how have all the work you put into it go beyond that? Quite a number. It's very summer to summer. And as I think most of us know some place have a very quick trajectory and some take a really quite long time to get out there. But it's something we work really hard at. I think 2011 is our banner year. Seven of the eight plays that we developed during that summer have had their world premiere and full production. And also say, yeah, because we're developmental, we don't call what we do world premiere. We don't take any subsidiary money, anything like that. It just goes out into the world. But this past summer, you know, we're still working on that. The summer just ended. We know two pieces. One's going to get a workshop production and one's going to have its world premiere. And we're still figuring out the rest. So, yeah. So I have a question on Twitter from Wendy Dan. Sure. She says, if you have a play with music, is it okay to apply to both programs? That is a great question. And a question we get quite a lot. You can't submit the same project to both conferences at the same time. What we ask is, well, first off, I'll say the Music Theatre Conference, we are looking for work with original music. So if you're using, if you want to use all jazz standards, the Music Theatre Conference is maybe not the right fit for that. We're looking for that to be an element that's developed in the same way that the words are. The way to tell sort of if it should go to the Music Theatre Conference or the Playwrights Conference, what are you hoping to focus on? It's really sort of narrowing in on your goals. If you want to focus primarily on the text, then the Playwrights Conference may be the place for the work. But the Playwrights Conference isn't designed to support much more. We do have a sound designer, but we don't really have very much in the way of musical support. The Music Theatre Conference is designed for projects where you want to explore the text, but you also want to explore the relationship between the text and the music, and the music by itself. To work with a music director who, as I have come to understand them, sort of do dramaturgy on the music to ask those same questions, to really pick that apart. So if you're interested in the interplay between the text and the music, then the Music Theatre Conference is probably the better place. If the focus is primarily on the text, or if you're working with non-original music, then the Playwrights Conference is probably the place. Okay, yeah, yeah. Hi. I'm wondering about the process. So the semi-finalist goes to the finalist. How long does that script stay blind, the reading of it? It stays blind until it hits me. So through the finalist, from the semi-finalist, the next reading is the finalist, it's still blind. Yep. And then at the very end, it's a little less blind. We're thinking about who the community of writers is that we're bringing together. But we try to keep it as blind as possible for as long as we can. And so at the very end, you're choosing, I guess, I think you said something that may be 40 plays, and out of that you pick five, six, seven. Who makes those final decisions? Wendy makes the final decisions of which ones we end up developing. Yep. Yep. Yes, sir. Yes, if I wanted to submit a play with multi-media components, essentially a video component and an audio component. This would be a straight play, no musical. I guess my question first is, can I do that? Can I submit a play that contains multi-media? And number two, should I, obviously, well, the question is, should I submit if I haven't the audio and video components with the text of the play? Now, the audio and video components are actually written into the text, but I may or I may not have the audio or video components to send along with the text. Would that be advisable to do or just forget it until the play gets red and somebody says yes or no? I'm going to start with the second question, and then the first. The first question can also sort of be more broadly additional materials, right? If you have these audio and video elements that go with the play, or if you've had part of it red that was recorded that you want to send along, you can let us know that you have these materials, but we ask that you not submit them during the first round. If you advance to the semi-finalist or finalist round and you want to check in again, then it might be useful for us to have. But the initial pool is so huge that at that point we're really just focusing on the submitted materials. This question of plays with audio and video elements, we're seeing a lot of, I think. And we've developed some, but again, we're staged readings. We're bare bones. We will not do projections for your readings. We'll have someone reading staged directions who can describe all of those things. And it would certainly be part of the stream design conversation with our design teams. How do the audio, video, elements work in the story and what does that look like in an eventual production? So I think all of those conversations are absolutely, I hope, going to be useful. But we, in the same way that we won't build a full set, we would not fully realize those elements during our process. Would that be a factor in your decision as to whether to accept a play or not if you felt in the final analysis the video audio components were so extensive that you couldn't really do justice to it? Would that be some consideration? I think it goes back to what the writer would hope to accomplish. If there are storytelling questions, if there are character questions, where the audio video elements come into play, then I think it's certainly something we would consider. The concern would be that the sole focus of the writer's goals would be these elements that we maybe were not the right support system for. But I think in my experience of the projects we've worked on with these elements, we have