JULY 2021

Hello dear Writers! Welcome to our new monthly newsletter, Before You Sign.

In addition to the Opportunity Digest, each month DG content will be specially curated to keep you in the know regarding what's happening in our industry, business related developments, and, also, what we're doing here at the Guild as we continue to fight for you and your rights. We'll be featuring Dear Business Affairs - a Q & A series, the DG Glossary, and more! 

Thank you to the members of our New Media committee for the new name of our newsletter.
Publications Update
The 2020-2021 Season In Review Issue is now available online!

This Season in Review edition of The Dramatist, which is the first in Guild history to be exclusively available online, features National Reports from DG Regional Representatives and Ambassadors around the world. Their articles detail dramatists' resilient determination to find inspiration and build community throughout the pandemic year.

Discover theatrical experiences from the 2020-2021 theatre season in locales including Hawaii, Puerto Rico, California, Austin, Houston, Dallas, the Twin Cities, Chicago, Kentucky, the Gulf Coast, Florida, Atlanta, Washington DC, New York, New Jersey, New England, London, and more.

Also in this issue, Vickie Ramirez answers Ten Questions on being a writer, Dr. Carolyn Dunn describes "What I'm Teaching Now," and Christine Toy Johnson explains "Why I Joined the Guild."

Member Service Update
Access 12 years of The Dramatist online: Welcome to the new Issue Archive!

For 57 years, Dramatists Guild members have shared craft and business insights through The Dramatists Guild Quarterly and, now, The Dramatist. In an effort to share the history of dramatists, and to make Guild content more accessible, we revamped The Dramatist Issue Archive. You can now search by year and read any issue published from 2021 to 2009. We even added the very first issue of The Dramatists Guild Quarterly, published in 1964.

2021-2020: Any issue published within this period is available as a PDF, and also published as an online issue with our new online Table of Contents navigation.

2019-2009: Any issue published within this period is available as a PDF ONLY. We will be adding summaries and publishing online editions of each issue from this period through 2022.
August Craft Webinars
So You Want to Write an Opera

Librettist/Playwrights Roundtable on AUGUST 10

Eastern Time: 3pm
Central Time: 2pm
Mountain Time: 1pm
Pacific Time: 12pm


Playwrights, librettists, and lyricists from both theatre and opera will discuss the differences in writing for each medium, and how to make the crossover, with personal anecdotes and examples drawn from their experience. Open to questions from the public.
Composers Roundtable on AUGUST 11

Eastern Time: 3pm
Central Time: 2pm
Mountain Time: 1pm
Pacific Time: 12pm

with Kamala Sankaram
(Additional Composers TBA)
 
Composers experienced in both opera and theatre writing will discuss the pivotal role of the composer in originating and creating new operatic works for both the traditional operatic stage and new experimental venues, how opera composers find librettists and what they look for in an opera libretto, and what composers believe librettists to know, or learn, in order to serve the specialized needs of an operatic score.
Dear Business Affairs
We want you to be informed, educated, and well-equipped when you navigate the business side of theatre. There are so many questions that writers have about this industry; we want to bring those questions and answers directly to you. Dear Business Affairs will feature DG members' most pressing questions, answered by staff in our BA department. 
Question: Is it better to register the copyright of my work with the government or with the Writers Guild of America (WGA)?

The WGA Script Registry costs money and acts as a detriment, not an asset, to writers. As an entertainment litigator who is regularly asked to handle copyright infringement lawsuits against motion picture studios, one of the biggest problems I face is with writers registering their work with the WGA Script Registry instead of with. the U.S. Copyright Office. By doing so, these writers are not only costing themselves tens of thousands of dollars in potential recovery but, in many cases, they are guaranteeing they won’t recover any money at all.

The reason for this is that under U.S. copyright law, if a writer suing for copyright infringement wants to recover their attorney’s fees and/ or statutory damages in the lawsuit, then the writer must have registered the work with the Copyright Office before the infringement began. But the law considers the infringement to have begun when the infringing script is written. So, usually by the time the writer hears about the infringing product, it is too late. The writer may register with the Copyright Office at that time, and can still file a lawsuit to stop the infringement, but they will be barred.
Need Business Advice? The Business Affairs Help Desk is DG's support portal that allows us to answer your business related questions more quickly and efficiently. You can submit a query, or request a contract review, via our ticketing system. 
The DG Glossary
We are writers; what we love to do most...is write! Second to that, we might love rehearsing in the room with performers or getting to see our work fully realized and produced.

However, as writers, we will inevitably have to deal with the non-creative, not-so-fun, but very essential part of our industry-- the business. We might come across some complicated looking terms, such as subsidiary rights, copyrights, or collaboration agreement.

What do these terms mean, and why do we need to know them? The DG Glossary will be your handy go-to guide on important terms that every writer of the theatre should know.
What are Subsidiary Rights?

