#EndofPlay: On Our Own

The Dramatists Guild has a held a powerful program called #EndofPlay in April for the past number of years. It has been a challenge to playwrights, composers, and lyricists to use the month of April to create within a community. Silent writing times were coordinated, meetings were held, opportunities to post about progress happened daily and at the end of it all, there was a celebration of work that was completed.

This year, as I mentally prepared for what I would work on in April, I suddenly noticed that there was no information coming from the Dramatists Guild. I was not the only one. Plenty of other playwrights who needed that community for creativity felt the void and silence. I immediately started gathering friends together on an email to create our own #endofplay challenge. I offered it out to people on social media. In one Facebook group dedicated to playwrights, I saw a playwright say that he had been in touch with the Dramatists Guild and they had confirmed that they were not doing it this year. The thread immediately spawned conversations about the challenges people were going to do anyway.

Neil Patrick Harris as the character of Barney in “How I Met Your Mother” (Image: A blond Caucasian man in a gray suit, white collar shirt, red tie with diagonal stripes in a bar surrounding by two men and a woman. In the background is a blue, red and green neon sign. White lettering on the bottom of the picture says “Challenge Accepted!”)

These types of challenges within a community can create an enormous amount of productivity and accountability. I have learned this from the great Patrick Gabridge who started the Playwright Binge a very long time ago. His vision was to create accountability around script submissions. Twice a year, there would be a Playwright Binge: March and September. Playwrights would post where they had submitted or post opportunities . The listserv has swelled to a huge number now.

People may have heard of NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, which takes place in November. I decided to take part in this this past November as part of a writing challenge that I needed. I worked alongside several other people on an email chain. We had silent writes and everything. For about six days. Perhaps November was not the best month to make sure that I was focusing my attention on my writing.

#EndofPlay comes at a time when you can finish a project and take it with you into the summer for massive revisions and possibly start to developmental marketing by the fall, if all goes well.

If you’d like to join in on the #EndofPlay fun, let me know by dropping a note here. We can add you to the list.

Elana’s Writing

So what am I working on for #EndofPlay? I’m so glad you asked! I have a script that is in revisions ahead of production meetings in May. This play will be going up in August as a virtual reading. Once that is completed, I will be continuing work on a brand new play that I’m having loads of fun exploring.

Thanks for continuing to read my Substack!