Links Removed

If you’ve been looking at the homepage and thought there’s been a change… You’re right!

I’ve removed the In The Business link and Order a Play link. I’ve done this for two distinct reasons:
I have never received an email from the In The Business page… And to be honest, how many professional agency trawl the web looking for new playwrights? They expect you to go looking for them.

After my experiences with the online agent, I’m toying with the idea of setting up my own online agency…

Now the second point may lead you to believe that I’m an idiot. And maybe I am. But after the way they treated me, I feel that other playwrights have the right to being treated better.

If I do decided to go ahead and form this agency, this will be its mission:

• The agency will target selling plays (at least at the outset) at amateur companies. And after all, it’s the biggest market out there.
• State to a playwright that if a professional company shows an interest, then they would be best served getting a lawyer or a traditional agent.
• The agency would ensure that a playwright receives a response (ie ‘We want/do not want your play’) within three months of submission.
• If the agency says ‘We don’t want your play’ it will tell you why! I didn’t feel strongly enough about this project would never be sufficient. If the theme was wrong for the agency, the characters one-dimensional, too long, too short, too many characters… It would tell you – and give the playwright enough credit to accept constructive criticism.
• The agency will encourage playwrights to grow (ie, just because you’ve been rejected doesn’t stop you from being entitled to submit again – be it with an updated script based on the comments it will send you, or another play you’ve produced).

Over to you playwrights out there… What do you think…? Would you be interested in such a agency?

And if you’re asking me why I should run it… I’ve managed to have all of my plays produced… I’ve got a pretty good idea of how to pitch at amateur companies… I could do the same for you.

Go on… Send me comment and tell me what you think… Even if it’s to tell me that I’m a fool and should get back to writing my own non-professionally produced plays.

A Rejection I Can Live With

When I was very green about the play submission process, I submitted to a number of agents. Some of them have turned out to be very professional – one turned out to be far less than that.
But I also submitted to an on-line agent. I won’t name the agent as they are providing a service (it’s just the service it provides and its potential for exploiting playwrights that disturbs me). Its site looked very professional and prompted me to make this site. I liked the look of what they were doing… so I submitted to them.

I now feel that this was a mistake that I have got away with.

Why a mistake… A decent agent will give you a reply in 3 to 6 months. I received the rejection from this e-agent in February 2005. For those of you that have been visiting this site for a while, you’ll realise that JaysPlays.Net has been running for nearly 3 years now. As I said, the e-agent’s website prompted me to make this one. That’s one heck of a long wait.

On top of this, I started to realise that this site is aimed at amateur companies. Not that there is anything wrong with that (after all, it’s only because of amateur companies that I can call myself a playwright). But what serious production company is going to use such an agent to find their next touring play?

So after a while I thought that submitting to this agency was a mistake.

Then I received a rejection and truly realised what a mistake it was. It was fairly standard in composition, but it contained a sentence that shook me to my writing roots.

“It is our policy to only accept one submission from any given playwright.”

Translated, that means: “We don’t like what you shown us… Now never bother us again”.

Writers grow. With each play, each production, each actor’s/director’s input our writing changes. My style from PRIME DIRECTIVE to MARK OF A GENTLEMAN has altered dramatically (no pun intended).

For an agency to turn round to a playwright and say that ‘you’ve got one chance Tonto’ I find abhorrent. I have been rejected by agents far superior in standing than this e-agent, but having read my work have requested that I forward any further plays I pen. Why…? Because they know writers grow and tastes change…

So as the Ramble’s title states, it’s a rejection I can live with… Never submit to an agent that is so narrow minded as the to the nature and development of writers.

Festival Impotence

I’m beating myself up this year. This is the first time in three years that I haven’t entered one of my plays into the RNTF as a production.

This wasn’t because I couldn’t get a company to out one one… Indeed, I did have an offer to have The Breakfast Show produced, sight unseen. I didn’t take it up, because I would have had to finish the script in a timescale that I would never have been happy with. I could have done it, but I don’t think I would have been able to take care of the dialogue or plot line that I would have wanted.
So this year, I’m just an actor. I’m working with COLLINGWOOD RSC in their production of Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband (Sir Robert if you’re interested).

Being an actor only this year is both a joy and a pain. I have far more time at home this year, but there isn’t the same challenge – or co-operation.

Now the last statement may sound like I’m damning the production – and I most certainly am not! But I feel as though my playwrighting has made me cross over from amateur status. Now I read the lines at another level and want to make the character come to life as the playwright wanted. Many of the other actors I’m working with do the same… But others are finding it difficult… They’re new… They haven’t developed their stagecraft yet, so working beyond ‘saying the right line, in the right place at the right time’ is a challenge.