been able to be useful to the writers. And again, it varies on an individual basis. But by focusing on the text, by the characters, if we imagine the audio video elements, but we still have live bodies on stage, how do those interact? I think there's still something that can be helpful there. Yeah, absolutely. And you, sir? What is the criterion in terms of how you previously had workshop readings or things that went through the fringe? Great question. Is a work that's had readings, workshops, productions eligible? For the National Playwrights Conference, we say that it must remain unproduced through July 31st of 2014. If it's unproduced, you can have workshops, you can have had workshops, you can have readings. We sort of say a professional production is a production in which those involved were compensated for their work and all of the elements that you would hope to see were there. If it's been called a world premiere, if it's been critically reviewed, that may be further past what we're looking for. We may say that that's ineligible, but workshops and readings, absolutely. Showcases? Yep, yep. It can have had those. With the Music Theatre Conference, if it's had a production before, we just ask that you check in with us first. That one's a little more fluid. Did that help? It's helpful, so... Sure. And for example, you said if there's a tape or showcase of a tape, we'll use... Where the actor's off-book would be my follow-up question. If they're off-book... Well, then we're having a new music festival, we're doing our trains, we're trying to roll off. Sure. Yeah. It's a tricky question, and it's a question I get a lot, and it's a question that there's not a simple answer for. When someone comes to me with that question, I ask for a lot of specifics. How many presentations were there? Were the actors off-book? Were people charged for tickets? There are a bunch of things, and it varies so much depending on the situation. So yeah, it's tricky, and I would say if you are not sure if your work has had a professional production or not, please just be in touch with us, and we'll sort of talk that through on a case-by-case basis. Because if you feel that there's still work remaining on your play, we want to consider it if we are able to do so. We'll go to Yousar and then back to Pat. This is kind of a subjective question. Sure. But how often have you produced plays that really are at the first draft stage? And by the same on the other extreme, because there's always this debate we have, I think, where you go like, maybe I should do a couple more drafts before I send it in, maybe next year, you know? Does it ever get to the other point where you go like, this play, whether we like it or not, is finished, is polished, is done, is ready, and it doesn't, it will not serve them to basically turn the O'Neill into a showcase for the play. Yeah, that certainly happened. We've had plays come through where we've felt that way. But as to how frequently we have plays come to us in first draft stage, there was a play we did in the summer of 2011 that when it came to us, it did not have an end. It was about two-thirds of a script and then about a half a page of, I think this is how the play ends. But the first two-thirds were really incredible. And so we started with that and each, so if, I should have said this earlier, if you advance to the semifinals round, we'll give you a short period to provide us with an updated script. If you have made changes, same thing if you advance again to the final round. So each time we hit those markers, the writer gave us a slightly different draft. And by the time they came to us in July, there was, I think, mostly an end. But it was really, that was really Brand's Bank and Nail. First time most of that material, he had maybe read scenes of it in a writer's group. But in its entirety, it was a first draft. But then we do have projects that have had a workshop or two already. And I think in my impression where we've been able to be the most useful is that we have four days. So maybe they've just been around a table before. Maybe we can add in a couch and a table and put some bodies in space. Help move it a step that way. So yeah, we try to be really flexible in our process about where the writers are at. And they do really fall pretty far along the spectrum. Does the O'Neill essentially people, the musical or the play, the actors, the director, is that part of your, say, or do people come with people? Some of both. The question was, does the O'Neill provide all of the actor, director, dramaturg team or do people come with people? We have a casting director. We have directors that we like, but we're always open to new people as well. I would say it's a balance. If the writer has really strong feelings about, I wrote this character for this actor, we'll do what we can to get them up to Connecticut. Or if they've already done two workshops with the same director, we're not going to mess with that if it works. But also think if they don't have a director or dramaturg that they feel really strongly about, we will think who do we know is good with new play development who might have an affiliation with another theater company that may be able to share the script with their team and sort of those conversations that we have at the end of the summer about where the work might go, that's something we keep in mind. Thank you. Yes, from the Internat. We have a question from Tim. He just is curious, he says, when rejected, how much comfort can we actually take with it didn't fit? If it's good, you'll make it fit now? Sure, that's a good question. I think I'm trying to mentally go back to the actual text of last year's rejection letter. One of the things I really love about my work at the O'Neill is that we are free from stylistic or content restraints in a way that other theaters may not be. So it didn't fit is, I hope not something that we say, there