SUMMER 2008 REGISTRATION:
FORUM 1 & FORUM 2

FORUM 2. Forum 2 members must register with the application form on this page to continue or re-activate for the next 4-month session. The fee is $110. Do try to include full or half payment as indicated.

FORUM 1. To insure your place in the upcoming Forum 1 session, please fill out and mail the application form on this page. Current members please notify us by May 9th. Do try to include full or half payment as indicated. If you have any problem with that pre-payment, don’t hesitate to call Ernie at 301-816-0569. The fee is $110. Forum 1 will include four groups of 8 members, in 6 bi-weekly meetings. Our faculty includes, for the Summer, Ernie Joselovitz and Allison Pruitt.

Tuesdays. Bethesda Elementary School. 6:30-9 p.m. May 20th to July 29th. Joselovitz.

Wednesdays. Bethesda Elementary School. 6:30-9 p.m. May 28th to August 6th. Joselovitz.

Wednesdays. St. Mary’s Armenian Church. 7:00-9:30 p.m. May 21st to July 30th. Pruitt.

Thursdays. Cleveland Park Library, D.C. 6:30-9 p.m. May 22nd to July 31st. Joselovitz.

How to Register:
Our Registrar is Allison Pruitt, who will confirm your place in one of our groups. For any enquiries, please call Ernie at 301-816-0569 or Allison at 703-448-0209. 1. Current members who wish to continue are given priority. Please register by May 9th. 2. Members who discontinued at the last session will be offered the first chance to fill vacancies. 3. Associate members and then all others will be welcomed into the Forum’s remaining openings.

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THE FORUM - SUMMER 2008 REGISTRATION

Please register ________________________________________
for the upcoming session of
___ Forum 1 ___ Forum 2

___ I am a current member.
___ I was a member of the Spring 2008 Session.
___ I am an Associate Member.

My preference is for the group at ___________________
on _______-day.

I’ve enclosed a pre-payment of _____$110 _____ $55

Telephone Number ______________________________
E-mail ________________________________________

Street Address (if new member)
______________________________________
______________________________________

___ Yes, include a Playwrights Forum Handbook, our new 6th Edition, for another $7.50!

Send check and hard-copy of form to: PF, P O Box 5322, Rockville, MD 20848.

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PLAYWRIGHTS FORUM HANDBOOK!

New! Sixth Edition

The Learning Environment. Your guide to getting the most from the full range of Playwrights Forum activitiesThe Craft. The PF methodology, along with expert advice and handy tips from "How do I start?" to third-draft woesThe Market. The"how-to" from letters of inquiry to surfing the up-to-the-minute guides to today’s play-marketing

_____YES! I want my copy of PLAYWRIGHTS FORUM HANDBOOK 6. I’ve enclosed $7.50, which includes mailing costs. Send it to:

Name __________________________________________________________

Address ________________________________________________________

*Make check to Playwrights Forum. Mail to:
Playwrights Forum, P.O. Box 5322, Rockville, MD 20848.

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WORTH NOTING

Forum 2's Karen Zacarias and her musical collaborator Debbie LaPuma will have their new music for youngsters, Looking For Roberto Clemente, premiering at Imagination Stage on April 12.

The 40th Annual American College Theatre Festival will be held April 14-19, including the National Student Playwright Awarded script, House Full of Letters by UCLA’s Kit Steinkellner, the Short Play Festival, In the Blood by Suzan-Lori Parks by the University of Alabama/Birmingham. All tix $10. At the Kennedy Center. 202-467-4600.

Public:

In-House:

May 12 Daddy’s Girl by Anne Ryan. Directed by Catherine Aselford. 7 p.m. Monday. St. Mary’s Armenian Church.

May 19 The Deserter by Herman Weisman. Directed by Kathryn Kelly. 7 p.m. Monday. St. Mary’s Armenian Church.

