Why don't Americans write big plays anymore?

Why don't Americans write big plays anymore?

I've written 8 big American plays -- which I define as plays that deal with public as well as private concerns and a cast that goes beyond a domestic circle, with subplots.  I've also written 4 modest-sized plays and 2 biggies set in England. Americans can't afford casts the size of Streetcar or Salesman-- the big cast social cross-section plays we get to see today mostly come from England, where they are pre-screened through success in a subsidized production. 

Advice on forming a writer's group

I was talking to a playwright friend from Michigan.  She says make up  
a flyer that describes your ideal colleagues and what you want to work  
on, plus gives a contact number, and pin it up on the multitude of  
bulletin boards and kiosks at the University-- and in libraries.  Also  
post the call on Craig's List.  You'll have an abundance of applicants  
from which to pick the most compatible.
We just formed a group via a PS paragraph in the suburb's weekly.   
This is in addition to the Oldest Established large group I've been in  
for 30 years, that only critiques actor-read completed pieces and has  
a long waiting list for its public readings/feedback.  The informal  
new group is small enough to respond to ideas and fragments as they  
emerge, and can save months of work on an unpromising direction.

NYTimes pictures Playwright Heaven

Care and Feeding of Plays and Playwrights

NYTimes article
By JESSE GREEN

I don't know how long it will be possible to read this before it disappears, but it is enough to make every aspiring playwright weep with envy.

Published: February 25, 2007 QUOTING EXCERPT:
"MONDAY Something felt very unusual about the first public reading, earlier this month, of Brooke Berman’s “Out of the Water.” It wasn’t just that the play was good; that sometimes happens. Nor was it so rare to find, even on a bitter Monday night in February, an enthusiastic audience of 40 and a top-notch cast of young theater names. But it seemed almost suspicious that a hip new play by a writer not widely known was being presented in a room with comfortable seats. Also, the heat worked. And what had become of the rats and pigeons that usually attended such readings? Who printed the nice programs? Why were the bathrooms so lovely?

Then there is a nice photo of them in their clean well-lighted place:
Members discuss a script at Ars Nova’s Play Group. From left, Mat Smart, Etan Frankel, Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch. The group focuses on emerging writers and scripts in development. “It’s like a pep rally with pizza and beer,” Ms. Mensch said.

One more paragraph of Fair Use:
"The answer to all of these questions was Ars Nova, the mighty little uptown-downtown theatrical venture on far West 54th Street, which was presenting “Out of the Water” as part of its Out Loud play-reading series. In a landscape defined by stately institutional behemoths and youthful but impoverished start-ups, Ars Nova has designed something new from the best elements of each."

What to Produce, and Why It Matters

For Boston to matter in theatre, there must be Boston/Massachusetts
matter, and some distinctive Boston/Massachusetts styles. When Red
states use Massachusetts or Boston as labels for all that is wrong
with America -- liberalism, elitism, permissiveness, etc... they have
an image of us. So do movies like The Departed, set among Southie
mobsters, or a TV series like Boston Legal, which draws on the idea
of Massachusetts as place hospitable to intellectual argument and
hostile to corporations and bigots. We should be holding up the
mirror to ourselves, discovering for ourselves what is really here to
celebrate or satirize. Our "Barney Frank" is a boogyman conservatives
use to scare their constituents into giving money and turning out to
vote-- to me Barney, my representative, is the ideal: a person that I
am so confident is devoted to the Common Good that when I discover
that I disagree with him on an issue, I assume that I'd better
reconsider. What's the local Barney Factor, that makes his public
service possible? My city (Newton) has the lowest crime rate in the
country: where does that come from? Why have we, uniquely, been
right about what would happen if the US invaded Iraq? And why is the
rest of the country so eager to reject sound advice if it comes from
Massachusetts? This latest Kerry joke flap is another instance of
Massachusettsophobia. We have low church membership, and the lowest
divorce rate, and we're less fat than every one but Oregonians: what
is that all about? Like politics, theatre is local. The only way we
can address the universal dramatically is by testing the particulars
of experience through the "imitation of an action", and judge the
consequences in the context of a community. Over time, when people
have long term collegial relationships that amount to a continuing
conversation, we will develop a common artistic vocabulary. We'll
contest, correct, and encourage each other, and begin to be able to
tell when we're telling the truth and when we're recycling
fashionable crap. Then, maybe, Boston will have a "there" there, and
be on the map.

good new playwrights? -- Guardian Opines

Guardian Unlimited: Arts Blog - theatre
Where are all the good new playwrights?
Lyn Gardner
October 30, 2006 04:46 PM

A decade ago this week British theatre was enjoying its greatest flowering of new\ writing since the Jacobeans. Mark Ravenhill had just opened at the Royal Court Upstairs at the Ambassadors, just one of an abundance of new plays written by emerging talents.... A decade on, all those writers are going strong, but where are the emerging talents of today? My guess is that they are clogged up somewhere in
Britain's burgeoning playwrighting schemes unable to find their way out. Over the last few years many theatres have put in place extensive play development programmes,yet despite these schemes there has been a tailing off in good new plays by great new writers since the heady days of the mid-90s.
While many new writing theatres and companies have seen an upturn in the number of plays they receive and generate through such schemes -in some cases more than 3,000 scripts a year - from where I'm sitting it often doesn't feel as if there has been a similar upturn in quality. Perhaps - perish the thought - all that play development schemes do is to encourage not particularly talented people to write more and more plays. The danger here is that genuine talent will be missed because with so many plays in development it gets increasingly hard to see the wood for the trees.
Theatres have always worked closely with writers. Very few plays - whether by new or established writers - pop through the letterbox in perfect shape. The relationship between writer and literary manager has historically been a crucial one. But in the past the plays that were developed were being developed to a purpose: the staging of that play. The meetings, the drafts, the workshop and the rehearsed reading were all part of a process that was leading towards production, not an end in themselves.
Over the last 10 years a new play development culture - based on American models - has taken root in British theatres and it is now so firmly embedded that it has become an industry in itself. These schemes are not always hungry for new talent and there is little evidence that they are producing better plays. Those who have jobs in this growing industry have a vested interest in the schemes continued growth, as do the theatres who have squeezed money from public or private sources to fund such schemes often in the name of access. But, if playwrighting schemes worked, every new play you saw would be outstanding. They are not.
Theatres are understandably keen to broaden their pool of writers. Most theatres still see a 30/70 ratio of women to male writers, and black and Asian writers are woefully under-represented. Access is important, but what's the point of providing access to schemes to develop plays but not to the stages themselves? It's like teaching people to swim but then denying them access to swimming pools. There is something cockeyed about a theatre culture that has put so many structures in place to develop plays and so few to stage them. The opportunities to get work staged--and it is only when a play is in front of an audience that a playwright really learns how their play works - are simply not keeping pace as the pool of writers.
Theatres know this, and yet still they hang onto plays trying to keep their options open. Play development should be about enabling writers, not tying up their talent in a queue of unproduced plays. It is often a mirage, a substitute for real action and commitment by a theatre to a writer and his or her play. It provides the theatres with an opportunity to tick all the right funding boxes while offering playwrights very little at all - except misplaced hope......
If playwrighting development programmes really worked wouldn't we be seeing
more emerging talent than we did a decade ago when such schemes were rare?

Interesting comments posted in the blog...