At Play Spring-Summer 06.Indd
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rating Seventy Y representing the american theatre by eleb ears publishing and licensing the works C of new and established playwrights 70th Anniversary Issue D ram 06 ati – 20 sts Play Service, Inc. 1936 Issue 12, Spring/Summer 2006 AN INTERVIEW WITH Austin Pendleton Director of Professional Rights Robert Lewis Vaughan and Director of Publications Michael Q. Fellmeth talk with Austin Pendleton about his New York hit, Orson’s Shadow, and his life as a consummate man of the theatre. ROBERT. Orson’s Shadow had an amazing run here in New York at The Barrow Street Theatre following Tracy Letts’ fantastic Bug (also represented by DPS). Tracy was in your play, in the role of Kenneth Tynan. Two hits in a row — two actor/playwrights in a row — one theatre. What do you have to say about that? AUSTIN. There’s more to it than that. Tracy Letts caused this to happen. He told our producers (Scott Morfee, Chip Meyrelles, Tom Wirtshafter) about Orson’s Shadow. He put together a reading with the Chicago cast, directed by the Chicago director, in Chicago, for Scott, Chip and Tom to come and see and hear … Continued on page 3 NEWPLAYS Serving the American Theatre Since 1936: A Brief History of Dramatists Play Service, Inc. Rob Ackerman DISCONNECT. Goaded by the women they love “The Dramatists Play Service came into being at exactly the right moment and haunted by memories they can no longer for the contemporary playwright and the American theatre at large.” suppress, two men at a dinner party confront the —Audrey Wood, renowned agent to Tennessee Williams lies of their lives. Jon Robin Baitz n 1936 a committee of leading members grow, the Play Service was well poised to grow THE PARIS LETTER. Wall Street powerhouse Sandy Sonenberg fi nds his personal and professional life Iof the Dramatists Guild and a representa- with it and to provide it with plays of the very threatened when the secret that he has been hiding tive group of play agents met in Manhattan highest caliber. for the past forty years fi nally starts to unravel. to discuss the founding of Dramatists Play Stephen Belber Service, Inc. Their goal for the company After Barrett Clark’s passing in 1953, the McREELE. An exposé article leads to Darius was to provide increased competition in the Play Service was headed by the esteemed McReele’s exoneration from a sixteen-year murder growing fi eld of amateur theatrical licensing. Margaret Sherman, a long-time employee of conviction. He is transformed into a media darling, The committee negotiating this diffi cult the Play Service. Ms. Sherman was succeeded but the journalist who told his story seeks to matter was headed by the playwright Howard determine which way he’ll ultimately fall. in 1969 by the playwright F. Andrew Leslie, Lindsay and Harold Freedman, agent to under whose stewardship in 1983, in a move John Belluso Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, among consistent with the objectives of its founding, HENRY FLAMETHROWA. The sick are fl ocking to other fi ne authors. These two men of great the Play Service began to acquire professional Henry’s comatose sister’s bedside, praying to be integrity and intelligence were devoted to healed and claiming their prayers have been an- licensing rights, further enhancing competition swered in this drama about faith, spirituality and the interests of dramatists. Mr. Lindsay and for desirable plays to the benefi t of dramatists. the intrinsic value of human life. Mr. Freedman realized that the establish- In 1983 the Play Service was presented with a ment of a new amateur licensing agency A NERVOUS SMILE. Three parents explore the special Obie Award for sustained commitment to consequences and emotions they face after aban- would create and stimulate better competi- new work. After thirty extraordinarily productive doning their children with cerebral palsy. tion. With their hard work and the help of years with the Play Service, Mr. Leslie retired in the committee, Dramatists Play Service was 1990 and was followed by Bradley Kalos, for- PYRETOWN. In a hospital emergency room a middle- formed. aged single mother and a twenty-two-year-old merly of International Creative Management, paraplegic fi nd love in the age of HMOs. Inc. (ICM). In 1994, Stephen Sultan, also for- Nearly every established playwright of the merly of ICM and a member of the Play Service THE RULES OF CHARITY. Love and hate, cruelty time turned their plays over without any and goodness are the everyday contradictions in board since 1982, assumed the helm. Under Mr. the life of Monty, a disabled gay man. advance or guarantee whatsoever, authors Sultan’s tenure the Play Service has acquired over such as George Abbott, Maxwell Anderson, Jesse