Outrageous Fortune
discussing the Life and Times of the New American Play
Video of presentation by Todd London and Ben Pesner, authors of Outrageous Fortune, and Tory Bailey, Executive Director of TDF
Outrageous Fortune, The Life and Times of the New American Play (written by Todd London with Ben Pesner and Zannie Giraud Voss) examines the lives and livelihoods of American playwrights today and the realities of new play production from the perspective of both playwrights and not-for-profit theatres. The study, drawing on six years of comprehensive research, reveals a "collaboration in crisis" between the people who write plays and those who produce them.
Todd and others from TDF are traveling the country leading community conversations to explore the book's conclusions and discuss potential solutions.
Key findings in OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE NEW AMERICAN PLAY
1) PLAYWRIGHTS VS. NOT-FOR-PROFIT THEATRES: The relationship between playwrights and producing not-for-profit theatres is collaboration in crisis. The two groups studied are deeply divided in how they view each other, the audience, and the successes and obstacles of the field of new play production.
2) ECONOMICS OF PLAYWRITING: In economic terms, it is virtually impossible to make a living or sustain a career as a professional playwright in America. The royalty system of payment that grew out of the commercial theatre has proven ineffective in the not-for-profit world. Commissions are too small to pay for the time it takes to write plays and rarely lead to production. Large grants to individuals continue to dry up. Substantial bodies of work regularly go unproduced. Mid-career is the crisis point for playwrights, and the new play ecosystem has nothing in place to help playwrights through it.
3) PREMIER-ITIS: When it comes to new play production, an emphasis on premieres—by artistic directors, the press, boards of directors, and funders—is the operating principle. This "premier-itis" means that plays rarely get the continued life they need to reach the kind of artistic completion that result from second and third productions. It also means that playwrights can't earn from their plays in an ongoing way, as there is often no income stream, because of the field's "one (production) and done" practices.
4) DOWNSIZING OF THE AMERICAN PLAY: New play creation and production in America has downsized in every way: cast size, size of venues for new plays, expectations of artists and audiences alike, and, even, ambition.
5) DWINDLING AUDIENCES: Our theatre is losing the audience for new plays at both ends, as current, mostly homogenous theatregoers age and die, and as younger and more culturally diverse audiences fail to take their place. Playwrights blame this on the conservatism of the theatres' leadership. Artistic directors believe that playwrights aren't writing for their theatres' actual audiences.
6) THEATRE BECOMING THE LOST ART?: Under all the division and concern over the state of new play creation, development and production is the widespread fear that theatre as an art form has been pushed to the margins. Writers and artistic producers alike are looking for ways to move it back to its place at the center of the conversation that is American culture.
7) HOPE FOR THE FUTURE: There is enormous, field-wide energy and commitment to new-play production. New-play activity is almost certainly at an all-time high in the not-for-profit theatre. Some of this activity, geared toward new and better practices, holds the promise of improving the systemic problems explored in this report.
About the Facilitators
TODD LONDON is in his fourteenth season as the artistic director of New Dramatists, the nation’s oldest center for the support and development of playwrights, where he has worked closely with more than a hundred of America’s finest playwrights and advocated nationally and internationally for hundreds more. In 2009, he was the first recipient of Theatre Communications Group’s Visionary Leadership Award “for his work to advance the theatre field.” A former managing editor of American Theatre magazine and the author of The Artistic Home, he has written, edited, and/or contributed to eleven books. London won the George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism for his essays in American Theatre and a Milestone Award for his first novel, The World’s Room. Under his leadership, New Dramatists received both a special Tony Honor and the Ross Wetzsteon Award from the Village Voice Obies. He currently serves on the faculty of Yale University School of Drama.
VICTORIA BAILEY was appointed Executive Director of Theatre Development Fund in April 2001. Previous to this appointment, she had a nearly 20-year association (1981- through spring 2000) with the Manhattan Theatre Club, first as Business Manager, then as General Manager. While at MTC, Ms. Bailey managed close to 200 plays, both on and Off Broadway, including the Tony Award-winning Love! Valor! Compassion!; extended engagements of Sylvia; Lips Together, Teeth Apart; Four Dogs and a Bone; and The Tale of the Allergist’s Wife. Ms. Bailey worked on numerous co-productions with a variety of LORT theatres, and producers including Cameron Mackintosh, Liz McCann, Ben Mordecai and David Stone. She has worked as a consultant for a range of Off Broadway and regional theatres and has served as a member of the Executive Board of the League of Off Broadway Theatres and Producers. Ms. Bailey is a member of the adjunct faculty at the School of the Arts, Columbia University. She received a B.A. in history from Yale College in 1978.
BEN PESNER has been writing about the theatre since 1987. He is currently the manager of creative services at The Broadway League, and the content producer of TonyAwards.com. For the Tonys, he has scripted numerous special events, and edited the Tony Awards Songbook. In 2005 he created the commemorative journal for the gala Broadway celebration of Stephen Sondheim’s 75th birthday. Since 2002 he has edited the annual Kids’ Night on Broadway souvenir Playbill, which is written entirely by young people. A former editor of the Dramatists Guild Quarterly and literary manager of Young Playwrights Inc., his extensive involvement in the not-for-profit theatre community has included associations with Playwrights Horizons, New York Theatre Workshop, Circle Rep, and Lincoln Center Theater, among others. He has authored reports and edited publications for many theatres, service organizations, and charitable foundations; and he has written for American Theatre, Playbill, and other magazines.
