Practical Playwriting: How to Write for Commercial Production

Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) and The Playroom Theatre present Practical Playwriting: How to Write for Commercial Production, on Saturday, May 14, 2016 from 10:00am – 5:30pm at The Playroom Theater, 151 W. 46th Street, 8th floor, NYC 10036. The workshop is one of a series of TRU BEGINNINGS workshops, opportunities for early development of new work. For more details and to download an application, please visit http://truonline.org/events/practical-playwriting/

What often holds playwrights back is that they rarely consider the person who will buy and produce their product: the producer. With all the work, hope and sweat they invest in considering character, theme and plot, playwrights rarely take into account producibility.

This one-day intensive will be taught by Diana Amsterdam (The Dodgers, Fast Girls, Sex and Death, Carnival Round the Central Figure), TRU’s Program Director for Playwrights. With segments of the workshop taught by commercial producer Patrick Blake (The 39 Steps, My Life Is a Musical, Bedlam Theater’sHamlet/St. Joan, The Exonerated, In the Continuum, Play Dead), founding artistic director of Rhymes Over Beats; TRU‘s Bob Ost and Gary Hughes offering marketing insights; and Gillien Goll who will teach you how to present yourself successfully.

The day ends with a panel of commercial producers who will offer feedback on writers’ pitches as well as suggest appropriate markets for the works. Panelists will include producers Pat Addiss (Gigi, Buyer and Cellar, A Christmas Story the musical, Promises, Promises, Little Women), RK Greene of The Storyline Project (A Time to Kill, Peter & the Starcatcher), Robin Rothstein, director of Operations at Broadway Across America and Lorenzo Thione of Sing Out, Louise! Productions, lead producer of Broadway’s Allegiance, also associate producer of Slava’s Snowshow, Green Day’s American Idiot and the tour of Xanadu.

Subjects covered:

• WHAT IS PRODUCIBILITY? The fact that producers always ask this question, and playwrights hardly ever do, causes a serious disconnect between the commercial producer and most playwrights.

• WRITING TO A MARKET - We will ask each playwright questions he or she has probably never considered before: Who is your market? Who is going to buy tickets? Who is this play written for?

• WRITING VIABLY - Creating writing that holds the attention of the audience with a strong storyline and defined events. This module will cover such primary writing elements as: arc, desire, motivation, conflict, and the clear delineation of theme.

• WRITING ECONOMICALLY - Number of characters, number of sets, extravagance of sets: all these are serious considerations for most commercial producers. Does the play require a casting director, or can it be done successfully by seasoned unknowns? Is there a chorus of thirty that can be pared down to two? Are you kidding yourself when you think one actor can play eight parts?

Visit http://truonline.org/practical-playwriting for full curriculum and faculty bios.