The Other Writers

By law, dramatists are forbidden from unionizing. The PRO Act would make things better for dramatists, but still not allow us to form a union.

Writers for television and film are treated differently. They have union, and the Writers Guild of America, both East and West, is currently on strike, largely over issues related to streaming content.

When streaming services began, writers accepted very little for their work, since nobody knew if online delivery of video content was going to be feasible in the long run anyway. The WGA agreed to allow content providers to experiment, which paid off with companies like Netflix making huge profits. The writers? Not so much.

According to the WGA, "The studios have taken advantage of the transition to streaming to underpay entertainment industry workers, including writers in every area of work." This complaint has been echoed by actors, who receive far less money in residuals when their work is streamed versus when it airs on television or is released on DVD.

These issues could potentially effect playwrights as well, since COVID-19 shut down so many live performances and forced theatres to produce plays online. My own play Kew Gardens was supposed to be performed live last year by Actors' Theatre in Santa Cruz, but ended up being streamed instead. The push for streaming theatre isn't necessarily a bad thing, and can improve access, as when Passage Theatre in Trenton made my adaptation of A Christmas Carol available for people to stream.

The problem is that corporate interests are insisting on ever greater profits at the expense of the people who actually create entertainment, whether in the form of plays, movies, television shows, or features and series created specifically for viewing over streaming services. The WGA is standing up because they have to do so. The current system simply is not sustainable.

While in Midtown today, I came across a group of picketers on Fifth Avenue. Writers and actors stood together, protesting the intransigence of studios who refuse to alter agreements created when streaming was in its infancy.

As a dramatist, I'm not a member of a writers union (and legally can't be as a playwright). However, I support the WGA in their fight. If the writers lose this one, we will all lose.

Kew Gardens Available on YouTube

As I mentioned in a recent post, my short play Kew Gardens, which was supposed to have been performed live at Actors' Theatre in Santa Cruz, has been recorded and is available to watch streaming.

Unfortunately, the platform the theatre attempted to use for a pay-to-view service did not live up to what they'd hoped. I watched the evening of one-acts that contained Kew Gardens, but just as my own play came up, the computer had to buffer... buffer... buffer....

And apparently, I wasn't the only one. Many people complained, so the theatre is refunding the money of anyone who bought tickets and is instead making the whole festival available for free on YouTube! You can now watch Kew Gardens and seven other short plays that were placed together as a part of the "A Night" of shows.

Yes, there was also a "B Night" which you can watch as well. Each evening of plays lasts about an hour and a half. I'm particularly proud at how well actress Sienna Thorgusen did in Kew Gardens, as well as the fine job Bill Peters did directing the piece.

Here's a still of Sienna performing the role of Kitty. Kew Gardens begins about an hour and 12 minutes into the video, but I hope you'll watch the whole thing, as there were several fine plays in the festival.

Kew Gardens Streaming

My play Kew Gardens was supposed to have been performed at Actors' Theatre in Santa Cruz in January. Then, the omicron surge intervened.

Actors' Theatre decided to move its festival of short plays online. The plays were filmed and were supposed to be streamed in February, but the streaming was delayed as well. Fortunately, the shows are available now and can be viewed on TheaterMania's streaming service.

If you go to the Actors' Theatre website, you can purchase tickets to watch either night A or night B of the festival. Kew Gardens is a part of night A, along with Together at Last by Stella Pfefferkorn, Are You One of Those Robots? by Kathie Kratochvil, Me and Him by Michael John McGoldrick, Nobody's Hero by Charles Anderson, Free Hugs by L. H. Grant, Old Aquatics by Steven Kobar, and God on the Couch by Dan O’Day.

The plays range from dance and movement pieces (Together at Last), to dramatic monologues (Me and Him), to funny comic sketches (God on the Couch). My favorite, of course, is my own. Sienna Thorgusen did a great job playing Kitty (complete with Queens accent), and it was nice to finally see the play performed, even if just in a virtual format.

If you get a chance, I hope you'll watch Kew Gardens, and the other plays that are a part of the festival. You might run into a couple of technical glitches when you try to stream it (I did), but the performance is well worth watching.

Thanks to Bill Peters for directing the piece, and to Sienna for her magnificent performance!

Passings

Today was the day my play Kew Gardens was supposed to premiere at Actors' Theatre in Santa Cruz. Alas, live performances of the play have been cancelled, just the latest casualty of 2022.

