What's wrong with this picture?

With this post I have started 42% of the threads in this forum and I'm not even a playwright, nor do I plan to become one except in the case of writing plays for charities or friends.

Doesn't make sense, folks.

Come on, pitch in. Say something.

Playwrights essentially must move to cities like New York (center of theatre), Los Angeles, London, etc.

There, the standard thing is for someone to have their playscript critiqued in what is called a reading. If you're a social person, it's pretty easy to hang out or intern and make the connections to get your playscript shown.

It's a whole different world from screenwriting or novel writing.

I knew playwriting was different, and I suspected NYC would be "the place" to be, but I never heard of readings before.

I'm also convinced that even screenwriting with all of its difficulties is easier to break into and make a living at than writing stage plays.

playwrights

Playwrights are compensated from theatre ticket sales. Which means that your audience is always going to be a lot smaller than the audience of a film.

Theatre is very easy to break into. Since it doesn't cost much to produce a staged production, places like NY will have theatres that stage dozens of productions a year. A good play which receives rave reviews can cost only a few thousand to produce. An indie film, by comparasion, costs somewhere between hundreds of thousands to 12 million dollars to produce.

An organization good at writing grants or that has made money off of previous production can easily produce a play inhouse without going to outside investors (unlike film). The economics of theatre are entirely different. Also, plays generally don't spend millions of dollars in advertising, seldom have to attract big name stars (with the exception of very big broadway production), don't have to have big name directors, don't need special effects, equipment costs are less, barriers to distribution are non existant, etc.

Every theatre company I know off does not require an agent to submit stageplays (maybe a few Broadway productions might be the sole exceptions).

Of course, a big percentage of playwrights have other sources of income.

But that's not the point. Playwrighting is one of the easiest forms of writing to break into, and is much easier to break into than screenwriting.

Re: playwrights

Much different than the picture I had of the situation.

I was primarily aware of how many off Broadway shows folded within a week and figured "One tough racket."

Re: playwrights

Writing Again -

The economics of mounting a Broadway production are a different animal entirely than mounting a regional, community theater, small theater production. There are hundreds of small theaters in LA that manage to survive even though the theaters are 50 seats, the average ticket price is 20 bucks, and they average maybe 30% capacity.

This is the norm for theater productions througout the country. A production on Broadway could never survive with those kinds of numbers.

For large, elaborate musicals - it takes millions to mount the productions. The producers of Wicked invested 14 million to bring it to Broadway - they expect to start making profits this holiday season.

But even straight plays with small casts etc. Cost a lot. The rent for the Broadway theaters is extremely high. There are fixed costs for each and every performance that must be paid whether 400 or 40 or 4 tickets are sold. Advertising and promotion is a must in order to compete with the all the other productions.

Broadway plays are often fast to close, because producers cannot afford to throw good money after bad on all these fixed and mandatory costs - if tickets are not being sold. Theater producers take huge financial risks to bring their shows to Broadway - but the benefits for those that succeed are huge, because not only can they make money off the Broadway production - but the Broadway success can lead to overseas and touring companies that bring in additional profits.

Without the Broadway success it is doubtful that shows like Les Miz or Phantom of the Opera would have become the world-wide phenomenoms they did.

Obviously for writers, one Broadway production can be far more lucrative than a dozen small theater productions.

Re: playwrights

Holy ouch!