A warning to the curious

Beware oh humble Am Dram enthusiasts. Play authors may seem like little fluffy bunny wabbits but they can be as cruel and cut-throat as a divorce lawyer (not all of them though - I know a couple who are really rather lovely). Take our current production (please!). The author approached our little group asking if we'd put on her newest play which hadn't even been published yet. For some reason this was a pre-requisite of the play being published at all. We thought nothing of it and said ok. Script arrived, dialogue only including spelling mistakes and incomprehensible scentences. No stage directions. We carried on with not a care, working hard putting it all together, rehearsing, singing, moving furniture, moving some more, getting exasperated because there were too many bodies & tables on stage etc. Our director meanwhile contacts our adjudicator from the GMDF to discuss the play which he will come to see & review. During the conversation it emerges that some play authors have a curious little habit of not writing stage directions themselves but getting a group to put on their play so that it is done for them without them having to lift a finger. They then claim all the credit. It seems our author is one of those people.

We'd been told from the start that our production would be the world premiere. "Woo hoo!" we thought. Not so. Turns out our lovely author had also contacted another group in the Lakes and they are putting on the play before us. Tomorrow night in fact. When we've been advertising for ages that ours is the 'world premiere'. She (the author) had also apparently been bragging to our director that the Lakes group have a full band for their production. Well whoopee fucking doo for them! And this is the same woman who offered to help us out with publicity but we haven't seen hide nor hair of her. What a charming example of humanity this woman is.

Not.

So again, be warned aspiring actors and directors lest the hounds of hell be unleashed upon the world clutching copies of 'Playwriting for Dummies'.