When Plays Pay in Odd Ways

My play The Sequence has made me more money than any other play I have written.  This is true, even though The Sequence has only been fully produced once, at the Theatre @ Boston Court in Pasadena in 2008, and I did not receive any more than the usual compensation for that production.  How can this be?  For starters, The Sequence was a commission, meaning that, through a generous grant from EST/Sloan Project, I was paid up front simply to write it.  And while that commission was larger than any I had previously received, it was not huge by any measure, and certainly did not exceed the total that, say, Louis Slotin Sonata had brought in by that time through productions.  However, once I had a full draft of the script—albeit by no means final—I started getting inquiries from bio-tech organizations interested in hosting readings of the The Sequence at various symposiums and meetings around the country.  After a few of these readings, I became bored and started charging more than I thought  anyone would pay.  They paid anyway.  And thus I came to learn what should have been obvious in the first place: bio tech organizations have more money than regional theatres, and less myopia around where good plays can come from and what they are worth.

Now another yet-to-be produced play threatens to vaguely embarrass me by making money through means even less tangentially related to theatre.  My most recent full-length on-spec script is called Gossamer Grudges, and presents the story of a family-owned business devoted to “holding your grudges so you don’t have to.”  I have been nursing this premise for several years on the belief that it was deliciously absurd enough to fuel a proper full-on farce.  All that time I never guessed it might be absurd enough to inspire an actual business. 

Here’s a link to the first in what surely will be a long line of promotional videos for a new service called Grudgr, uniquely poised to—you guessed it— hold your grudges so you don’t have to.

 

Negotiations around my compensation for inspiring this business are on-going.  It could well be I won’t see a penny.  I am notoriously stupid when it comes to predicting the success of Hollywood enterprises.  I remember a phone conversation I had with Jeff Probst over a decade ago in which he told me about his upcoming television show wherein ordinary people would compete to be the last person on an desert island.  I remember thinking as I got off the phone, “Poor guy.  What a stupid idea.  They’re going to cancel that crap in two weeks tops.”

Comments

[Becky Bruhn]

I love this, Paul! How funny! And when it becomes a TV show, make sure you are in line for the windfall. (It's a brilliant idea.)

[Paul Mullin]

Thanks, Becky.

It's hard not to get rolled in Hollywood, but I'll do my best to be careful.

[Louise Penberthy]

I think your idea of getting unexpected audiences for your plays is brilliant. I have been inspired to try it myself, for a play of mine. The play is about a group of nuns who run a still during Prohibition, to keep their convent in business. I'm going to see if distilleries will hold readings of it.

[Paul Mullin]

Sounds like a great experiment, Louise. Please let us all know how it goes. I assume you know about the Dry Fly Distillery in Spokane?

[Louise Penberthy]

Yes, I found them via an article in the Seattle Times. Thanks.

[MirandaAdele]

Make your life more easy take the mortgage loans and all you need.