Classes

September 10, 2023 11am-2pm PDT
MIND YOUR OWN (PLAYWRITING) BUSINESS: All The Things No One Ever Explains
A 3-Hour Workshop with Jonathan Spector
In-Person at PlayGround PlaySpace, Berkeley
Registration: $50

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In this session we’ll get into the nitty gritty of all of the non-writing parts of a playwriting career, and attempt to demystify and disentangle. What are the things you should know? How do all the different parts function together? And of course the evergreen question: how does one build a playwriting career? We’ll conclude with some focused on goal-setting, and making specific plans to try to pursue that goal. Of course so much is out of our control in this work, but also very few things happen completely on their own.

Topics we’ll dig into include:

  • Contracts – What the standard language is and what it means, when and how to negotiate, what you should never agree to, etc…
  • Submissions – Submitting to new play festivals vs theaters. Understanding season planning cycles, where and how to submit plays. And why? What happens on the other end?
  • Money – How do playwrights get paid? And how much? What’s standard for theaters of various sizes? What can you ask for?
  • Commissions – How do they work? Why do theaters do them? What are the different kinds? How do you get one? How much $ is standard?
  • Agents – What do they do? How do you know when you need one (and then, how to get one?)? How to work with one when you have them?
  • Relationships – This is a business of relationships. But what does that mean? How do you develop them? How do you maintain them?
  • Career Paths – Each person’s path is totally unique to them and not repeatable, but just as light is both a particle and a wave, what are the general patterns that emerge?

Jonathan Spector is a playwright and screenwriter based in Oakland, California. His plays include Eureka Day, This Much I Know, Good. Better. Best. Bested., Best Available and In From The Cold. These and other plays have been produced across the country and at major theaters abroad including The Old Vic/Sonia Friedman Productions (starring Helen Hunt), Aurora Theater, Colt Coeur, Mosaic Theater, Asolo Rep, Syracuse Stage, InterAct, Custom Made, The State Theater of South Australia, The National Theater of Austria, Hampstead Theater, Theater J, and Just Theater, where he was the long-time Co-Artistic Director.

He has developed work with Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor, Roundabout Theater, Manhattan Theater Club, South Coast Rep, Portland Center Stage’s JAW, Crowded Fire, PlayPenn, New Harmony Project, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Portland Stage, PlayGround, and Playwrights Center (Minneapolis), among others. He ha been a New York Times Critics’ Pick, and a two-time winner of both the Glickman Award and the Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Award for Best New Play, as well as the Edgerton Award, Theater Bay Area Award for Best New Play, Rella Lossy Award, The Global Age Prize and been nominated for a New York Drama Critics Circle Award and a London’s WhatsOnStage Award.

Jonathan has been a MacDowell Fellow, a Playwrights Center Core Writer, a Playwrights Foundation Resident Playwright, and received commissions from South Coast Rep, Manhattan Theater Club, La Jolla Playhouse, Roundabout Theater Company and Aurora Theater and is developing a TV series with Lorne Michaels’ Broadway Video.