Featured Playwright: Sheila Callaghan

Sheila Callaghan

BEST QUOTE: "Funny. I can't recall if I told him before or after I put my shirt on."

Sheila Callaghan's plays have been produced and developed with Soho Rep, Playwright's Horizons, South Coast Repertory, Clubbed Thumb, The LARK, Actor's Theatre of Louisville, New Georges, and Moving Arts, among others. Sheila is the recipient of a 2000 Princess Grace Award for emerging artists, a 2001 LA Weekly Award for Best One-act, a 2001-02 Jerome Fellowship from the Playwright's Center in Minneapolis, a 2002 Chesley Prize for Lesbian Playwriting, a 2003 Mac Dowell Residency, a 2004 NYFA grant, a 2005 Cherry Lane Mentorship Fellow, a 2006 NYSCA grant, and the 2007 Susan Smith Blackburn Award. Her plays have been produced internationally in New Zealand, Norway, and the Czech Republic. She has been commissioned by Playwright's Horizons, South Coast Repertory, and EST/Sloan. Her full-length plays include SCAB, THE HUNGER WALTZ, CRAWL FADE TO WHITE, CRUMBLE (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake), WE ARE NOT THESE HANDS, DEAD CITY, LASCIVIOUS SOMETHING, and KATE CRACKERNUTS. Several of her plays are published by Playscripts, Inc. She has taught playwriting at The University of Rochester, Spalding University, The College of New Jersey, and Florida State University. Sheila is a member of the Obie winning playwright's organization 13P and resident of New Dramatists.

Read her PLAYS

Read her BLOG

Read an INTERVIEW

Who?

If you're writing plays for anything more than a puppet show in your kitchen, then you've run into the realities of the marketplace.

Sure, we've all heard folks moan, "It's all about who you know," like there's some magic cocktail party to attend with a pocket full of business cards and two months later you'll be viewing a production of your play.

I believe there's something more radical (and more obvious) than the "who you know" syndrome.

I think it's really, "Who have you worked with?" That's the one that's your foot and your play in the door.

So, the million dollar question - "Who are you working with?"

Letter rip! Part 2

Organizing your cover letter

You’re sending your play or a query to a theater. What should your letter say?

Let’s look at what your letter is not:

• Your letter is NOT your resume or bio.

• Your letter is NOT a synopsis of your play.

• Your letter is NOT just a place for you to list your contact information.

Starting your letter with, “I am a playwright whose work has been produced all over the world and has received rave reviews in Cleveland…” and continues for a whole paragraph before even mentioning the title of the play is a turn-off. No one cares at this point if you’ve won the Pulitzer Prize. Okay -- maybe if you've got a Pulitzer you can put that at the top -- but you get my point.

You have sent a PLAY – put the play – and not your bio – front and center in this letter. Your bio and resume should be included on separate pieces of paper in the package. If they like your letter they’ll continue on and read your bio and resume. If your letter has turned them off right from the get-go, how much attention do you think they’re gonna pay to anything else you’ve sent them? Not much.

Let this organizing principle guide you: Every word in this letter should be related to this particular play being sent to this particular theater by you.

Begin simply, with the basics:

"Enclosed is the new one-act play Blah Blah Blah for consideration in your Best of Blah Festival. After deciding that her life is totally blah, a woman finds herself on a beach in the South-Seas and must cast off her shell of blah or die trying. It requires two women, two men, lots of sailor hats and a beach ball."

See? That could be your opening – it can be that simple. Who ever is reading your letter knows immediately whether this play fits their requirements – a one-act with a cast of four – no set – lots of sailor hats. It also included a one-sentence description, not really a synopsis, more like a log-line that grounds the reader in time/place/and genre. “Perfect, so far,” says the reader, so they continue on.

What’s next? Remember the organizing principle –

THIS PLAY=THIS THEATER.

The next paragraph is about the play, but not about the play’s action – it’s about why this play? Why was it written? What is the play’s history?

"This play began as a real-life trip that I took to the South-Seas. After life-time in New York working in various art venues including many Off-Broadway, Off-Brodway, and Off-Off-So-far-off-You’re-In-Jersey-Broadway, I needed a vacation. Having a chance to breathe, I began to write…"

or

"This play began as an exercise for a class at the Best Ever School or University in Existance…"

or

"This play was written for your festival. When I read about the theme I immediately thought about the impact of Blah on society and how it extinguishes any hope of a fulfilling life. In my many years of playwriting I have always wanted to write a piece exploring Blah, and your festival gave me the perfect platform."


In each example there’s a way to bring who you are into the letter connected to why you wrote this play. It’s better than a bio, or listing your experience, because it brings you – the human being – into the room with the human being reading your letter.

