When Playwrights Attack

About a week ago, a theater got in touch with me asking if they could produce one of my plays.  The catch was, they’re going through some difficult financial times, and they can’t afford the rights.  I won’t go into too much detail, but basically, they thought if they could produce what I’d written at a low cost, they could start to rebuild their company.

I looked into it, found out they were telling the truth, and told them they could do the play for free.  They only asked me to do it at a discounted rate, but I knew charging them nothing was a better idea.  They could bank way more money that way.  All I asked in return was that in the future they’d consider doing more of my work.

And I thought that was the end of the story.

I was wrong.

Apparently, this is what happened next.

Someone from this theater told a playwright from the same area about what I’d done.  I guess they had asked her about doing one of her works at a discounted rate before they asked me, and she refused to lower the price on the rights.  When she heard what I’d done, instead of saying “Oh, isn’t that great.  How nice of him to do the thing I wouldn’t do,” she was FURIOUS.

Truly livid.

And I know this, because she wrote me a scathing e-mail asking, among many things:

- If I realized this devalued not just my work, but the work of all playwrights.

- If I was a millionaire, thereby able to be so generous.

- If I felt my work was so bad that I didn’t deserve any money for it?

She then insinuated that maybe she should contact a few theaters that have done my work and let them know I’m giving it away for free now, and that they should ask for a refund.

After taking a deep breath, I responded to her:

- I wasn’t trying to devalue my work or the work of anyone else, but I also think that passion has value, and this company felt very passionately about producing theater, and doing my show.  Clearly not as passionately as they felt about doing her show, but since she wasn’t willing to bend on the rights, I’m glad I could help them out.

- Yes, I am a millionaire.  I’m writing this e-mail to you from my indoor pool waiting for my chef to finish up the lamb shank he’s making me for dinner.

- I think my work is good, but I think every situation deserves different approaches.  I don’t see anything wrong in charging a well-off theater more for rights and other theaters nothing at all.  I’m sure the well-off theaters probably wouldn’t find that to be fair, but considering all the advantages you get being a well-off theater, I don’t feel they have room to complain.

I ended the e-mail by pointing out that I’m not a well-known playwright, and that one of the best ways to get my work out there is to make it as financially reasonable as possible for people to produce it.  I told her that I run my own theater company ,and so I know how many great plays go unproduced every year because of the bureaucracy you run into attempting to get the rights to some of them, especially plays by gay playwrights and women.  I suggested that maybe the solution is to make it so easy for theaters to do our work, we’ll be the first places they look after Shakespeare and A Christmas Carol.

She hasn’t responded to my e-mail yet, but I’m sure she’s not going to be thrilled when she reads it.

I still think I made the right call.

But that’s just me.