When I was speaking with Chris I told him that I am in the process of putting together a collection of interviews with successful playwrights about how they got their starts. As a playwright who has run headfirst from one brick wall into another, I am interested in which steps are the right ones. Somehow I convinced myself that if I interviewed enough people I would learn the right path to take. I hoped that somehow their mistakes, their successes, and most importantly sitting at the same table with successful people would give me a helping hand. Sadly, I don’t think this route proved particularly fruitful. It seems like there are as many routes as you can imagine. I still plan on running these interviews and I hope they’ll be of interest. If nothing else it is amusing to hear about the success of some Pulitzer prize-winners and how they went from being nobodies to icons in the theater. In the mean time Chris convinced me to talk a little bit about the process I’ve gone through thus far in my failures in New York with theater.

When he suggested it I laughed and thought to myself, “Who in the hell wants to read an article about someone who has had pretty much zero success in the industry?” Well, perhaps no one will, but I’m willing to risk my inordinately small readership on the hopes that someone may learn something from all of my mistakes (including me). And after his suggestion it occurred to me that up till now I’ve never really qualified myself as a theater critic for my readers. For some reason people read this column without knowing much about my credentials. So, it seems to be time to pay the piper.

Okay, no more covering up. I am a lawyer. Please do not hold this against me. It is only my training. And to be frank, there is a fair bit of drama involved in the practice of law. Drama is a major part of my personal life and between these two pieces of information I feel confident that I have the training to talk a little about the theater in New York. For what is theater really other than a dramatic interpretation on stage of truths and falsehoods in the world? I must add though, I was trained as a writer in college and started writing seriously for film and theater during law school. When I moved to New York, I ate up the stage. I started working as an usher with my girlfriend to take in as much free theater as I could. Within months I had met just about every big name living playwright out there and I was addicted. I began writing plays, reviews of plays, and started sending out the reviews to magazines. Within a few months I got really lucky and landed a gig doing some writing for PLAYBILL magazine. The experiences I got watching shows and interviewing for PLAYBILL were invaluable and I would not be at this really mediocre juncture if I did not have the assistance of Andrew Gans over at the holy grail of theater magazines.

The joke with writing is that it’s pretty much impossible to get published unless you’ve already been published. It’s the same story with waiting tables. Only difference is it is significantly easier to lie about waiting tables than it is to lie about being published. But once it’s happened and you have some clippings, doors open. I’m not saying they’re swinging open because there are a hell of a lot of writers out there. But before you know it you could have a column reviewing theater on a film Web site and a loyal group of five or six readers who send you comments from time to time about your punctuation and overall poor grammatical skills.

I only bring up this column and these experiences because they tell you a little bit about the route I took and how I’ve used it to my advantage. About six months ago after sending out a play and receiving multiple rejection letters and very few “maybes” from theaters across the United States I sat down and started doing my “How ‘d you do it?” interviews. I began to compile a list of questions for the playwrights. They centered on a few topics. The first was about schooling and education. How important is it for someone to get a masters degree in playwriting? Will more people read my plays if I have a couple of extra letters at the end of my name? If it’s important to have the degree how important is it where it came from? Is theater a pedigree-minded profession? And what’s with agents? Should I try and self-produce? If so, where can I do it? What if I don’t have money? Is it easier to get produced living outside of New York in a small city or in New York where there are a wealth of theaters and writers (small pond/big fish vs. big pond/small fish)? What is a damn reading and how do I get them done? Ok, I live in New York, what theaters that say they will look at unpublished and un-represented playwrights will actually do this?

Overwhelmed? So was I and, to be honest, I still am. There are about six thousand questions that you can ask if you want to try and actually map out a plan of attack for how to succeed in theater. In my case I lost sight of my goals. I focused too much on getting produced rather than concentrating on the actual task. I started to worry so much about all of these questions that I neglected the first part of the equation. Under no circumstance should you ever forget what you are doing here. You are writing. Unless you have millions of dollars at your disposal (and if this is the case you are not reading this column) you cannot write crappy pap. You have to write something that is either likely to be a commercial success or something that really resonates (a.ka. something really good). And frequently it seems that when one tries to write something that will be a success, you end up with crappy pap. Today, I’m going to talk a little bit about this process and what I’ve done wrong so far as I can tell.

So, my suggestion is the following. If you want to fail in this industry the best way to do it is put out something that is not refined. What I’ve heard over and over again from playwrights is that, unlike in film and TV where you can work connections with a not-perfect script, you really need a solid product to succeed in theater. The fact of the matter is that in theater there are not many plays that actually make money. People succeed because they tell stories well and people like to come back and hear them recount further tales from their lives. So, don’t forget part one. Always, always make sure the script is really tight before you send it out to producers, agents, theaters, etc.

With that said, you have to trust yourself. I think one of the mistakes I’ve made thus far is to rely too much on what others like. Fundamentally, as with any artistic expression, you have to be true to yourself. I am not suggesting that you forget your audience. It’s important to know that you have an audience and that you hope they will sit in the seats for the entire two or three hour performance. However, and this is a big however, once you start to employ techniques to make them happy you are going to fail. Sure, there are techniques that will undoubtedly work to keep people in their seats and intrigued and these are not bad to use in theory. But be careful for with every trick from the book you use in your writing you are in actuality rewriting the same book.

Recently I was lampooned by my nemesis into reading a copy of Ayn Rand’s book, THE FOUNTAINHEAD. I fought tooth and nail. To me, the book was the calling card of self-important college-age pseudo-intellectuals. I’m halfway through the book, and as much as I hate to admit it, I actually asked my friend how it was going to end. I didn’t want to finish it because I was afraid that my favorite character, an idealistic architect who would rather not work than repeat past architectural styles, was going to be forced into compromising his artistic morals. This is troublesome to me because when I started writing I looked for routes. I looked for gimmicks. I mimicked the works of past playwrights. I was no idealist and never was concerned with imitation or originality.

Obviously this is a huge debate. How do we celebrate Shakespeare and Pinter without mimicking them? Or is our celebration an innate form of imitation? Is imitation itself wrong? As I say I am no expert or success. But here’s my take on the issue. Fortunately or unfortunately if you are educated at all in theater and playwriting you are going to unintentionally draw upon the work of the people you’ve read. There’s no helping it. It’s part of your training. What I think is important is that we stop there. Once we start to consciously think of the tricks some other playwright used we’ve failed to adhere to the most important rule for any writer to follow, “Write what YOU know.” I capitalize YOU because it is your story you have to tell. Tell it how you must tell it. Obviously this maxim is difficult to apply to situations where you are writing stories about famous people from the 18th Century. For this reason I am not successful in writing anything other than plays about myself. My own calling card has become “It’s all about me.” While I know this is a narcissistic and selfish way to look at writing, I think there is something to this maxim. To me, in the end what makes Shakespeare’s work so powerful is that he taps into something innate in all of us. There are basic human truths that were apparently as valid back then as they are today. The language has changed. The governments have changed. And, yes, we are in a different country. But his stories and characters still fascinate. If you can find yourself in your characters the audience will too. And more importantly than all of that, if you aren’t writing what’s important to you and offering something new from your own perspective, but are rather echoing some else’s work I have three questions for you. One, why did you write it in the first place? Two, who cares to read or watch a reissue of an old thought (unless you can put a new spin or twist on it from your perspective)? And lastly, are you going to be happy when your play does not get produced and you’re left with a year’s worth of work and ninety pages of dialog that are not about anything you really wanted to say. Although my nemesis will make fun of me for this, in the end to me, when you’re writing, it all has to be about you.

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