is a lot of good work that we turn away. And I know that. It is a large process and it's a huge responsibility that I feel and I try to be as humane in our rejecting process as I can be. But it's, we have a pool of readers and that's why I read all of their reports. But I trust their judgment and if they say this play is not ready or this play has a flaw that I don't think or has a question that I don't think will be able to be answered in the time that the O'Neill has, I trust that. And that's what it comes down to is that readership pool. It's sort of tricky. I don't really know what more to say than that. But I hope that helps. In the back, all the way. Yes, yes. This is a hard question even for me to verbalize. Great. But it's in my mind. In terms of like a broad perspective of themes or issues or ideas, how expansive can one be and also vice versa with who's looking and reading the script? Is there, like today, there's so many issues that we could write about. In the past, what have the selections been that are related to current events? Sure. The scientific one. Yeah, it's a big question. I think the National Playwright Conference artistic director Wendy Goldberg frequently says that she's looking for stories that she hasn't heard before or old stories told in new ways. Which is pretty broad, I think. And I think we are free to explore a lot of issues in the works that we put on our stages. And yeah, I don't know how to get more specific than that. But I think sort of what speaks to you as a writer about today, if you're excited about it, we'll do our best to get excited about it as well. Yes, sir, you in the cap. Take any children's plays or family or any children's plays? We have tended not to focus on works for a young audience for children. You're certainly welcome to submit it in the same pool, but that has tended not to be our focus. Yes, sir. Can you describe what some of the non-traditional music computer projects that you've had might look like? Sure. The very first piece we developed with the Music Theater Conference was an opera, was an opera adaptation, actually, of Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Alms. More recently, I've been seeing a lot of more rock and pop style music theater pieces being submitted. There has been at least one, maybe two, that have been all acapella, but they're sort of exploration of instrumentation or lack thereof. And the way the music functions within the story, one of the pieces we developed this past summer was set in a nightclub, and so much of the music was generated by the nightclub band as sort of characters. Does that help? We try to be open to a lot of different styles, styles of music theater. Yes? Oh, getting back to rejections. It's my play in very early stages, as described by another questioner, before it was ever read aloud or anything, is rejected by O'Neill, and we've revisited it years later and rethought it, and it's radically different. Is there any point to submitting it again, or is it once turned down? No, absolutely. Again, this is one of those sort of weird places where music theater and playwrights conference do it a little bit differently. Playwrights conference, we simply ask that if you are resubmitting something, that you consider it to have been substantially revised. Take sort of that phrasing as you will. But we want you to feel like you've done a lot of work since you last submitted that, and then feel free. I'll go back in the pool, back to our readership. And with the music theater conference, because we're dealing with a smaller number of projects, we just ask that you double check in back with us. And we will most likely say yes, but just to tell us sort of a little bit about what that work has been. Yes, you're the right one. I was wondering about blind submissions and diversity. Sure. I know that blind submissions is helpful when it comes to gender, but oftentimes plays, you can tell the race of a person. They're Hispanic or Black or whatever. So I was just wondering about do you have a mandate for diversity within play selection? Does that come into play at all? We don't have any kind of mandate, but it is as I think I was saying about when does the process become unblind, it does become unblind at a point. We are never going to have a national playwright's conference that is all white male writers. Absolutely not. What it looks like instead varies year to year. But yes, we will have writers of color. We will have women thinking about sort of, again, we're bringing these writers together for a whole month of residency. We're thinking about that community that we are creating. So there are no quotas. This summer we were not half men and half women. We were five and three. Last summer there were more women than men. So it varies, but it is something that we are aware of, for sure. Yes? I'd like to tell you on something. If you've been in a festival and you've gotten a review, does that... We do consider that a professional production. You do. Even though it's like a showcase and that's the way the festival considered it? Usually yes. Like I said, it depends on which conference you're submitting to. And that's one of those cases I would ask for some more information. How many performances was it? Were all of the elements that you hoped would be there? Were they there? There was more specifics that I would ask for a situation like that. And then the other follow-up question I have is do you object like one person plays or do you want multi-carat plays? We take all kinds. We've done one character plays. In recent years we've done large cast plays. At some point it gets down to the math of it all. And so there will usually be at least one of the plays in the summer that has a smaller cast and one of the plays in the summer that has a more expansive cast. So yeah, there's quite a range there. Yes, from the internet. Nate is curious if you could go