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Stageplays.com

Mar 8, 2009

playwriting

I started writing plays about twelve years ago. I think I’m pretty good at it now. At the same time, I look at where my career is and I’m disappointed I haven’t yet had an off Broadway or regional show. My plays are being done by various small theaters throughout the country, mostly because I work really hard to get my work out there. I’m happy that people are seeing my plays but I really want them out in the world in a much larger way, a way I have no control over. It’s frustrating but I haven’t found an alternative. Theatre is what I love. And I stick with it because of the way I feel when I see something onstage that clicks and I feel myself change emotionally, intellectually, physically. I want to write things that touch people softly or rip out their guts and this is the way I’ve found to do it. Theatre is the closest I’ve come to a religious experience on this planet. Which is why I keep doing it even though it’s a hard life that no one sane should choose.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can totally understand your frustration at not getting the kind of productions you want -- I sympathize. But you should know, to someone not as far along in her career, still in school with a few tiny school productions and Off-Off Equity Showcases, that I look at the type of success you have had so far and I think, "One day, I'll be successful like Adam."

EM Lewis said...

It's a very large ceiling, isn't it? I don't know how we're supposed to break through it. Seems like you are doing all the right things, though! Mainly -- writing, writing, writing. And getting it out there.

Adam Szymkowicz said...

Thanks, Jenny. I thought that too but now I'm here.

Ellen, I'm not sure either but I do know many of my friends who are older than me are finally breaking through now. But I also know younger friends who did it almost right away. so I don't know. The problem is that I know almost all the most successful people at this thing.

Phil Hopkins said...

Adam - I think about you and Sheila and others who are so damn good and yet haven't gotten that breakthrough (though she's done pretty well for herself, I'd have to say.)

To me, it's a question of seeing people of your ethos and generation coming into positions of producing power, which I believe is happening. But right now, a bunch of folks who are afraid of their subscriber base are running the show. My rant...

Adam Szymkowicz said...

Yeah, I know, Phil. I just thought if I wrote a good play or two I could knock down that wall. I think Sheila has finally done so, though I'm not sure whether or not she would agree.