I like to read articles on the Howl Round web site for its lively discussion of the theater and playwriting. I’ve noticed there are a lot of articles about gender politics and other social justice warrior concerns. I’m not going to argue against diversity in the theater since I think we need variety in the theater and promoting diversity will lead to a greater variety of plays. But lets talk about variety of content.
If you are a critic of the theater community, and feel that there is a crying need for a certain type of play to be seen, that certain voices be heard on the stage, then I would argue that it is your responsibility to step up to the plate and write the plays you want to see. Think about it! If you like great tragedies and you are bitching about how the theater does not do enough tragedies on contemporary issues, then write one. The theater cannot put on plays which don’t exist. The theater cannot do imaginary plays by imaginary playwrights. No, somebody actually has to write all these plays that you imagine are out there just crying to be put on the stage.
You might argue that you don’t have the time to write a play. So now you are not only complaining that the theater doesn’t produce plays which don’t exist, you are also complaining about not seeing plays which you don’t even think are worth your time to write! This is completely irrational and totally unfair to the theater community.
Now you may argue that you anticipate writing the plays you would like to see would be a waste of your time because you anticipate that every theater would reject them. That may be. But there are thousands of theater companies doing new plays and until you have submitted your hypothetical plays to all of them, you just don’t know. You aren’t being fair the broader theater community to just assume that they would reject the sort of plays you see a crying need for. This is a form of arrogance, not pessimism.
Finally, you may argue that you are not a playwright. This is why theater companies and some corporations commission plays. Somebody sees a great need for a play to address an important topic for their community but they don’t feel qualified to write it themselves, so they commission an accomplished playwright to write the play. Obviously you probably can’t afford to commission a play from David Mamet on your serious topic. But there are plenty of under-employed playwrights who would probably accept a commission for as little as $500 or less. If you can’t even afford that, then invest your own time in writing the play. If you are not willing to invest any of your time in this great enterprise then it could not have been very important to you anyway. Sure your play may be rejected by every single theater that you submit it to, but now you can legitimately piss and moan about the types of plays the theater refuses to put on. You will have earned the right to be a complainer!
