Old Pueblo Playwrights is a development organization for playwrights; our main intent is to refine and improve plays through readings and feedback. We also welcome screenplays, radio plays, and dramatic podcast scripts for readings. We may, at times, also have workshops and special programs focusing on other aspects of the writing process. Every year, we put on a festival of script-in-hand staged readings, with minimal rehearsal, props, and blocking, known as our Annual New Play Festival.
We meet Monday evenings at 7 in the rehearsal room at the Temple of Music and Art in downtown Tucson, with some exceptions for holidays and other occasions. Our main order of business is to hear table readings of original work by our members and offer critique and discussion. We also plan events, talk about theater going on around town, and take care of organizational business.
If you come, expect to see a group of people seated around a group of tables, including members, actors who have come to read parts in the play, and other guests and visitors. After introductions and other business,
After a second reading, a play may be voted on by the dues-paying members for consideration as a festival play. Festival readings are fully staged in front of an audience, with light and sound cues, full blocking, props, and minimal representational sets, although actors are not expected to memorize their lines and have scripts in hand. Festival plays are followed by a feedback discussion with the audience.
We meet Monday evenings at 7 in the rehearsal room at the Temple of Music and Art in downtown Tucson, with some exceptions for holidays and other occasions. Our main order of business is to hear table readings of original work by our members and offer critique and discussion. We also plan events, talk about theater going on around town, and take care of organizational business.
If you come, expect to see a group of people seated around a group of tables, including members, actors who have come to read parts in the play, and other guests and visitors. After introductions and other business,
After a second reading, a play may be voted on by the dues-paying members for consideration as a festival play. Festival readings are fully staged in front of an audience, with light and sound cues, full blocking, props, and minimal representational sets, although actors are not expected to memorize their lines and have scripts in hand. Festival plays are followed by a feedback discussion with the audience.
Scheduling Your Play for A Reading
Plays may be scheduled for a reading on any currently open Monday evening. Scheduling is done through the Old Pueblo Playwrights’ Secretary. (If you have never had a play read at OPP before, you may be asked to submit your first proposed work to the board for perusal before it is scheduled for a first reading. This request is entirely at the discretion of the board.) Please do not schedule a play for a second reading unless significant changes have been made to it since the first reading. As the annual festival approaches (usually in midwinter), repeat readings for festival consideration may be given priority over first readings. Also, at that time of year, space fills up rapidly, so it is wise to schedule any readings well in advance.
Casting and Rehearsing Your Play
- All parts in any play must be cast before the reading begins. (Assigning parts while a reading is in progress is difficult.) You must also secure a discussion facilitator (it is usually wisest to pick someone who has been to at least a few meetings) and someone to read the play's stage directions.
- Finding a cast, discussion facilitator, and someone to read stage directions is entirely the responsibility of the playwright. However, the other members of OPP can point you towards many helpful resources if you are having trouble or unsure how to go about it.
- For any reading, playwrights should not play any part, nor should they read stage directions.
- Please bring enough copies of your play to accommodate all of the actors. One script per actor, plus one for the stage direction reader, is preferred.
- Provide your discussion facilitator with a list of questions for discussion. What do you want feedback on?
- Double-casting roles is permitted, and entirely at the discretion of the playwright.
- For a Festival Reading, playwrights must find a director in advance. However, for the Festival, there is an actual audition process for all Festival plays, so finding a cast is a bit easier. This audition process is a little complicated, and will be explained at the time of the Festival rather than here. There is also a set rehearsal period for the Festival, although individual rehearsals will be scheduled by each play’s director. Again, this will be explained fully at the time.
Feedback Discussion
- After every reading, there will be a discussion of the play. Anyone who read in the play or listened to the reading is welcome to participate.
- The facilitator’s job is to guide the discussion. The duties of the facilitator include posing specific questions to the audience or actors, preventing the discussion from dissolving into tangents or repetition, and keeping one person or small group from dominating the discussion.
- While the facilitator is guiding the meeting, all questions and comments should be directed to the facilitator, NOT to the playwright. The playwright should also refrain from making any comments, questions, or explanations during this period; for the first part of the discussion, at least, they should just listen to what people have to say.
- Participants in the discussion are encouraged to talk about any part of the play they either liked or disliked, and why, in as much detail as they want. Any aspect of drama, whether artistic or technical, is fair game for comment. However, at this point in the discussion, we ask that people refrain from suggesting specific changes to the plot or intent of the play (you may hear this referred to as “rewriting”.) This is because the first part of the discussion is really meant to be about the play as it is written, rather than as a somewhat different play. It’s a somewhat fine distinction that many people have trouble with – as an example, an acceptable comment might be, “I feel that the ending lacks drama; Maurice and Lenny just sit in silence, with nothing resolved,” whereas an unacceptable comment at this point might be, “I think that Maurice should shoot and kill Lenny at the end.”
- Playwrights should bear in mind that this critique is the entire point of these meetings, and it is to be expected. We encourage people to be honest and not to pull punches in these discussions. Playwrights may find it helpful to remember that a critique of your play is not a personal attack, and that often it is the plays with the most potential which provoke the most heated discussions.
- On the other hand, participants should bear in mind that constructive criticism is the point of these meetings, and they should remain polite and to the point. Simply insulting the piece or making personal attacks on the author are not welcome.
- When the general discussion seems to be completely over, the facilitator turns the remainder of the meeting over to the playwright, at which point the playwright can ask any further questions they wish or make comments. At this time, IF THE PLAYWRIGHT SO DESIRES, the playwright can request that the audience make suggestions for specific “rewrites”, or ask for more informal opinions, but the playwright is under no obligation to do so.
