Play Marketing Update: Day 128

Now that Gary Garrison has taken note of my play marketing efforts in his Dramatrists Guild e-newsletter and the Guild's magazine, The Dramatist, intends to reprint my original blog entry, many people are becoming aware my "submission-a-day" campaign to gain a foothold on prominent stages for my plays. Initial reactions from colleagues and others are mixed. Most people are supportive or, at least, sympathetic. Some simply don't believe it and a few dismiss my efforts as a stunt to gain notoriety.


So, to make it clear to all who may be interested that my efforts are sincere, I'll maintain a running account here of my activities so that you too can share in the frustrations and triumphs, although I haven't yet enjoyed any of the latter. And from time to time I'll discuss why I'm determined to see my plays succeed. For the record:

• This is day 128 and I've made 128 submissions.
• 23 of my submissions have been rejected.
• 10 have elicited requests for scripts and/or confirmation that my plays are being considered for production.
• 96 have produced no response.
• And, as I mentioned above, none have yet resulted in productions.

Note that about 75% of my submissions haven't elicited a response at all. That ratio has held almost from the beginning leading me to suspect that I may have discovered a law of play marketing physics. If so, it's a bewildering one, because it suggests that I'll end my year-long effort with about 270 "no responses", a figure which ought to drive a person to either sanity or insanity, depeding upon the state in which he started. But, I comfort myself that no less an authority than Moss Hart remarked in his autobiography that theatre people are congenitally negligent when it comes to correspondence. Still, 270? Please don't let it be so.

To give you a flavor of my activities, here is a summary of my last ten days:

• 1/18: 3 submissions (BSL to Ensemble Theatre of Santa Barbara, Third Rail, Writers' Theatre)
• 1/19: 1 submission (BSL to Next Theatre)
• 1/20: No submission
• 1/21: No submission
• 1/22: 1 submission (REV to Pittsburgh Public)
• 1/23: No submission
• 1/24: 2 submissions (POUND to Colorado Shakespeare, VM to Kitchen Dog)
• 1/25: 2 submissions ( POUND to Circus Theatricals, BSL to St. Louis Rep)
• 1/26: 1 submission (BSL to Oregon Shakespeare Festival)
• 1/27: 1 submission (BSL to Tabula Rasa)

The abbreviated play titles translate as follows:

• BSL -- Beneath Shelton Laurel
• VM -- Valu-Mart
• REV -- Revolution
• POUND -- Pound

A fifth play, "Claudie Hukill" (abbreviated "CH") failed to show up in this time window, but is occasionally submitted. Links for PDF downloads of all the scripts can be found in the column to the right.

As I mentioned above, I'll update my blog more or less daily with recent submissions and responses. So, please feel free to visit.