Fortunately, Actors' Theatre will be filming its 8 Tens @ 8 Festival this year, and the play should be available to view streaming sometime next month. Both Bill Peters, who is directing Kew Gardens, and Sienna Thorgusen, who is starring in the one-woman play, are okay, in spite of the Omicron surge.

Omicron has not shut down Broadway (though it has closed a number of shows), which means that last night I got to see Irene Sankoff and David Hein's musical Come From Away. Seeing a play about 9-11 has different resonances in 2022. Watching it, I certainly remembered my own experiences that day, and the loss of Carol LaPlante, who died in the Towers, but there were other feelings, too, and the memory of all the people in my life who have died of Covid, including Marge Green who passed only recently.

Then, last night, I got word of another passing. Terry Teachout, the long-time theatre critic for the Wall Street Journal, is dead at 65. For nearly 20 years, he wrote for the Journal in a way that wrote for all America. Rather than just cover theatre in New York City, he traveled across the country, reviewing regional productions that were often doing far more exciting work than what is usually seen on or off Broadway. (I invited him to come out to Michigan to review Detroit Rep's production of my play Capital, but alas, he never responded.)

Teachout was an enthusiastic supporter of Gingold Theatrical Group and Bedlam. He also loved attending shows at the Mint Theater Company, which sent out a brief memorial to him today. According to Jonathan Bank, the Mint's producing artistic director, "Terry reviewed 14 Mint productions between 2005 and 2018. His impact on the Mint, and so many other smaller companies, is profound and immeasurable."

The only time I met Teachout in person was at a Shaw conference in New York, where he argued that just as we've liberated the plays of William Shakespeare from having to always be set in the same time period, we should free the plays of Bernard Shaw and other more recent dramatists from always being staged the same way. He particularly praised Bedlam's innovative production of Saint Joan.

So many losses in the past couple of years! Let's hope for better things in the year to come.

Giving Thanks Again

This time of year, it's always good to give thanks for all that we've received. With the devastation we've all witnessed in the past couple of years, it can sometimes feel like there isn't much left to be grateful for, but the fact is there are many out there trying to make the world a better place, and using theatre to do that.

So first and foremost, I'm grateful to Passage Theatre Company, which will be performing my adaptation of A Christmas Carol next month in Trenton, New Jersey. C. Ryanne Domingues is directing the two-hander about Scrooge's visitation by his deceased partner and a trio of other spirits. It will be a one-night holiday event on December 11th.

I'm also grateful for Actors' Theatre in Santa Cruz, California. Their 8 Tens @ 8 Festival, billed as the longest running short play festival in America, will be including my short play Kew Gardens next year. The festival runs from January 14th to February 6th. Bill Peters is directing this one-woman show that stars Sienna Thorgusen.

Closer to home, Gingold Theatrical Group is another group I'm grateful to have around, not just for their wonderful production of Mrs. Warren's Profession, but also for kindly inviting me to take part in a panel discussion about the play earlier this month. They also will be having a special staged reading of Bernard Shaw's Village Wooing next month.

During the height of the pandemic, it was scrappy companies like Irish Repertory Theatre that did the most to keep theatre alive, putting many of the larger organizations in New York City to shame. I'm grateful to Irish Rep both for all of the virtual performances they put on and for their coming return to live performance with a production of Dion Boucicault's The Streets of New York.

The nights are getting longer, but there is a light in the darkness, and the dark has not overcome it. Let's be grateful for that as we try to build back something better than what we had before.

Coming Soon!

My two-person adaptation of A Christmas Carol was first performed in Saratoga Springs, but now the Passage Theatre Company will be doing the piece as a one-night-only fundraiser in Trenton on December 11th.

Tickets are available now. I plan to take the train down to see the production myself. C. Ryanne Domingues is directing, and the theatre has put out a casting call. The remarkable actors George Deihl and Hugh Sinclair originated the two roles in the show in 2007.

I also have another show coming up in January on the West Coast. Actors' Theatre in Santa Cruz will be putting on the world premiere of my short play Kew Gardens as part of its 8 Tens @ 8 Festival. The festival runs from January 14th through February 6th (the night before the birthday of Charles Dickens, as it so happens.)

Kew Gardens doesn't have any Dickensian connections, though, nor is it typical holiday fare. This dark, one-woman play is being directed by Bill Peters and stars Sienna Thorgusen. The festival has "A" and "B" nights, so if you want to see Kew Gardens, make sure you go on one of the "A" nights, 1/14, 1/16 (actually a matinee), 1/22, 1/28, 1/23 (another matinee), or 2/5.

After a long theatre shutdown, I'm happy I can now actually announce some new productions!