Simultaneous Publication: Legit Experiment or Hat on a Hat?

Sometimes when you risk a lot with a piece of art, it pays to find ways to risk even more. Or at least that’s the counter-intuition behind the newest wrinkle in the Custom Made Play Project. A couple days ago a box arrived at my house containing exactly fifty copies of my soon-to-world-premiere play Ballard House Duet. Given the unique circumstances of its development (which I blog about in some detail here), the idea light-bulbed to offer a published version of the play simultaneously with its world premiere production.  After all, we custom made this play for two local actors, Hana Lass and Rebecca Olson: a Seattle story for Seattle audiences in the purest vein of locally and organically grown new theatre.  What better way to underscore how we are trying to change the way plays are made than to offer tangible printed proof of the pudding for sale.

So I emailed my friend and colleague Jason Aaron Goldberg, president of Original Works Publishing in Los Angeles.  OWP publishes acting edition scripts and licenses productions of plays by “bold, original, and adventurous playwrights from around the globe.” I currently have three plays in their catalogue:  An American Book of the Dead* – The Game Show†, The Sequence, and The Good Ship Manhattan.  Other Seattle playwrights have plays with OWP as well. For example, Elizabeth Heffron’s Mitzi’s Abortion received some strong productions around the country after OWP’s decision to publish it. 

I think it is fair to say that Jason was less than enthused by my idea. He told me OWP had looked at simultaneous publishing before, but never pulled the trigger. They prefer for a play to have a production history in advance of publishing it. This only makes sense. Productions work the kinks and flaws out of a play, not to mention garner reviews from which you can pull quotes for the script's back cover. I, however, pressed my proposal. I agreed to absorb the financial risk of printing the scripts if OWP was willing to risk a bit of its institutional reputation on the experiment. Jason graciously agreed.

So now you get to vote on whether this experiment succeeds or fails. I have 45 scripts to sell, each individually numbered and personally signed by me. I have priced them nearly a buck cheaper than what OWP sells my scripts for on their website.  If we do another publishing run of Ballard House Duet, they won’t be sold by me, won’t be signed by me, and won’t be part of a limited numbered edition: so why not buy one now while it’s cheap and special?

Here are the ways you can buy, in descending order from best to next next best:

• Go buy your tix to the show now (click here), then buy a script at the door.  (While supplies last.)
• Ping me with a way to send you my snail mail address.  Once I do, send me a check for $10, and I’ll send you back a script.  (I’ll eat  the postage on this option.)
• Buy a script on Ebay by clicking here, for $10 plus postage.  (This option allows PayPal.)

Vote now: the simultaneous publication experiment: success or failure?

 

Related articles

Putting the Fail back in "Experimental"

Ballard House Duet: Just the Facts

Bespoken Word

Ballard House Duet's Poster is Here!

Comments

[Wesley K. Andrews]

That's great man. Can't wait to pick up a copy at the show.

In the Presenting field, this is called "merchandise," and it's not approached with any soul-searching whatsoever and is not controversial. It's just like a Tour-only CD sold by a band or DJ.

This is also the reason that I made a concert recording of my storytelling show last Saturday to sell at upcoming gigs: http://wesleykandrews.wordpress.com/2012/11/24/whats-next-for-riverboat/

-Wes

[Paul Mullin]

Thanks, Wes. I like the way you think. We tend to be a little too shy and precious about this kind of stuff in the "serious theatre".

[Dclapper]

Personally, I really like sim-pubbing the script. As an audience member, if the play dazzled me, I want the script right then. Annex did this with "Bessemer's Spectacles" (and probably others), and I was delighted to buy a copy of the script afterwards, and to read and re-read it many times.

[Paul Mullin]

BESSEMER'S SPECTACLES is my favorite Annex Show EVER!

[Wesley K. Andrews]

If this play gets picked up by a big publishing house, or goes to Off-Broadway or something, how awesome will I be when I have an autographed first-run copy? And I'll be like I KNOW HIM SERIOUSLY U GUYZ. (later changes and corrections will only make my copy more exclusive!)

I've long thought that we don't pay nearly enough attention to the music industry or copy nearly enough of their practices. Good for you doing this.

[German Munoz]

It's quite common practice here in London to have the play script for sale during the original run of a show. As a writer, if a show dazzled me (or at least a part of it did), I really want to know "How does that look on the page itself?". It also helps to understand how much of what you saw is in the text and how much the other collaborators added.

[Bret Fetzer]

The experience of Rain City Projects -- which published plays in conjunction with productions for over ten years, including "Bessemer's Spectactles" -- was that when the theater promoted selling the script, it succeeded, and when they didn't, it didn't. The single most significant factor, by an order of magnitude, was having someone hold up the script in a preshow speech and say "This is for sale in the lobby; if you enjoyed the show, we encourage you to buy the script." Other approaches -- such as plugging the script for sale in a program ad -- had a fraction of the impact of a live preshow plug.

Over time, theaters became less invested in promoting scripts. There was a trend away from preshow speeches, and even the theaters that still did them just wanted the speaker to say the essentials and get off the stage. Most of the theaters producing new plays were small, volunteer-run organizations, so there was no one to consistently make a plug for the script, and trying to educate a rotating crew of house managers about this was too much to accomplish on top of all the other stuff that had to get done. Everyone supported the idea of selling the scripts in the abstract, but in practice it fell by the wayside.

But the main reason Rain City Projects stopped publishing individual scripts was that, as these were brand new plays getting their first production, a majority of playwrights learned a lot of new things and did significant rewrites after the production. Immediately the scripts were obsolete and the playwrights didn't want them sold or distributed.

If you have the theater's active support, then this publication should do well. Not a lot of people are interested in reading plays, but with active promotion you'll reach those people who are.

[Paul Mullin]

Thank you, Bret! Very very informative and useful.

[Louise Penberthy]

I agree with German. (Hi, German! "Here in London" envy envy.)

I love reading the script and figuring out how the playwright did it.

[Louise Penberthy]

Bret, did the playwrights make changes during rehearsal? I bought the script of "Jerusalem" that was published during the rehearsal process, and it was pretty close to the version I saw.