back over the what makes an objective, a statement of objective a strong and a weak one, what are the differences between them? The strong statement of objectives gives me a clear sense of who the writer is, what they're interested in, what they're trying to do with the play and what they're interested in working on with the play and why they want to work with me. What I might be able to bring to the table. A weak statement of objective is an objective that doesn't leave me room to engage with that. If you tell me your play is perfect, I think that's really exciting and I'm really happy for you that you've written a perfect play. But I don't know how I engage with you if that's where we're at. Other questions? I thought there were more hands out here. Yes? If you've self-published your play, does that count in the production? But it hasn't been produced? Yes, as a showcase. Maybe. That's it then, Molly. I'm sorry, I know we keep going back to this, what counts as a professional production and what doesn't. I'm sorry that I don't have clear guidelines, but there are so many variations on readings and stage readings and workshops and workshop productions and showcases but it's really hard to set those. So if there's something that you're like, I want to work on and I want to work at the O'Neill on this piece, but I'm not sure if I can, just come to us with as many specifics as you can and we'll do our best to see how it fits. Yes, sir? I've read, I don't know if you told me that you would invite on occasion an alum playwright to participate. And is that still part of the mix and if so, does that impact the five to seven or is that a seven cap? Sure, so alumni playwrights and also invited playwrights. So every summer we're going to do six to eight plays. We shoot for eight. It may be fewer than that for a variety of reasons. We may be doing some construction next summer so who knows what that'll mean. And we say five to seven of those plays will come through our open submission pool. The past three years, seven of eight have come from our open submission pool. We frequently, but not always, have an alumni playwright in the mix. This past summer it was Sam Hunter. Sam went through the open submission process so he was part of the group that is selected from that process. He submitted, read blindly, the same as everyone else. It's just when we got to that very, very end selection part we knew not only that we really liked the work but we knew that he was an alumni so that's how that weighed into it. The other piece is these invited guests. Who are they? Where do we come from? This past summer it was Dave Auburn and we tried to invite a writer to The O'Neill who may be a little bit further advanced in their career but this was a brand new play. This was the first draft he had actually never heard this play read aloud until he got to The O'Neill. And so we tried to have a mix of age and experience as part of that community. So that is why we frequently have one invited writer. Join the community. We also sometimes have writers in residence. Sometimes they are invited and sometimes they come through the open submission pool. It varies. But what is that different? How is that different from? They don't get a rehearsal process. They are just at The O'Neill writing and engaged in conversations with Wendy, with me. They get feedback but they don't... It may be that what they are working on isn't ready to be put in a room with bodies in front of other bodies giving them space and time and support. In addition to the chosen... In addition to the selected projects. Yes, absolutely. Yes? One page is that one single or one double spaced or have any... We won't cut you off at one page. If you go over, you go over. But... We recommend that you keep it to a page. But say what you need to say. Absolutely. I haven't seen this application yet. Are there boxes that you know now... I mean the online one, there are boxes and you think, well wait a minute, can I have one? Sure. It's hard to review it when it's in a box. And it's hard to... But you get it all, whether it's overlapping the box or not. Right, yes. We ask actually that you copy and paste the statement of objectives into a text box in the online application. There is a character limit that I don't know from my head. So that may be cut you off. But the prep list that we provide on our website does tell you that character limit. And then it's also attached to the script itself when you send us that. Do you select dramaturgs based on the plays that are the finalists? In other words, are you matching appropriate dramaturgs to the work? Or do you have one that you use all the time? And then at the end of the process, what is the writer's responsibility? Are they writing a report back to you with feedback or some evaluation of their experience? Sure. We don't select directors, dramaturgs, actors. We don't start putting any companies together until the final works are chosen. Because those are conversations that Wendy has with the writers. Do you have a director that you've been working with or someone you've always wished you could work with? Same for dramaturgs. Those happen after the work is selected. We have a number of people that we've enjoyed working with frequently that they will come back. But none of that happens until we know what we think will help the writer the best, what the writer wants most. At the end of the writer's time with the O'Neill, we hope that, I think there's like a sentence we asked that they put at the front of the script that says this play was developed at the O'Neill. We may ask for a testimonial for press and grants and all of that. But there are no real requirements for their time with us. We do try our best to serve them. Yes? This is going to be a really ministerial question. Great. But as some of us may mean working up to the very last doing a revision. And we'll be doing desperately