CRY BABY.

EDIT: I wrote this and then read and was all, "god, shut the fuck up you insufferable asshole!" I was about to delete it when I thought perhaps other playwrights might feel similarly conflicted/self-hate-y from time to time and take comfort in the stupidity of this post:

This post is kind of on the serious and very theater-centric so feel free to skip it in favor of something more fun, like the Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman Board Game (which arrived... with no rulebook!)

My play, Up With (Some) People, competed in the finals of the 34th Annual Samuel French Festival yesterday against twelve other short plays. Basically, Samuel french publishes an anthology of six short plays every year and they decide the six by holding a play festival. This year they received seven-hundred and eighteen submissions and mine made it all the way to the finals at Playwrights Horizons. And then didn't win.

After the show the writers and actors and directors, along with their loved ones, gather at a bar down the street to await the announcement over a champagne toast. I think I took it pretty graciously, but yowza was that one of the more painful moments in my playwriting career.

Don't get me wrong. My play was awesome. I had an amazing director and amazing actors, and I'm so proud of us for getting that far out of hundreds and hundreds of plays. The competition was fierce, to say the least.

But I can't help feeling like I almost make it a lot. That my life is marked by almost. It's a really frustrating feeling. I'm okay with not winning Samuel French. Like I said, the competition was fierce and all of the plays were really, really good. All six of them totally deserved to win.

But it did make me think of my writing in a larger sense. I mean, in terms of the theater and my place in it as a career playwright. By that of course I mean that I don't have a career. I don't make my living doing this. Almost none of us do. It seems like the way that things are set up now you have to have a lot of advantages in order to ever get somewhere that resembles a "career" in playwriting. Like money. Or an ivy league MFA. And even then it's not a guarantee. Furthermore, many of those that do have a so-called career make less than half of what other people make at their office job.

So why do I keep pounding my head against a wall, trying to force myself into a world that doesn't want me? The "legitimate theater" doesn't really seem to want plays like mine, so why do I keep trying? I mean, maybe I should shift my expectations. What's wrong with just making plays for my friends? For my community of freaks and homos and downtown lovelies? Those are the people who made me a good writer to begin with, and still the people I'm writing for when I think about it. So I think I'm going to focus on them for a while and nurse my tender tar heart back to health.

UPDATE: It took me less than twenty-four hours to get my tar heart back.

Game. Fucking. On.

 

Comments

[Justin R. Buchbinder]

A quick note about the time it takes to "make it" in this cruel playwritten world. Not sure if you're familiar with the dudes behind Drop or not, but I discovered that I knew them DURING the festival.

How? Well, I went to college with Michael, one of the two writers. But I didn't recognize him first. I recognized the play...

Because I was in the playwriting class with Michael where Drop's first draft premiered. I read the role of Jackson, the mechanic who pops up out of nowhere to offer commentary on the panic attacked pals.

That was 8 and a half years ago.

8.5 years of working and re-working. Finally, Drop has its day in the Sam French sun.

Keep up the good work, bud. I enjoyed your play, and I can see how much better it'll be with a few rewrites and reworks :)

xoJR

[Tarhearted]

@Justin

Hi! How are you? Thank you for stopping by!

And thanks for your kind words. I really liked Drop, and in fact liked most of the plays that won. My entry isn't so much about Sam French. It's actually a rare example of something merit based in theater, otherwise somebody like me never would have made it as far as I did. Okay, I'll get off my blue collar, pinko socialist soap box.

Seriously, I meant just that it's rough, you know? Especially that even playwrights who are "successful" still don't make as much money as I do in my low end tv job. Do you know that a writer making their living solely through theater, a quote unquote successful playwright, makes 25k a year? That's less than the lowest paid person in my office. Blech.

I guess I'm just wondering if I should shift my expectations and just do this as a hobby. Just make theater for my friends and their friends (which is really what I've been doing anyway) and be happy with that without trying to get so-called legitimate theater people to like my work. You know?

To quote an internet friend, "Trying to be a playwright is like trying to be a unicorn."

P.S. Up With (Some) People is great the way it is, thank you very much! :)