Playwrights Horizons Unveils New Initiatives to Compensate Writers

Playwrights Horizons today announced several major initiatives that will expand the ways in which theater writers are compensated. As a writer's theater dedicated to the support and development of contemporary American playwrights, composers and lyricists and to the production of their new work, Playwrights Horizons is committed to establishing new standards in compensation that will directly benefit all of its writers and taking a leadership position in responding to the reality that theater writers are among the lowest-compensated creative artists in America.

One of two new precedents that Playwrights Horizons is launching is providing health care support for writers. The theater company will contribute financially to health insurance costs for all writers in their 2014/2015 Season by offsetting a portion of each writer's monthly premiums. Playwrights Horizons believes that it is the first theater company in the country to provide this support for all their writers - in addition to those who receive health care through residency programs - for the entire season in which they are produced.

Research for the initiative involved extensive conversations with health insurance experts and leaders in the artistic and legal communities, as well as the insurance field. This research resulted in a bottom-line determination that the most effective way to help writers at this time is to subsidize their healthcare costs directly.

The theater company is also establishing a second national precedent by paying writers for their rehearsal and pre-production time. In addition to the industry-wide practice of paying writers through fees and royalties, Playwrights Horizons becomes the first theater to compensate its playwrights for their multi-week pre-production efforts, during which the writers are heavily engaged in such activities as auditions, casting, readings and creative meetings.

These bold steps grew out of a Strategic Planning Process undertaken by the Staff and the Playwrights Horizons Board of Trustees to enhance and expand artistic opportunities and develop a host of ways to better serve the American writer. Other programs that will be instituted in the future include substantially increasing commissioning fee levels and creating more teaching and mentoring opportunities for the company's writers each season at the Playwrights Horizons Theater School (affiliated with NYU's Tisch School of the Arts).

"A national conversation is under way about how better to support theater writers, and we, as an industry, have begun to respond," said Playwrights Horizons Artistic Director Tim Sanford. "Over the last five years, several foundations have underwritten generous playwriting residencies for theaters throughout the country that provide health care. It has been our goal to provide healthcare to all of our writers, not just the lucky few who are awarded these residencies. In the same way Playwrights Horizons seeks to provide a model for the development and production of new American writing, we are proud to lead the way by providing new material forms of support for writers as well. We hope and believe that providing this additional compensation will have a significant impact on our writers' livelihoods and mark a new era for us and our support of playwrights."

"These new initiatives from Playwrights Horizons are at once revolutionary and self-evident," said Playwrights Horizons alumnus writer Samuel D. Hunter. "Playwrights normally rely entirely on royalties for payment, which are unpredictable and often dependent on reviews. By acknowledging writers in this way, Playwrights Horizons is helping to sustain them in the same way that they sustain their actors, directors, designers and staff. I truly hope that these initiatives become models for theaters across the country." Mr. Hunter's play The Whale had its New York premiere at Playwrights Horizons in 2012 and his new play Pocatello is currently in rehearsals at the theater company for its upcoming world premiere.

"From the day of its founding in 1971, Playwrights Horizons has been dedicated to the American writer," said Judith Rubin, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Playwrights Horizons. "With these new initiatives, we are reaffirming our commitment to our writers. We believe that writers deserve to be sustained and compensated at least as well as others in the arts and in other sectors of society. Our aim is to continue to provide tangible, necessary support to those whose work is the very foundation of theater and without whom this oldest of all the art forms would cease to exist."

Playwrights Horizons is a writer's theater dedicated to the support and development of contemporary American playwrights, composers and lyricists and to the production of their new work. Under the leadership of artistic director Tim Sanford and managing director Leslie Marcus, the theater company continues to encourage the new work of veteran writers while nurturing an emerging generation of theater artists. In its 44 years, Playwrights Horizons has presented the work of more than 400 writers and has received numerous awards and honors, including a special 2008 Drama Desk Award for "ongoing support to generations of theater artists and undiminished commitment to producing new work." Notable productions include six Pulitzer Prize winners - Annie Baker's The Flick (2013 Obie Award, 2013 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize), Bruce Norris's Clybourne Park (2012 Tony Award, Best Play), Doug Wright's I Am My Own Wife (2004 Tony Award, Best Play), Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles (1989 Tony Award, Best Play), Alfred Uhry's Driving Miss Daisy and Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's Sunday in the Park with George - as well as Ms. Baker's Circle Mirror Transformation (three 2010 Obie Awards including Best New American Play); Anne Washburn's Mr. Burns, a post-electric play, Lisa D'Amour's Detroit (2013 Obie Award, Best New American Play); Samuel D. Hunter's The Whale (2013 Lortel Award, Best Play); Kirsten Greenidge's Milk Like Sugar (2012 Obie Award); Sarah Ruhl's Stage Kiss and Dead Man's Cell Phone; Gina Gionfriddo's Rapture, Blister, Burn; Dan LeFranc's The Big Meal; Amy Herzog's The Great God Pan and After the Revolution; Bathsheba Doran's Kin; Adam Bock's A Small Fire; Edward Albee's Me, Myself & I; Melissa James Gibson's This (2010 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize finalist); Doug Wright, Scott Frankel and Michael Korie's Grey Gardens (three 2007 Tony Awards); Craig Lucas's Prayer For My Enemy and Small Tragedy (2004 Obie Award, Best American Play); Adam Rapp's Kindness; Lynn Nottage's Fabulation (2005 Obie Award for Playwriting); Kenneth Lonergan's Lobby Hero; David Greenspan's She Stoops to Comedy (2003 Obie Award); Kirsten Childs's The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin (2000 Obie Award); Richard Nelson and Shaun Davey's James Joyce's The Dead (2000 Tony Award, Best Book); Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman's Assassins; William Finn's March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland; Christopher Durang's Betty's Summer Vacation and Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You; Richard Nelson's Goodnight Children Everywhere; Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty's Once on This Island; Jon Robin Baitz's The Substance of Fire; Scott McPherson's Marvin's Room; A.R. Gurney's Later Life; Adam Guettel and Tina Landau's Floyd Collins; and Jeanine Tesori and Brian Crawley's Violet.

The 2014/2015 Playwrights Horizons Season opened with the critically-acclaimed New York premiere of BOOTYCANDY, a new play written and directed by Obie Award winner Robert O'Hara. In his review of the production, Charles Isherwood of The New York Times called the theater company, "One of the city's more adventurous incubators of daring playwriting."

The 2014/2015 Season continues with GRAND CONCOURSE, the world premiere of a new play by two-time Obie Award winner Heidi Schreck, directed by Kip Fagan, now in previews; POCATELLO, the world premiere of a new play by Obie, Drama Desk and Lortel awards winner and 2014 MacArthur Foundation "Genius" grantee Samuel D. Hunter, directed by Davis McCallum, now in rehearsals; PLACEBO, the world premiere of a new play by Obie Award winner Melissa James Gibson, directed by Obie Award winner Daniel Aukin; IOWA, the world premiere of a new musical play by Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Commendation winner (2008) and finalist (2013) Jenny Schwartz, music and lyrics by Todd Almond, oratorio lyrics by Ms. Schwartz, directed by two-time Obie Award winner Ken Rus Schmoll; and conclude with THE QUALMS, the New York premiere of a new play by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner Bruce Norris, directed by Tony Award and Obie Award winner Pam MacKinnon.