Berger 600 new titles, including nine Tony Award win- Marc Connelly, Rachel Crothers, Rus- ners and nine Pulitzer Prize winners, doubled its THE REVENGER’S TRAGEDY. Part black comedy, sel Crouse, Philip Dunning, Edna Ferber, part social satire, a gleefully macabre plot-twisting business and cemented its reputation as the fi nest blender full of Shakespeare’s greatest hits. Moss Hart, Lillian Hellman, John Cecil play-licensing agency in the English–speaking Holm, Sidney Howard, George S. Kaufman, Lee Blessing theatre. Today Dramatists Play Service is known Howard Lindsay, Kenyon Nicholson, Clif- throughout the world and works with thousands THE WINNING STREAK. Can America’s favorite ford Odets, Eugene O’Neill, John Patrick, of professional and nonprofessional theatres, pastime provide solid-enough common ground for Samson Raphaelson, Elmer Rice, Robert the sensitive Ry to establish a relationship with supporting the theatre’s vital position in contem- the absentee father he never knew? E. Sherwood, Bella and Sam Spewack, and porary life. ■ many others. Adam Bock THE SHAKER CHAIR. An examination of the con- It was planned that the committee should “In every town, in every school, in every organization, strictions and possibilities of middle age as one in every church there are people who are eager … It woman is forced to redefi ne her view of the world raise $80,000 to launch the Play Service in and her place within it. business. $18,000 was raised, and the Play is astonishing how much time and work they will be willing to give to the performance of a play. It is an Eric Bogosian Service went into business anyway. Barrett H. Clark, writer and lecturer on the theatre, exciting venture, gratifying in its achievement, and HUMPTY DUMPTY. Four friends gather for a holiday one that leaves deep satisfactions in the memory.” at a mountain getaway where unforeseen events and a man well acquainted with the amateur bring them to the brink of the end of the world. theatre, came aboard as executive director. The —Howard Lindsay, famous dramatists that the Play Service repre- one of the founders of DPS, WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE. A medita- in his booklet “How to Start a Theatre” tion on making it to the top of the ladder, on falling sented aroused the immediate attention of the off the ladder and on the exhilarating thrill of the public, and business began to expand beyond ultimate crash and burn. the resources of the Play Service’s capital. More “In those days, it was all about Broadway. I was money was raised but not nearly enough. seeing Broadway shows several times a week. Then Deborah Brevoort Off-Broadway started to develop, in the beginning in WOMEN OF LOCKERBIE. While roaming the Scot- These were precarious years, but always ready tish countryside looking for her son’s remains that to sign notes at the banks were George S. the coffee houses, and we were really the fi rst to pay at- were lost in the crash of Pan Am 103, a mother Kaufman, Moss Hart, Harold Freedman and tention to those plays and playwrights — for example, from New Jersey meets the women of Lockerbie others. There were many dark days in the John Guare, Lanford Wilson, Sam Shepard. Once I who are determined to convert an act of hatred went to Café Cino to see a new piece by Guare, and into an act of love. 1930s and ’40s before the Play Service turned the corner. Lanford Wilson was our waiter. But we recognized Laurie Brooks these were immensely talented authors, and we sup- FRANKLIN’S APPRENTICE. Blending historical It was never the purpose of the Play Service ported them early on. So many of those plays would fi ction with contemporary resonance, this thrill- ing play for families culminates on a stormy night to supplant rival amateur agencies. What was never otherwise have been offered throughout the with the crack of thunder, a blinding light and an desired was more and better competition, country. And as a result the Play Service did and experiment that changed the world. because this would benefi t dramatists, and continues to do so much to make new American plays John Cariani the Play Service achieved this effect. Where widely available. The impact has been enormous. ALMOST, MAINE. An eccentric cast of Mainers (or previously advances on royalties usually ran The Play Service has enriched the American theatre Mainiacs, if you prefer) fall in and out of love in from one to fi ve thousand dollars, after the considerably, all the while being scrupulous about ways that only people who live in close proximity formation of the Play Service advances on publishing plays we could be proud of.” to wild moose can do in this sweetly enchanted highly desirable plays grew substantially —F. Andrew Leslie, evening. larger throughout the industry.