11-7-08
Dramatists Guild in Chicago: Year 1
In May of 2007 senior staff of the Dramatists Guild came to Chicago to launch a new initiative in which the Guild would more effectively reach out to the many writers who live outside of the New York tri-state area. A significant part of this initiative was the appointment of Douglas Post, Victory Gardens playwright ensemble member, as the Chicago regional representative for the Guild.
Fourteen writers throughout the U.S. are regional reps, but Post is one of only two who receive a monthly stipend from the Guild because of the sheer amount of work involved. Post said that his job is to organize Chicago writers, lyricists and composers and remind them that “they are unique. They own the copyright to their work” whereas actors and other theatre artists generally do not. (Intellectual property arguments on behalf of directors and designers aside.)
Post was surprised at how much work this job is. When Gary Garrison, the Dramatist Guild’s executive director for Creative Affairs, offered him the job, it took Post some serious consideration before accepting. Chicago is home to the third largest concentration of writers in the country, trailing only New York City and Los Angeles, so keeping in touch with all of them would be quite a task.
Since his acceptance of the job, Post has organized several gatherings aimed at better serving Chicago’s writing community. Quarterly town hall meetings at the Victory Gardens Biograph provide an opportunity for Guild members and other interested people to reconnect with the Guild. Each meeting starts with a report from Post about things happening at the Guild, then he opens it up to conversation on a predetermined topic. Past topics have included the play development process, collaboration, marketing and “the empty page,” which Post explained as a discussion around the questions: How do you start a play? How do you finish a play? And who do you listen to along the way?
This has been a busy fall for Post, as Garrison came to town in October for an event at Chicago Dramatists. In November the Goodman Theatre will host 20 writers and 20 directors who specialize in musical theatre in an informal exchange, and the final town hall meeting for 2008 will take place in on Dec. 9 at 7 p.m. at VG.
For 2009 Post looks forward to working with DirectorsLabChicago founders Karin Shook and Elizabeth Margoloius on another director-dramatist exchange in the spring. “Karin and Elizabeth are great,” said Post. “I can’t say enough good things about these women.” He noted that they had such success with the DirectorsLabChicago model of introducing writers to directors that it led to an expansion of the program, which is the Goodman meeting mentioned above that will take place in November.
And lest anyone think he’s slacking, Post is also actively working with the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of America (LMDA) to host a mixer with Guild writers. He writes a bimonthly column for the Guild magazine and continues to meet individually with writers to answer questions about the Guild.
It is important to note, though, that even with all this facilitation, Post and the Dramatists Guild do not exist to get your play produced, which is the biggest misconception about the organization that Post has found. “We are a service organization,” he explained, which means that while the Guild’s legal affairs department will look over your contract and let you know what is generally accepted as fair or not, they won’t negotiate it for you or help you get an agent.
What Post is creating for the Guild in Chicago is a space where writers have the opportunity to meet people who may produce their work and some structure and community around what is normally a very solitary pursuit. “I feel part of my role is to facilitate relationships between writers and people producing new work, but I cannot expressly help someone get a play produced on my own. Whatever limited success I’ve had, whatever worked for me, will not work for them,” he explained.
I asked Post what he thought the biggest change was between today’s Guild and the Guild he avoided joining two decades ago. He said that even though occasionally members of the Guild would come to town to “wine and dine us a bit and try to entice us to become members, it felt like another world. There was still this sense of New Yorkers coming to the second city. I felt a sense of condescension—the New York elite coming to see the Chicago rough-and-tumblers.”
Now, he noted, Garrison’s NYU students all move to Chicago when they graduate. “There is a sense now from a lot of people in New York that they’d like to have what we have here—a sense of community and a work ethic,” said Post. “We seem to be more concerned with the work itself than with who is watching the work that night.”
For those interested in the next Dramatists Guild town hall meetings, they are open to anyone who wants to check it out. They are all at the Victory Gardens Biograph theatre and go from 7 p.m. until 8:30 p.m. The dates are: Dec. 9, March 10, 2009 and June 16, 2009.