RTFO.

I just had a conversation with a colleague, a writer whose work is no stranger to productions and publishing, and they were lamenting the lack of recent success in pitching their short plays to theatres. Something we all do from time to time I would assume. This is indeed a tough business; there are too few venues for all of us dramatic scribblers. And (aside from aggressively networking with lit managers and artistic directors) there are no surefire ways to get one's work accepted. But there are ways to increase your chances.

BUT...for the sake of argument...let's assume you have a magnificent play wholly deserving of production. And it might be the The Absolute, No-Doubt-About-It Completely Perfect Fit for Weehonka's Annual 10-Minute Play Festival (2021 Theme: “Ointments”). So yes, by all means--send it in!

But here are a few things to think about: all submissions will be evaluated by:

- A literary manager/artistic director who secretly loves comedies featuring seniors, but your characters are all tweens; or

- A director who prefers to do all female-identifying plays, and you've written burly greasemonkeys in a scrapyard; or

- A board that feels that trans folk have been greatly underrepresented.

Spoiler alert: theatre is a highly subjective world, rife with vagaries and vicissitudes. This means no one knows at any moment who's going to get the nod. As a director whose had to make the choices myself many times and also having been in many casting meetings, I know from experience that things can get unpredictable.

So think about these elements when you submit:

Are your character requirements too specific? Or can casting be flexible, allowing a company director to parcel out roles to actors who can genuinely crush the part without having to keep score how many persons of specific identity are in their company? Whenever possible and correct I prefer open casting instead of “Tim must be fifty-one, heavily bearded, and look good in cerise.” When I directed Macbeth, Banquo turned out to be a badass female. So was the casting for the titular role in Kynges Games, my own version of Richard III. I've allowed the casting of same-sex actors in parts I've originally written for a “traditional” male/female married couple because together the two actors totally crushed it. The casting instruction for my own character of The Universe is “Who got sufficient attitude enough to do this part?”

If two actors can completely convince me they are incurably in love with each other, they will probably get the roles. If another makes me actually believe they will never rest until their sworn enemy is rotting neck-deep in a cistern of boiling zebra poop, that'll work. Correct actor/role chemistry is sometimes way better than arbitrary and limiting physical characteristics. Don't limit your production chances by imposing physical restrictions if you don't need to; you'll open up opportunities for more eager thespians.

Diversity in casting is absolutely critical and I support casts as diverse as possible (not only for inclusion purposes, but also for the growth of the work because of what actors of different POVs bring to the rehearsal room). If your characters are specific and need to be represented on stage by women/transfolk/BIPOC, please specify that they are cast only with those actors specific to the criteria. It's the right thing to do and you're creating needed stage representation for these groups and stage time for those actors!

On the subject of themes: It's wonderful to have a specific theme of an evening of shorts, because, hey, a night of “ointment”-themed plays will absolutely get me out of the house very time. But is your play weak on plot, structure, and characterization and nothing more than a nine-minute advertisement for “The Fastest Relief for Hemorrhoids You Can Buy Without a Prescription”? Or does it employ the theme of “You'll Never Have to Fear Painful Urination Again” only as a framing vehicle against which to hang serious dramatic human conflict that's general enough to speak to nearly everyone in the theatre?

What's the actual run time? When companies suggest you sit down and read it out loud, they make a very good suggestion. This is so you can see for yourself how long it really is. Does your “ten-minute play” play out at fifteen minutes, even though it's “only” ten (and-a-half) pages? Maybe your six-page play runs at ten minutes. Reading it out loud allows you to see its actual length and as an added bonus, detect passages that are too wordy, not wordy enough, or have wrong-sounding words.

Other things to keep in mind:

Did you submit a drama when they asked for a comedy?

Did you send them three plays when they asked for only one?

Did you misspell the name of the theatre? The lit manager?

Did you write to a lit manager who left the company two years ago?

Did you send them an gritty, dystopian tale of drugs, family abuse, and incest, when their recent productions include “The Music Man,” “The Odd Couple,” and “Our Town”?

Did you send a named copy instead of a blind one?

Did you think that one little “blue word” would fly in a “family-friendly” show?

Did you send them a skit with poor structure, no engaging dramatic crisis, and/or no truthful resolution?

Did you give them something they've seen before a hundred times?

Submitters always need to consider the folks at the other end of the opportunity trail. They get a lot of plays to read. They get more plays than they want to read. Theatre companies are almost always understaffed and dependent upon the kindness of strangers (volunteers). They take a lot of time to set out the specifics of their submission guidelines. The more you follow their directions the better chance you will have of achieving success. The more you do not follow their directions, the more you'll convince them you have little consideration for them and their project and they will click off another rejection.

Lastly, you may know in your heart that your play “All's Well That Ends Welts” is be the absolutely perfect script for “To Anoint Thyself or Not: A Rash of Ointmental Shakespearean Diversions” and will forever change the way scholars think of Petruchio's embarrassing armpit problem. But you have one minor submission criterion problem, something not 100% in line with the theatre's specifics. Before lobbing it off in an email it may behoove you to ask for clarification before sending in. I do it from time to time and almost always get a polite response. It takes a bit more effort, but a short email asking about submission requirements is usually appreciated. It not only shows that you are considerate of their time spent on script evaluation and do not want to give them something they cannot use, but you might get a “Hey, thanks for asking and although it might not be right for us this time, we'd like to have a look anyway.” All of a sudden they know your name and you have a guaranteed read.

And, after all that, it may still come down to the fact that you named your protagonist the same name as the lit manager's ex-spouse and someone else didn't.

June 23, 2026

Image: Great truths, Ep. 527. Weehauken, NJ. 2026