Playwrights Realm Announces 'Script Share', Connecting Aspiring Playwrights with Industry Professionals

All too often, professional theater can feel like a closed network, particularly for individuals without a formal playwriting education or access to dramaturgical conversations around their work. The Playwrights Realm, having transformed themselves into a playwrights service organization, has conceived numerous programs to address this exclusivity, creating avenues to a more equitable, inclusive, and open theater community. Their work breaking down the barriers within theater continues with Script Share, which recognizes that access to crucial guidance is particularly limited at the very beginning of a writer's engagement with the craft; as such, the initiative is specifically dedicated to aspiring playwrights. Conceived and organized by The Realm Associate Artistic Director Alexis Williams and The Realm General Manager and Associate Producer Céline Delcayre, Script Share provides individuals without access to script conversations via other networks an opportunity to have an engaging, open session about their play with a theater professional. Script Share is a free opportunity for playwrights, who will be selected via a lottery, open today through March 14 (at 11:59 EST).

Script Share brings aspiring playwrights into dialogue with dramaturgs, literary managers, directors, and many other professionals working in new play development. They engage across one-hour conversations surrounding a particular script submitted by the playwright. These discussions are driven by what the writer is hoping to explore, and aim to provide an initial response, perspective, guidance around the craft of playwriting, and further questions, rather than critical feedback. In organizing this program, Williams and Delcayre considered how the very barriers they sought to remove within the larger theater world might even prevent some writers from participating in Script Share; they have devoted part of the budget specifically to addressing individual needs of writers to ensure they can meet with a theater professional. An early access pool for the lottery-focusing on underserved communities-opened prior to the lottery's launch today on social media. And, like many programs introduced amidst the pandemic, by being virtual, Script Share is able to reach aspiring playwrights across the country, as well as internationally-continuing to expand The Realm's supportive community beyond the limits of proximity.

As Script Share seeks to help aspiring writers by demystifying the professional theater landscape, it simultaneously aims to help people with careers in an industry devastated by the pandemic. The program is an opportunity for the Realm to pay experienced theater professionals (the majority of whom, in the program's beta-phase, self-identified as BIPOC) who were furloughed or lost income due to Covid-19 for their work.

Delcayre explains, "When we started the program, we were looking at the pandemic's Impact on the industry - and seeing how a lot of the positions being eliminated were those that were the first line for talking to early career writers or having these literary conversations. So immediately we thought, 'how can we mobilize this group of people to continue doing that work?' Alexis and I talk about how few playwriting opportunities there are, and how there's this whole group of people that might not be ready for those fellowship/reading opportunities yet-and may not even have a path to them. We asked, 'what's the stage before emerging' and came to 'aspiring.' We wanted to throw the door open for these writers."

Says Williams, "There are some really exciting, promising voices that don't have the training or the access to networks to be able to have the conversations and collaborations that will push their work further. Script Share aims to reach people both who want to actively pursue being in the playwriting community and others who simply wrote a play and want to make it better. This is a place for folks to hone their craft and get new knowledge."

A writer who participated in Script Share's beta phase-which served 45 playwrights from at least 5 different states-said, "I liked the structure of having a set time with a set conversation topic because I felt more focused and less anxious around getting to chat with someone who's higher up in their career. My Script Share professional gave me great guiding questions to facilitate our conversation, and I was able to take concrete notes and feedback for my rewriting process. It was so wonderful to be in 'community' in this way!"

As the pandemic shut down theaters-and many theater artists were left without income or support-the Playwrights Realm in 2020 committed to becoming a full-time playwrights' service organization until it was safe for audiences to share physical space again. Its many initiatives supporting playwrights and other theater artists have included: Emergency Relief Funding (a financial relief program for playwrights who expressed need); the International Theatermakers Award (which provided free-of-charge legal assistance and application fees to five International Artists applying for O1-B visas); the online mentorship program Virtual Realm; free online community classes, workshops, and panels led by The Realm's playwrights, staff, and industry professionals; the interactive short play marathon benefit Play-a-Thon; and the continuation of its long-running Writing Fellowship and Scratchpad Series.

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