trying to prove it ourselves. Sure. At what point do you find typos just egregious? Sure. It depends on the reader. When I first started doing script reading, and I'm the child of English teacher, so they were really egregious to me. And I've come to accept that writers get really excited about the work and just sort of plow on through. So it bothers me less these days as a reader. Yeah. As long as I can understand, then I think we're good. Yeah. Any final, oh, yes. You may have said this, but I'm not sure I heard it. Does our initial fate rest with one reader or will it get read by a reader? It rests with one or two. And I know that's tricky. We only guarantee one. My readers are so amazing that I have, they volunteer to read more scripts than we receive. How do I determine which plays get read twice and which only get read once? It depends on the reader. It's not about me saying, oh, I want to make sure this fancy writer gets two script readers. It's really if you've never read for us before and you've signed up to read, I'm going to make sure someone else is reading those scripts as well. Because inevitably someone's cat gets sick and they're not going to be able to report on their scripts on time. So I'll double up old readers with new readers to make sure that all of the scripts get read at least once. So that's sort of how that map works. Yes. Do you have an evaluation system based on points like how well the characters are developed, the structure of the script, things like that? Sure. Great question. When a reader reports on a script for us, I ask them to describe its genre or style in a couple words. Then I ask for a couple sentences about synopsis, story. Then I ask for a few more sentences, story, character, dialogue, theme, sort of those big dramatic elements. And then they rate it on a scale of 1 through 10. 8, 9, and 10 advanced to the semi-finals. 7, I'm going to look extra close out. They may advance to the semi-finals, or they may be rejected with an extra sweet note at the bottom. And 6 and below are rejected. So that's sort of how that works. Yes. Do you do an actual match of reader to a script? It's the latter. It's totally random. We ask our readers to state any conflict of interest they may have. Writers that they feel like they would recognize their work even if the author's name wasn't attributed. Or writers they've worked really closely. Because so many of our readers work elsewhere in the field, we're not asking for every writer they've worked with ever. Just the ones they're really close to. If you're married to a writer, we're not going to assign you their script. And we actually have a couple of our readers who are married to writers. So the only those, I will pay attention to those conflicts of interest, but otherwise it's totally random. I just look at the scripts that are complete and the readers that are available and assign them like that. Yep. Yes. Let's just say you've been a semi-familist twice. Sure. Are you approving any point? You know, not technically. There's no answer to my question. Well, you will see in the application form have you submitted before. My brain, I have a pretty good memory, so I'll start to recognize names over and over again. But there's no... Our semi-finalist pool is still pretty big. It's 250 or 300 scripts, which is still a lot. And so it's a lot to keep track of from year to year. So you may start ringing bells after a couple of years. But nothing technical, I'm afraid. But our database, if you say, yes, I've submitted before, our database will automatically populate what those plays you've submitted before have been. So we do see that when we look at your record. Any other questions? Yes. I just wondered if you would share a little bit about yourself. Sure. How you found your way to the O'Neill. Sure. How I found my way to the O'Neill. I found my way to the O'Neill through the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. And I have had every position in the literary office that the O'Neill has. I started out there in the summers. And as a summer intern and then summer staff and have been there full-time for two and a half years and have been in this position as literary manager for just about a year and a half. So I have seen five summers of the O'Neill's work and have seen three full selection processes at the O'Neill. I guess I was digging to find out if you were a playwright or a director. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I'm primarily a dramaturg. Yes, sir. Another kind of strange question. But as you were talking I was thinking about something about submitting. I think I have a script that I may have submitted but I've been quite a while ago. Sure. Honestly I don't remember. And I don't know how to what degree it's been revised over the years. Right. There's no way of checking that, is there? If you think it may have been submitted since 2000, I think our big computer database goes back to 2005. So it's certainly worth checking. We can look it up pretty easily. Okay. That would be one way of checking to see what degree it's been. Yeah. And this is a great time as sort of questions are winding down and as I'm saying, check in with us. Please, please, please let us know if you have further questions, more specific questions about if you've submitted a work before, if something counts as a professional production. You can find us litofficeattheoneal.org is the email address. We're on Twitter. I'm on Twitter. We're on Facebook. Our website has, we've tried really hard to make it have a lot of really helpful information. We have a prep list so you know all of the things the application is going to ask you before you go into it. We have frequently asked questions. All of that. So please, please, I would not be doing this if I didn't enjoy talking to playwrights. So let us know what questions come up. Great. Thank you. You're coming and we always like to see you.