Producer's Notebook Second Entry Page 3

Erik Sherman

Complex ideas elegantly expressed

Producer’s Notebook

More importantly, though, what about all the other writers? The ones that could have sent something a little bit long but that didn’t, respecting the guidelines. Yes, I could read each script to see how many named props or costumes or multimedia effects were really necessary, but that means I’m going around in circles with authors just to see if I could consider a script, and if you anticipate the chance of receiving many scripts, you start looking for reasons to screen out entries. I know that may seem petty bureaucracy in action, but put yourself into the situation and see how many hours you have available in your day to be open minded.

One writer, when hearing that, no, we wouldn’t consider something too long, sent in another version of his script about an hour later, now trimmed by the necessary number of pages. He noted that the requirement got him to cut some dialog that didn’t work and to generally tighten it up. That’s fine, and I’m glad that I could be the nudge getting someone to do something that should have been done, but why was that necessary? If you know the play is too long for an outlet and you know that it needs cutting anyway, and if the cutting will only take a goddamned hour, why wouldn’t you just do it at the start?

The next category is sloppiness. Anyone offering plays should be using a standard format, with complete character breakdown, which means knowing the approximate playing ages to see if the available actors will be able to be convincing. It means having a title sheet somewhere, even if separate (though we didn’t require that) so that the producers have email, phone, and address for the writer. What would happen should the plays be printed out, emails accidentally deleted, and the theatre want to produce a play with no contact information anywhere? The producers would simply say, “Pity,” and genuinely feel badly while tossing the script into the waste can and reaching for the next. Life still has to go on.

The producer is always— always—the first to get frustrated and the last.

Second Entry

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