I have not written a play since I was eighteen, so I am not qualified to review the process. My natural bent was playwriting and I wrote plays incessantly until I graduated from high school.
What prevented me from continuing in the theater was the heart-wrenching fact that poverty is your reward. As the years have passed, this has become even more true than when I entered college.
So many factors have combined to drive up the cost of producing plays that producers want “a sure thing.” (There is no such animal.) This excessive prudence on their part has caused that theater artery, Broadway, to wither to a capillary. Producers have turned to revivals of warhorses like 42nd Street or to musical spectacles with no story, like Cats.
This is not an environment for creative writers. The English language fulfills its greatness in the theater. My generation has been robbed of this expression.
To give you an idea of how bad it is, let me quote Nelle Nugent, who has more Tony awards than I have Montblanc pens. She said to me over breakfast last year: “I can explain to my backers how we lose money with a dud. How can I explain losing money with a hit?”
The power of playwriting is easy to experience. Pick up a copy of a Shakespeare play or one of Shaw’s or of anyone you enjoy. Read the play. Shorn of voice, lights, staging, it still rocked you, didn’t it? Imagine the voice, lights, and staging now. Even better, imagine your own play.
Apart from the difficulties in getting an original work produced, there is the problem of receiving no advance.
Once you have established yourself in publishing or in film/TV, you will get advances for your work while you are writing. It’s a good idea if you want to eat and pay your rent. The theater does not recognize these basic functions. Within the last two years, producers have come up with a tiny advance. As of this writing, it’s $7,500.
In the theater the writer is king—but who among us can afford to be king of confetti? That’s about all that’s left of the theater—little bits of paper thrown in the air.