The Waiting Game

So you’ve waited six months to hear from the theater and no response.

What do you do?

a) Write a hateful email saying how disrespectful they are and hope someone drops a piano on their mom
b) Write a nice email reminding them about the script they requested and asking where it might be in the process
c) Call up the theater and start yelling at whoever answers the phone

Okay, so the obvious answer is b.

And actually, maybe that isn’t so obvious (as someone who’s worked in a literary office, I’ve actually had hate mail addressed to me…you haven’t lived till you’ve been personally lambasted by a frustrated playwright…).

NEVER ever send any emails or call anybody with any kind of emotional response, like anger (crying isn’t good either—just makes you seem unstable).

A DG member recently asked me a great question about handling response times from theaters. He’d recently been requested to send some scripts out to some big places and was wondering, among a host of other things, if it would be appropriate to contact the Literary Manager or Associate about the play at the end of the response time (which is typically anywhere from 4 to 8 months).

My response is that it’s perfectly reasonable to contact the name of that person on that letter or email.

I had actually said, you can call them.

Now, some Lit. Mgrs probably may not prefer that. They’d rather deal with you only via email. Sure. But if they’ve requested the script from you, they’ve obviously shown an interest and I think it’s only fair, professional and business-like that someone can tell you what the status is of your play. So call them and see if even an intern can spare five minutes to let you know if its been read or what.

But remember, BE NICE.

Everyone in a the literary office is overworked and underpaid and they do want to find a brilliant script that’s right for their theater. It just may not be yours at that place in time. So respect that.

And also, they may love your script but it just doesn't fit. So they'll ask to see what else you have...if they do, congratulations! Like I said, they're overworked and no one will ask to add more to their reading pile unless they really mean it.

What you want to do is establish a relationship with the Literary office. And like all relationships, they take time.

So be patient.

For more about submissions, go to this great link at Playwrights Center.