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ike a bazillion or so other playwrights, I subscribe to Insight for Playwrights, a monthly publication that lists theatres and contests/festivals. The following comments should not be taken as a criticism of Insight but of the theatres listed in it -- at least for the July edition.
In general I refuse to pay reading fees when I submit a play to a contest or a festival. I do this because if a theatre puts out a call that invites me and the other bazillion or so playwrights to submit pieces for their consideration, they have a responsibility for bearing the costs of the invitation. Just by sending a script, I have already paid a fee -- to the copy shop and the post office, at least, and certainly to the universe for the hours I've put in writing the damn thing. I find it insulting for a theatre, who will benefit in some way or another off my script if it's selected for their event, to gain a further unearned benefit by charging me for the honor of submitting it to them and, on top of that, to ask for money from playwrights who have no hope of every making a living off their stage writing.
In the July issue of Insight, of the ten theatres running a competition/festival, eight of them ask for a fee, ranging from $5 to $20. They are:
The Acting Company of Greenwich - $10
Arts Council of Rock Hill and YorkCounty - $10 per script
Curtain Players Theater - $20/play
Media Darlings Literature, Art & Sound - $10 for one-acts, $20 for full-lengths
Mercury Players - No fee for the first play submitted, $5 for each additional play (up to six)
St. Tammany Parish National One-Act Play Festival in Honor of Walker Percy - $10
Stage 3 Theatre - $10
The Wells International One Minute Play festival - $5
Some theatres I've contacted in the past counter that the money sometimes goes toward cash prizes offered to the winners of the event. I find cash prizes not only ridiculous (they're hardly ever enough to make a dent in anything) but also subversive of the artistic process. As much as possible art should not get reduced to the capitalist practices of competition and the cash nexus. Yes, judgments are made; yes, some script or scripts will "win" because the readers chose those and not others. But this notion that I would submit a script along with a fee so that, maybe, I could win $50 if I win "first prize" is pathetic and sophomoric because it assumes it can buy me off with trinkets and make me forget, in my small moment of victory, that it is the rare playwright who can cobble together a living off his or her work.
Other theatres have told me it helps defray their costs, which may be true, but they provided no evidence of how much of the actual cost of the event the fee defrays nor that any of that money reaches the people who are actually reading and judging the plays (which thus adds one more level of exploitation to this process).
Some theatrical competitions I will pay for because it's worth my while to ante up, e.g., O'Neill or Sundance, because the potential payback is worth the gamble. But most theatres are not at that level or provide that kind of bounce, and they shouldn't be asking the playwrights to subsidize their own participation in that theatre's mosh-pit.
I see fees allied to another growing "gatekeeper" problem for playwrights: theatres that will accept full-scripts only through agent submissions or professional recommendations while the rest of the hoi polloi are allowed to send in a letter and 10 pages (if, agentless, they are allowed to send anything). Again, being a volunteer script reader myself for four theatres, I understand the pressure on theatres when the pieces start pouring in over the transom. But the agent requirement, when it is almost impossible to get an agent except through an act of God (or the divinity of one's choice), adds another bottleneck to an already constricted process.
So, what's the solution? I offer none. If theatres want to add fees (and since I have no right to tell them not to or prevent them from doing so), then I have to decide whether I want to pay-to-play. If theatres want the bogus imprimatur of an agent, then I will have to beat the bushes to whack an agent into submission. It adds another level of effort to an already tedious process -- but if that's the case, then that's the case.
But I would urge theatres to reconsider at least the fees. See if there is some other way to make the process work that doesn't require people to kick in a buck to be part of something they love to do. Otherwise, the fee just becomes another bruise in an already bruising process.
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