This leads them understandably to chatting during rehearsals (not in the theatre or rehearsal room, but in the peripheries). The problem for me is, I’m learning my lines, or working out my emotions… and I do my best not to be annoyed if I get side tracked.

Oh, I know this is just a grumble of a Ramble… But I thought it was relevant… Now that I’m a playwright, I can’t say that I take theatre more seriously, but I definitely look at it in a different way…
I’m off to be miserable on my own, rather than inflict it on you any longer…

Making Contacts II

The major problem I encounter getting my work produced is making the right contacts. I’ve had a lot of success at getting amateurs to give them a go – but that’s mostly because I have acted with them and they know what I’m about.

But I’m trying to make that leap across to professional productions. Last year I thought I had a huge break when I was offered a part in a new Sci-Fi TV series, but it came to nothing when I lost the part on ‘politically-correct’ grounds. I thought that with an Equity card, people would take me far more seriously, especially when you looked at the people I was going to be acting alongside (not Hollywood A-List, but the majority of the cast are very well known).

I even had the opportunities that acting in Susan Ellis Sanford’s Excalibur. Sue has a lot of contacts in theatre (being a professional herself) and they came to see the run at Titchfield Abbey. But again, I didn’t make any huge headway here (and most likely, wholly appropriate as it was Sue’s writing under examination here, not mine).

Come November 2004, I was starting to get a little depressed. Everywhere I turned, nothing was forthcoming.

Then there were the Curtain Call Awards. I was on such a high! I wanted everyone to know my news and start to take me seriously as a playwright. I posted a note on Writers.Net to see if my fellow writers thought it was a good idea to contact agents to whom I had submitted DENIM and tell them about the win. They said it couldn’t do any harm… so I did. The result…? Nothing. Not even a photocopied reply.

That’s that then. No contacts. No likeyhood of getting a professional production. Where could I turn?

After I had included extracts of my plays as PDFs on the website, I posted a message on The Playwrights’ Forum asking other playwrights what they thought of my site and if they thought they were of any use. On of the users paid me a number of compliments and stated that they wanted to pinch a couple of my ideas for their own site. This prompted me to have a look over his site.

He wanted to pinch my ideas! His site is stunning! I shoved him a quick email saying that I was stunned that someone with a site as professional as his would want to take any of my formatting ideas. I got an email back telling me what he wanted to copy and also pointed out that he was a professional playwright, had his own production company and had recently had one of his plays produced off-West End with great critical acclaim.

Then came the sentence that stopped me in my tracks… He offered to read one of my plays! An Off West End professional playwright was offering to read one of my plays that have only been shown to amateur audiences. Needless to say, it was winging its electronic way to him within minutes. He’s reading it at the moment, so I’ll let you know what he thought once I get his reply.
Why haven’t I named him…? Why haven’t I placed a link to his site…? Well, I haven’t got his permission. I’ll ask him to visit the site and see if he wants to be mentioned.

And before anyone ask, no I don’t expect him to produce my plays… I just hope that I get a useable quote regarding my writing that I can use with other production companies (Okay…!).

On top of that, my boss (in my day job) congratulated me on my win. He then asked if he could have a couple of manuscripts. I thought this a little odd, as why would my boss want to read my plays other than to give me a roasting about not concentrating on my work or having inappropriate views. But no! It turns out that his brother is one of the biggest actors/directors in Northern Ireland. He had mentioned that I wrote plays and would he give me some feedback – and he agreed.
So an envelope stuffed with DENIM and MARK OF A GENTLEMAN was on its way.

Just when I thought that I would never make professional contacts, two come from nowhere and from the most unlikely routes.

Will they come to anything…? Who knows, but they have given me a far more positive outlook.
Here’s hoping.

Waiting

I hate waiting… Especially with my imagination… It runs wild… Two respected drama types are ‘reading’ my work… What have I heard…? Nothing…!

No… That’s a lie… One had the polite decency to email me that I was on their reading list for the weekend and hoped that I was still writing for all I was worth (and in truth I haven’t been, what with the inquest looming and the trepidation of people who know what they are talking about reading my work!).

So where is my imagination taking me…? In two directions. One: There I am, attending the professional premier of my play, photo’s taken, critics shaking my hand… Two: ‘I can’t believe this idiot written this trash and has the balls to think I would want to read it’.

Reading that back to myself – I feel like I’m living an alternate dimension’s screenplay of Sliding Doors… Unfortunately I’m nowhere near as attractive or rich as your lady Piltrow!

As you can guess, I’m not to pleasant to live with a the moment… Hell, name me a writer that is!
Time to go and torture myself again!