@dramatistsguild @hartplaywright 

Last April, Guild members from this region enjoyed an evening of dinner and conversation with renowned playwright Jeffrey Sweet. Around a cozy table in the heart of Kansas City’s magnificent theatre landscape, we talked about history, theatre, and the challenges of play development. I haven’t stopped thinking about the latter. Guild members in this region can find great avenues to present our new work in readings, but are often faced with the obstacle of not having opportunities to continue developing the potential great plays of our future. This is why our regional programming this fall is focused on helping all of us develop new work. 

We’ll be hosting a dramatist/director/playwright exchange which will help playwrights network and partner with both directors looking for new plays to produce and actors who are willing to commit to a series of staged readings and workshop development. The Show-Me Stage Plays Series will allow playwrights throughout the region to submit a play beyond their local venue to participating theatres in Kansas City, Columbia, St Louis or Springfield. This series introduces playwrights from one portion of the region to theatres in another. Ideally, each theatre will work with the playwright to develop the play for an upcoming future season. 

Project Playwright Plus will help writers first create then develop new ten-minute plays in two phases. The first phase invites five playwrights to compete over the course of four 24-hour rounds and two weekends of performances. In each round, playwrights will be given twelve hours to develop a ten-minute script from a writing prompt. With a director, actors and an additional twelve hours to develop the play from page to stage, the playwright will fully realize the play before an audience and panel in a staged performance. The competition will culminate with only one winner. The second phase awards the winning playwright with a theatre commitment. This playwright and theatre will then work together to further develop the plays written during competition and produce them in a showcase during the theatre’s upcoming season.

 
Of course, this region is blessed with many professional theatres already committed to new play development, especially in Kansas City. In Columbia, Talking Horse Productions hosts the only mid-Missouri festival that focuses not on plays, but on playwrights. This summer, Talking Horse commissioned Aaron Scully, a DG member from Columbia, to write for the company’s second annual Starting Gate Festival. The only mid-Missouri festival committed to helping playwrights develop new work, Starting Gate challenges three regional playwrights to each write two new ten-minute plays exclusively for the festival. The structure of this festival affords an extended workshop experience. Playwrights are given dialectic and several months to write their plays. They present their first and subsequent drafts in readings before an audience of directors, actors, other playwrights and the festival committee. The resource of ongoing feedback and collaboration allows the primary focus of Starting Gate to be centered on developing writers. No other festival such as this puts emphasis on producing fully staged plays rather than concert readings, which tends to be the norm for short plays. 

Frank Higgins, one of Kansas City’s longest established professional playwrights, was recently awarded his first local production of Gunplay, a play addressing both sides of the gun control debate and the issue of concealed-carry on campus. Frank has been a successful playwright and member of the Guild for more than 30 years. Dramatists Guild members David and Meg Phillips Crespy had their newest work, The Zenith Escape, a children’s musical play, produced in June’s Comedies in Concert series at the University of Missouri in Columbia. I celebrate the success of these playwrights and the news of New York City’s National Black Theatre inviting KC Guild member Michelle Tyrene Johnson to have one of her plays read in their 2017 season. I look forward to celebrating all of us in future issues—keep writing new work! 

hwright@dramatistsguild.com