Glacial play development, playing the odds

The gestation period of a play is most often a number of years. Playwrights tend to take their sweet time. Plays get workshopped ad nauseam. Theaters program their seasons a year or more in advance. When a new play finally opens, it plays for a few weeks, gets reviewed, then closes never to be seen or heard from again.

Does a lengthy, precious process produce better plays?

Plays might as well take years to hit the boards - no one's in a hurry. The demand for new plays is at an all time low. A glacial development process is filling the gap. Playwrighting these days means hitting the workshop circuit, being a re-writer in residence.

If today's long journey from idea to opening night is intended to be a way for theaters to reduce risk and consistently produce plays of value, it's a failure. Fewer plays means fewer good plays. Theater has always been a numbers game. Even the best playwrights miss now and then. We like to think we know a hit when we read one. The fact is, only an audience knows a hit when it sees one.

Most theaters are set up to produce four to six plays a season. Given the same resources, why not produce twelve or twenty-four plays or more? No sets, less rehearsal, an ensemble, more plays - it's been done and it worked out reasonably well (see: English Renaissance Theater). 14/48 proves that audiences love theater on the edge. Maybe high gloss is less appealing than high risk, rough hewn and flawed.

Theater has always been a numbers game.