Chris writes -- > Cheerskep, my question specified "previously unproduced plays" -- because > that's the kind of thing that the Dramatists Play Service excludes (as > least, > according to their website) > Gotta admit, Chris, you got me on two scores. First, I stupidly didn't register your specific qualification -- "previously unproduced plays".
And second, I didn't know the DPS doesn't publish unproduced plays. Decades ago they published a one-act I wrote that had only a show-case mounting by the Albee-Barr Playwrights Unit. The Unit would put on plays for week, with free admission. I was happy to have it, but I had no illusions that I could then boast I had been produced. As it thereafter happened, because of the DPS publication, and its appearance in their catalog, the play was produced many times over the next twenty years. (The DPS sends royalty statements every six months. There's a small-beer pleasure in learning your play was put on in Moline, Illinois, some time last fall.) > > Do you really think that someone has ever pirated a play that had never been > produced ? (unless the playwright was a superstar) > I suppose it's probably happened if only because I'm not the only playwright to make scripts available on the internet. Often they're put there because the writer has tried and tried to get them produced and couldn't, and he figures what the hell. It's astonishing how many tiny playhouses there are in the U.S. and around the world. Many of them haven't got ten cents, and figure they're not hurting anyone. In truth, if there in a small community many miles from the next town, I find it hard to condemn them. I suppose if a bandit outfit in Chicago put a play on without permission, and this made Steppenwolf or the Goodman cancel plans to give it a real pro production, that'd hurt, but that seems so unlikely it qualifies as only theoretical. It's peculiar to realize one may be being pirated at this very moment in Singapore or Durban or Bucharest and never hear about it. Grace Metalious (PEYTON PLACE) had an agent, Jacques Chambrun, who was a crook. At a party for her in New York, a man came up to her and introduced himself to her as her Finnish publisher. "You must be mistaken," she said. "I don't have a Finnish publisher." You can fill in the blanks. The point: There may be pirated posters in Mumbai of works by several of our listers -- and the listers will never know. ************** You're invited to Hollywood's biggest party: Get Oscars updates, red carpet pics and more at Moviefone. (http://movies.aol.com/oscars-academy-awards?ncid=emlcntusmovi00000001)
