Contract between theater and playwright

Contract or not, the NO ONE can make any changes in your script. Even accepting or approving someone elses changes may grant them some ownership of the final product. The blocking is a slightly different matter since stages, technical abilities and and budgets vary so much.

I work with new playwrights all the time as director and/or producer. Most are great but many drive me crazy. I have replaced directors whose vision of the play was incompatible with the playwrights. I have also not done plays because the playwright was unwilling to make changes to the script that I felt were required. (Unacceptable language in a family oriented show for example).

I have had playwrights call me in tears over what the director is doing to their play. I have had playwrights direct their plays from back stage by telling the actors what to do and to ignore what the director says.

I have a director who regularly works for me who has a very different approach to directing plays. Most of his work is very good, some even brilliant but some are dismal failures. I can never tell beforehand which play will see which result. He is particularly good with off beat plays that need a creative approach to bringing them to the stage.

I have directed dozens of plays by first time playwrights. There are a few things I have learned. As the director my goal is to present your vision of the play. Far more often than you might think, the play itself does not present the playwrights vision. Most playwrights are willing to work with the director but far too many first time playwrights feel that every word is perfect and refuse to make any changes. (Notice that the playwright makes the changes not the director.) Ten months ago I directed a short play by three first time playwrights. It wasn't a play but a Saturday Night Live skit. When I tried to tell them it wasn't a play (no protagonist, no obstacle to overcome - or not - and no character arc). They kept saying so what? It's funny. We don't do skits we do plays. It turned out fair to good but not what it needed to be. They are working on another play and promise that it is a play. We'll see.

I have also written several plays that have been produced by a local theater. One of my one act plays was directed by an experienced director who took a drama about the next to last time I saw my father alive and turned it into a comedy. I was crushed but the audiences loved it. It took me years to get over it but I can look back now and see that what I had written was too dark and without any offsetting lightness. I am still bothered by the fact that I will probably never see the play I thought I wrote on stage.

We require the playwrights to be at the first three rehearsals and discourage them from being at subsequent rehearsals. The process of bringing a play to stage is not linear and for the inexperienced, the process may seem like it is going in the wrong direction.

A couple of closing comments: No one can change your play. Period. Talk to people about the track record of the director. Don't worry about the process if the director has a reputation of doing good work. If the director does not have a good reputation, you need to decide if you want your play in his/her hands.

One final note. As you probably know, it is very hard to get your play produced. I end up doing less than 5% of the plays I read. I turn down over a hundred plays a year to find the five or six we will present. We make our money on those few shows and a couple of bad ones can put us out of business.

A final, final note: My favorite playwright to work with gives me her play with no preconceived idea of what I will do with it. She is excited to see what someone else will find in her play.

Doug

Contracts

Hi, Matthew ...

I think Doug has covered things.

I am a member of The Dramatists Guild of America. You can join, too. If you have written a play, even if it is unproduced, you can join the Guild as an associate member. You just fill out a simple form, send a copy of your play (it can be on a CD), and pay your fee, which is reasonable.

It is worth looking into.

I don't know about the legalities when a director makes unauthorized changes and you have no contract, but I do know that such behavior is inappropriate. Unlike the situation with screenplays, YOU own the play, not theater. I am assuming, of course, that you did not sell the play, which you should never do.