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FORUM 2 SCHEDULE

April 9 Round-table discussions

April 23 Round-table discussions

May 7 Round-table discussions

May 21 Round-table discussions

All Forum 2 meetings take place at 7 p.m. at St. Mary’s Armenian Church.

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KVELLING pronounced exactly as it's spelled. Yiddish: to gush, to swell. Here is where you will find tidbits about Forum members and Associate members. Good things that have happened to our colleagues inside and outside the Playwrights Forum neighborhood. Send it all <sheilah.kleiman3@verizon.net>.

Former Forum 2 member Dorothy Fortenberry, now at Yale School of Drama, is having her new play, Good Egg, performed as part of its Third Annual Carlotta Festival of New Plays, May 9-18.

Forum 2's Scot Walker’s short story Pretty Plastic Flower For Her Grave was published in the January edition of "Ancient Paths" and is also available on-line (for 49 cents) at Amazon Shorts or through a link to his website www.scotwalkerauthor.com. Scot has sent out over 200 proposals, stories, poems, and queries since January.

Associate Member Nicole Burton’s book Swimming Up the Sun: a Memoir of Adoption, is being printed and will be available for order at bookstores and on Amazon.com soon. Nicole attended the American Adoption Congress Conference in Portland, OR at the end of March to network and promote the book. She also had a first reading and author signing at Portland’s Broadway Books on March 25. Readings and signings will be held in the DC area and Nicole will keep us posted. The first three chapters can be found in print and audio format on her website www.NicoleJBurton.com.

To Touch the Sky by Forum 1's Thomas Mason, Jr. had a public reading at the Harlem School of the Art’s nationally renowned Frank Silvera Workshop in New York City on March 17.

Former Forum 2 member Dolores Whiskeyman Gregory’s Dirty Pictures (directed by Rick Davis) was read March 12 at the Melton Rehearsal Hall at Woolly Mammoth, sponsored by Woolly Mammoth’s Playground Playwrights Group.

One of the Forum’s frequent directors, Delia Zielinski, had a solo recital: Vienna, Paris, Madrid: A Journey Through Art Song. It was held March 27 at Martin Luther King Memorial Library in D.C.

Missing Pages, by Forum 2's Susan Austin Roth, was given a public reading by the Tri-State Actors Theater in Sussex Borough on March 15, featuring professional actors from New York City.

Calliope Theatre Company presented two short plays on March 21 at Kefa Café in Silver Spring, MD: O Sole Mio by Forum 1's Leon Levenson and Lincoln and God by Anthony Gallo.

The Seventh Street Playhouse will produce former Forum 1's Anthony Gallo’s Eugenio at the Capital Fringe in DC in July. The same play was presented in March at the Arts Club of Washington, and will be presented at the National Press Club this month. The Mid-town Festival in New York City will do Theresa Gambacorta’s production of Tony’s play Margherita in August. He also has shorter works in Washington D.C. The Last Days of King Solomon in May, and Better Than the Best: A Sing Along Musical in October, both at Cosmos Theatre. His play Vanderbilt was published by Browns Court Publishing Co. Tony is speaking at the Author’s Club of Washington early this month on "The Difficulties of Being a Judo-Christian Playwright."

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SPOTLIGHT ON.... THE DRAMATISTS GUILD, PART 2

MEMBERSHIP HAS PRIVILEGES

By Patty Fitzgerald

In December 2007, the Playwrights Forum sponsored an education session with Ralph Sevush, Executive Director of the Dramatists Guild of America. The last issue of this newsletter featured some general insights from Ralph about contracts. While this is valuable and helpful advice, playwrights should consider applying for membership in the Dramatists Guild, in order to take full advantage of the association’s services. Member benefits include access to

• standard and model contracts for all levels of productions;
• business advice; and
• royalty collection services.

In addition, members receive a subscription to The Dramatist, a bimonthly magazine, as well as a newsletter supplement and resource directory, plus a host of networking opportunities. You must apply and be accepted to one of the organization’s four categories of membership; annual dues range from $35 to $150.

