I think I may be getting old.

When I was a younger playwright, I had more patience for the multitudinous, bureaucratic, nonsensical tasks associated with submitting my work for various contests and grants and residencies. You want a 15-page sample instead of a 10-page sample? Sure thing. You want one copy without my name on it, then a separate title page WITH my name on it? I can make that happen. You want me to print my play on vellum using an ink jet cartridge filled with unicorn tears for ink? I'll see what I can do.

Now, however, I just can't seem to take it any more. I find more and more reasons to NOT submit my work for the consideration of my peers. In fact, if I'm asked for more than anything but a copy of the script, a bio or resume, and a synopsis -- and I'm wavering on the synopsis -- I often say no. It's too much work for too long a shot, frankly, and I've got better things to do with my time.

(Side note: I realize this means the bastards are "winning." They secretly WANT to reduce the number of entries they get so that they have less work to do reviewing. What they don't realize is that they're more likely to be weeding out veterans -- who presumably have skill, or they wouldn't have survived, but who've grown weary of the task -- rather than fresh-faced playwrights whose work has yet to mature.)

My latest nemesis is the letter of reference. This one really steams me, because it means I have to ask somebody I care about -- somebody in a position of authority -- to waste time on my behalf. It's one thing when I have to give up my own long hours for people demanding I submit two copies of a script, printed on both sides of the page, with wire brads instead of plastic report covers; it's another thing entirely to ask someone else to spend even half an hour writing something witty and inspiring about me.

What really irks me is that, as far as I'm concerned, any reasonable reading of ethics suggests that theaters just shouldn't ask for references. A reference requires a kind of insider status; the more inside and established you are, the better your reference is going to be. As a result, anyone who gets chosen for an opportunity in part because of a reference is benefiting from a system that rewards the status quo and positions of power.

Here's my simple message to anyone who happens to run a contest or workshop or development program of some kind... or, really, just a theater: read the plays. Read the plays, judge the plays, and then choose the plays (and the people who wrote them) that make sense for you. There are no real shortcuts that don't come with significant ethical implications. Read the plays, get other people to help you read the plays, and make you decisions based on a reading of the plays.

And please don't ask me for a letter of reference. It's going to make me consider not submitting to your thing -- which, I note once more, may be exactly what you want, which is annoying in an entirely different way, even if I am sympathetic to the demands of reading a ton of plays. (But you brought it on yourself!) Don't ask for a letter of reference; everyone who's ever had to write one will thank you for the half-hour or hour you gave them back. And we playwrights will think better of you for it, too. Much better.

Thank you.