What is unique about you writing this play? If there’s a story to it, put it in the letter. You are, after all, a storyteller. Write the story of why you wrote this play. Why was it important? What did it mark for you as a writer?

Find that thing and put it in your letter.

Why this play/this theater/this writer right now?

That’s the question your letter needs to answer.

Do that, and the folks at the other end will want to read the rest of your play, or they at least will know that your play is not right for them and you will not have wasted their time. Either way, your letter has done its job. It has worked.

Letter Rip! Part 1

Letter rip!
by Kato McNickle

When you send an unsolicited query package to a theater you are an unknown quantity. Within the multitude of other packages that arrive each week you are nearly invisible. Invisible in this business means unremarkable.

In a market flush with unknown and undiscovered playwrights, how do you set yourself apart?

First off, it's not really "yourself" sitting in that pile of queries; or is it?

How have you put "yourself" in that great big pile o' manila that's sitting in the literary managers office? Did you follow the submission instructions? Things like, did you include the requested number of pages; did you include your resume; did you bind or staple or leave free the pages as per request? Did you check the website to make sure you have the most up-to-date information for your package? Did you?

Did you spend time composing your query letter? Is your letter just a functional, nondescript front piece that says here's my plays and phone number, or did you take the time to create a one-page sheet that puts you in the room with the reader.

With the exception of the play itself, the letter you send is the most important piece of paper. Your letter sets the tone, it represents you, it is the first act in an important drama-the struggle for you to get your play read and considered by a real-live-professional-theater-company. Without a strong letter, your play may not be considered.

Does your letter represent you and your play? Does it express why you write for the theater, why you have written this play, and why you have sent it to this kind, passionate people? If it doesn't, or if it does other things - like presenting your credentials or other details that are not pertinent to - this play - this theater - right this minute - then you have some work to do on writing your cover letter.

Your letter is the gateway to your play. It is also the tool you have to state why you wrote this play for the theater. Don't waste that opportunity. Communicate your passion through that letter-- why is it important right here right now to this theater? That's the work of the letter. Put it in there.

American Theater's Failure of Nerve

The Pacific Playwrights Festival showcases what's going wrong
By STEVEN LEIGH MORRIS
Tuesday, May 22, 2007 - 11:00 am

...The beginning of our theater's failure of nerve starts with the fundamental, historical shift in the relationship between the playwright and the theater, which was treating its scribes like screenwriters long before "developed to death" became a mantra in the regions.

Read the whole thing

Get to know Adam Bock

Adam Bock

BEST QUOTE: "Hmm. What would happen if a guy fell in love with a shark?"

Adam Bock is a wizard of zany. His plays summersalt charm, unexpected romance, set with a tinge of sadness, across a madhatter's field of sideways dreams. The playwright himself is whimsical and animated as he twists his arms and his being explaining a plot point or turning point for himself in his career as a theater artist.



Adam Bock's plays include Swimming in the Shallows, Five Flights and The Typographer's Dream. His works have been produced in San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, London, Toronto, and Edinburgh, and have won the Glickman, Clauder and BATCC Awards. Mr. Bock is an Artistic Associate at Shotgun Players and Encore Theatre and a member of MCC Theater's Playwrights' Coalition.

Read an interview with Adam Bock on OUTzone

Find plays by Adam Bock

The Fall Will Probably Kill You

or you could be squished to death on the rocks
by Kato McNickle


Remember that scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid where Butch and Sundance are on the cliff, the bad guys shooting are at 'em, and there's no place to go but down? Sundance wants to shoot it out, even though this means death or capture because they're running out of ammo and they are vastly outnumbered. Butch wants to jump off the cliff into the rushing river. Crazy, right? But it's better than the alternative, sitting and waiting for the other guys to bring you down. At last Sundance admits his hesitation about the jump:

SUNDANCE: I can't swim.
BUTCH: Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill you.

The other day I was talking to a playwright friend. I had sent him an e-mail about a fellowship opportunity with a prominent theater in New York. He said he didn't finish reading it because he got to the part about monthly meetings in the City (we're 3 hours outside of the City), so he stopped even considering it.

"You're probably not gonna get in. Just apply!"

That's what I said. Pretty loud. Sheesh. He laughed.

With this kind of opportunity, if by some fluke, some magic alchemy, some trick of talent, he should actually get in - he would figure out a way to make it work. A friend of ours attended Brooklyn College while holding down a professorship at a nearby college for several years. We do what we gotta do to make it work.

He could make the train ride into the city once or twice a month as needed. Hell, his girlfriend is an actress and she gets her butt into the city for auditions and work - he could figure out how to get himself to the most important career opportunity of his life thus far.

What was stopping him? He couldn't swim.

By taking the jump, you are taking the chance of being squished to death on the rocks. Sure, the fall will probably kill you - but if it doesn't - it could be the greatest adventure of your life.