The Rep’s New Play Festival

Seth Gordon Introduces us to The Rep’s New Play Festival

The name ideas are coming in. We recently announced that anyone who wishes can suggest a name for The Rep’s new play festival - and so far there have been over 100 suggestions. By July 15, the deadline for submissions, I’m sure we’ll have many more. It’s exciting and gratifying to know that so many people are putting thought into this.

I’ve been involved with new play development throughout my career. At first it was out of necessity. I was young and had a thin resume in New York City and the only people willing to take a chance on me were young playwrights with thin resumes.  Soon, however, I made two discoveries. One was that an effective way to advance my career was to ride the wave of a playwrights’ career growth, and the other was that it was very empowering to help a new play find its way into the American canon. One could do a fine job directing the ten thousandth production of Romeo and Juliet, or one could direct the very first production of a play whose trajectory, and influence both in the field and on the lives and imaginations of countless people, cannot be predicted.

I wound up working for many years with a company in New York called Primary Stages, which specialized in new plays. I produced and directed countless premieres by some of this era’s leading playwrights. I also founded a group that helped develop plays by some of the “playwrights of tomorrow.” This was a while ago, so a few of those playwrights have graduated to become playwrights of today. The most notable is David Lindsay-Abaire, whose first play, Fuddy Meers, was written in my group. David is now a Pulitzer Prize winner and multiple Tony Award nominee.

At the Cleveland Play House I continued this work. Between the two groups dozens of plays have been written and developed in the very quiet, supportive and unglamorous fashion that one stewards a new play into existence. One of the main reasons I decided to move to St. Louis and work at The Rep was the opportunity to start another festival and spread the good word about new play development into another city.

New play development, as I hope you’ll all see when you come to the festival in March, is exciting to the audience as much as it is to the artists involved. Ever hear of a Tennessee Williams play called The Poker Night? Probably not. That’s because The Poker Night was the first draft of a play that eventually became A Streetcar Named Desire. Now, imagine coming to The Rep’s new play festival and attending a reading of The Poker Night. Then a year or two later you come back to the festival and its main event is a full production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Imagine witnessing that development; the birth of one of the most moving, dramatic and celebrated play in this nation’s history. I’m certainly not promising such a play will come out of this festival, but hey, you never know.

The festival will begin in March of 2012. There will be a full production in the Emerson Studio Theatre of a new play called The Invisible Hand, by Ayad Akhtar. We’re also going to commission some plays, which you’ll be hearing about as the season begins. And we’ll be reading some plays that are works-in-progress. After the readings we’ll all, as a group, talk about the play and what still needs to be worked on. That’s how you’ll be able to contribute to this play’s development, if you’re there.

Why are we asking for ideas for the name? At Primary Stages my group was called The New American Writers’ Group. In Cleveland my group was called The Cleveland Play House Playwrights’ Unit. I’m hoping to come up with something not quite as dry. Like the transformation from The Poker Night to A Streetcar Named Desire, let’s develop a more poetic, dramatic title for this endeavor together.

I hope you’ll join us in March.

Click here to submit your name idea(s) for The Rep’s New Play Festival through July 15!

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