"We don’t give legal advice; we give business advice," Mr. Sevush explained. "If you get a contract, we can judge whether it’s fair and if it protects you, before you sign it. It might be - but it might have been 20 years ago."

At the Playwrights Forum event, Ralph also answered questions about copyright issues. What can be copyrighted? What constitutes "fair use"? What does registration get you? The following are some of the key insights Ralph offered.

• A title is not copyrightable. A series title, however, can get trademark protection, e.g. "Nancy Drew" and the "Dummies" series of how-to books.
• Not long ago, copyright protection was extended past "life", adding 70 years. "As copyright owners, you would think we’d be happy with such extensions; but there is a point of diminishing returns," Mr. Sevush noted. In this country, anything published earlier than 1923 is in the public domain.
• You have the copyright to your work from the moment you write it (through your life, plus 70 years), says Ralph. But that copyright cannot be protected until it is registered with the Library of Congress. You don’t need to copyright every revision of your work, however. "Usually, there are three points in the life of a script when you should register it: when you start sending it out; if it is getting a serious production and if a newer version comes out of that process that is substantially different (especially if new material is added); and when it is published."
• There is no law for a certain amount of quotations being exempt from copyright protection. "That’s a myth," he asserted. But there are some ‘fair" uses of quotes. Courts use a four-factor test that includes newsworthiness and impact on the market. "The rule is whatever the court finds; there is no established formula".
• Copyright protects expression; it does not protect facts or ideas.
• While there is no such thing as "life story" rights, per se, individuals do have protections in terms of defamation and "the right to publicity." These tend to be state, rather than federal, laws. But most "celebrities" can’t use their rights to stop you from writing about them, unless you are using their name or likeness in the title of the work, selling it on t-shirts and so on, he explained.

Collaboration was another area discussed by Mr. Sevush and those attending the Forum event. Authorial collaboration is when writers (including lyricists and composers) work together to create a work. Non-authorial collaboration is when writers work with others to produce the work.

The most prevalent example of an authorial collaboration is a musical. Ralph urged playwrights to establish a contract or other written agreement before starting the creative process. "You don’t want money, billing and so on to be decided later," he warned. "It’s important to do this early in the process, when things are going well."

If you can’t work out an agreement in advance, the work will be governed by copyright law ("which is vague and ever-changing") and considered a joint authorship piece, in which all authors own all of the work. "This means the composer could make changes to the book and the writer to the music. Each could license it to others. And this starts to make the work unproduce-able," he warned.

The Guild has agreements for different types of collaboration, and Ralph conceded that it can be uncomfortable to raise the issue among your creative team members. But, he noted, "Not dealing with something is dealing with it in a bad way. There is nothing wrong or inappropriate with going to collaborators and saying, ‘I want to do what is standard and fair.’"

Mr. Sevush also addressed the legal ramifications of working with a dramaturg in developing your play. "Regional theatres increasingly are making them staff members and gatekeepers," he explained. "They see themselves as champions of a play and they often become part of the production process." A contentious lawsuit over the role of a dramaturg who worked with composer Jonathan Larsen on Rent has prompted the Guild and theatres to add language about dramaturgy into contracts.

Author/director relationships are another hot issue right now, said Ralph. Some directors are trying to protect elements of a production, claiming ownership of stage directions, for example, in attempting to gain subsidiary rights on the work. In a recent case involving the musical Urinetown the copyright office ruled that stage directions were not copyrightable. Of course, some A-list directors who demand subsidiary rights to your play also add marketability and visibility to your work, so it might be worth the negotiation.

The bottom line is the bottom line. "Remember, you, as playwrights, are the only ones in the entire process who own anything; so everyone is coming to you, wanting a piece," Ralph concluded. "A writer working in theatre is the entrepreneur. You have to think of your work as a business." Protecting yourself doesn’t mean presupposing disaster - but it does mean anticipating disaster.