1) Write a play with nothing but unpleasant characters.
This is an age of anti-heroes, after all. Make sure there is
no one onstage that an audience could possibly like or want to
spend time with. If they wanted to be comfortable or happy, they
should have stayed home.
2) Choose a topic that you think is marketable
but you don't really care much about. After all, a playwright
should be able to crank out something mildly entertaining without
a strong point of view. Something like an episode of your favorite
sitcom should go over well, don't you think?
3) Write a play that requires a realistic set
change every three or four minutes. Or that has at least two
or three insurmountable props, like a driveable car that goes
on and off stage. Or lots of cool special effects. If Miss Saigon
can have a helicopter that hovers and lands onstage, why can't
you?
4) Don't include a cast list at the front with
the names and number of characters; after all, you wouldn't want
the theatre to be intimidated by the cast size right away. Let
them discover the vast army of characters by reading the play.
Make sure there are plenty of characters that have only one or
two lines. After all, actors need work.
5) Don't number the pages, either. Let the theatre
guess how long it'll take by hefting it. Anyway, 160 pages isn't
all that long, is it? Especially when the play is in 5 acts and
23 scenes.
6) Leave the pages loose, or stuck together with
a paper clip that easily falls off. (This is especially effective
when you're been diligent about rule 5 above.)
7) While you're at it, invent your own play format;
the one from Samuel French or Dramatists Sourcebook is sure to
be too confining. Be creative with your spelling and grammar,
too. All of this will show an irrepressible original mind at
work.
8) Open your play with several pages of stage
directions, in long impenetrable blocks. Describe the sets and
furnishings with such numbing detail that the set designer will
know exactly where to buy the priceless antiques you need for
scrupulous authenticity.
9) Make sure that the first 10 or 15 pages is
nothing but exposition or trivia by minor characters. Most audiences
don't settle in or stop rustling their programs until 15 minutes
into the play. Don't give them anything meaty until their bottoms
have conformed to their chairs.
10) Put in lots of stage directions for every
speech, indicating exactly how you think an actor should say
the line. Example:
JANE: (coyly) No.
JOHN: (very angry, but holding it in) Why not?
JANE: (flirting more hesitantly now) Because.
JOHN: (swept away with passion) All right, then.
11) Be sure to include at least one 3-page monologue,
per character, in every scene. And do keep all the characters
onstage whether they have anything to do or say in the scene
or not; after all, the actors need to practice concentrating
on listening intently for a half hour without dialogue or stage
business.
12) Make the dialogue as generic as possible.
You might, for instance, write an absurdist play where all the
characters are named MAN and WOMAN 1, 2, 3, etc., and they all
spout general philosophical abstractions until it's hard to tell
their characters and dialogue apart. That way it will be intellectually
deep and universal and everyone will be able to identify with
it.
13) Alternatively, base your play on your own
life, particularly your frustrations, and how no one understands
and appreciates you. Don't change anything; people need to experience
unvarnished reality.
14) Print your script on a dot-matrix printer
in which you haven't changed the ribbon in years. Use a "creative"
font, like all italics or cursive. Then photocopy it on the lightest
possible setting, to conserve toner. Even better, write your
script in longhand. Anything to make it to stand out from all
the others.
15) Send your script to every theatre you ever
heard of. Don't bother finding out what kinds of plays they usually
do; they're bound to love your masterpiece, no matter what. After
all, everyone, from a radical experimental company to a Shakespeare
festival to a community theatre that only does musicals, NEEDS
to experience your gripping 53-character historical play about
Civil War amputees.
16) Diligently follow up by calling the theatre
every week or so until you're sure your script has been received
and read. That way the staff will be sure to remember your name.
17) Leave your address and phone number off your
script, and don't include a SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope,
manuscript-sized) for return of your script either. That way,
you'll never have to face rejection -- because the theatre won't
be able to find you.
