Canada Filled With Good Playwrights
May 6, 2009
We just recently completed our selection process for our inaugural Clean Sheets. After six months, 28 scripts and a very involved selection process, we finally made the phone calls to the playwrights we are inviting to Vancouver in August, and mailed to letters to those the committee did not choose. Having read all 28 scripts myself, I can tell you that we could have had 28 workshops if we had the funding for it.
I did not want to send a letter to a young playwright in small town Canada saying that we could not invite them to attend. I argued with myself, saying “this is exactly the kind of person who needs us, a group of professional queer artists who can make a difference in this playwright’s development”. Why can’t we do everyone’s script? Then I realised that making it too easy would help no one. The struggle is part of the process.
Just as an actor needs to audition, do excellent work at that audition, then not get the part. The work we do may be fantastic, and not be right at the same time.
I got a phone call from a playwright at 10:45pm the other night. They had just received their letter in the mail and saw my phone number on the letter and dialed. I was getting ready for bed.
I was not angry. Thinking about it now, I suppose I could have been miffed. But instead I was concerned that the person needed to know that they needed to not take the lack of an invitation to Clean Sheets as a discounting of their ability as a storyteller, but more of a sign of the abundance of good playwrights out there.
Our people at Screaming Weenie go above and beyond the call of duty time and time again because they want to provide inspiration and opportunity to storytellers. We may want to do 28, but if we can only do 4 or 5 then that is better than none.
Seán