Subsidiary rights include the myriad of ways in which an author can license a work after its initial stage production, including:

  • Stock and amateur stage productions;
  • Foreign stage productions;
  • Movie and television adaptations;
  • Other derivative works based on the play (cast albums, podcasts, commercial use products, publishing, etc.).
 
Authors retain the copyright in their work but, if a producer presents a premiere production, a producer customarily “vests” in a specified share of an author’s subsidiary rights revenues for a limited amount of time, and from certain sources of revenues, in certain territories. A producer may, under certain circumstances, share in the author’s subsidiary rights revenues by producing any of the following:

  • Equity Workshops (the author may be required to grant a share of subsidiary rights to the cast for an AEA workshop, but not for an experimental or lab production);
  • Equity Showcases;
  • LORT/Non-Profit mainstage premieres;
  • Premiere commercial productions in any particular territory.
 
The amount, scope, and duration of such producer participation in an author’s subsidiary revenues varies, based on the different levels of “vesting” productions, on the theory that the production is adding value to the author’s copyright, and that the bigger the production, the greater the value. Even when “vested,” however, producers may not participate in author’s revenues from certain uses (such as publishing, including music publishing), and if the producer is the party actually producing or licensing the particular use, then it’s not a “subsidiary right,” and thus no share is appropriate. 
 
It is also neither customary, nor typically recommended, for authors to grant such participations based purely on:

  • Commissions;
  • Developmental work (staged readings, contests, festivals, second stage productions, etc);
  • Amateur (i.e., non-Equity) productions;
  • Anything less than a full professional production, including an official press opening.

Nor is it customary to grant such participation to non-authorial collaborators, except under rare and extraordinary circumstances, including to directors, dramaturgs, actors, or designers.

Please see the DG’s Considerations for Directors Agreements for an understanding of if, when, and under what terms it may be appropriate for directors to receive such a participation from an author.

Need Business Advice? The Business Affairs Help Desk is DG's support portal that allows us to answer your business related questions more quickly and efficiently. You can submit a query, or request a contract review, via our ticketing system. 
Industry Assessment
Are the rights of dramatists - compensation, copyright, creative control - being protected in the digital sphere?

Enclosed below, you'll find a link to our second New Media survey aimed at taking an in-depth look at today's streaming and live stream landscape. Our goal, as always, is to equip ourselves with enough data (both quantitative and qualitative) to ensure ongoing (and ever-improving) fair treatment for playwrights, lyricists, composers, librettists, and dramatic writers of all stripes.

Survey results will remain anonymous, so please share freely. However, if you require further assistance with a contract, a list of best practices, or even just a friendly voice with whom to talk this all through, the survey provides space for that as well. We're here to help in whatever ways we can.

So please, if you've produced, developed, or distributed theatrical work online in the last year - or even if you've only considered it - we would love for you to carve out some time and respond to the survey. 
Your answers (and your questions) will help shape the work of the New Media committee, and the Guild itself, as we navigate this exciting, daunting, and at least partially digital new future.
Legislation Update
The 21st Century Federal Writers’ Project Act

On May 6, 2021, Congressman Ted Lieu (D-CA) and Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-NM) introduced The 21st Century Federal Writers’ Project Act. This proposed legislation, as noted in Congressman Lieu’s press release, “would create a new grant program administered by the Department of Labor to hire America’s unemployed and underemployed journalists and writers.” The federal program was inspired by, and mirrors, the 1930s Federal Writers Project of the New Deal Era from the Roosevelt administration. According to Lieu, this 21st century program “will help address the mass unemployment of writers. It will also create a nationally administered and searchable repository that archives the stories of America’s history.” 

Responding to the Los Angeles Times, Congressman Lieu stated, ‘the goal...is to document the pandemic’s impact on American life, honor the lives lost to COVID-19, employ struggling writers and academics and create a national archive of work from our time, just as the original FWP left us with a rich collection of guidebooks and oral histories, including the first-person Slave Narratives.” The LA Times article noted that “the project would entail $60 million administered by the Department of Labor to nonprofits, libraries, news outlets, and communication unions.” 
As of this posting, it is not clear if playwrights and librettists would be eligible for participation in the grant program but the Political Engagement Initiative committee will follow-up with Congressman Lieu’s office for more information about the scope and reach of this proposed federal relief program for writers. 
Community Update
Upcoming Regional Elections and new Regional Reps and Ambassadors

Welcome, New Reps and Ambassadors!

Please join us in welcoming newly appointed Regional Reps Mimi Ayers and Harrison Young, from the Gulf Coast and Tennessee respectively. We would also like to welcome nine new Ambassadors: Alabama: Darren J. Butler, Gainesville, Florida: Monica T. Cross, Tallahassee, Florida: Danielle Wirsansky, Kāneʻohe/Honolulu, Hawai'i: Tammy Haili‘ōpua Baker, Keaau, Hawai'i: Eric Stack, Mississippi: Joshua Payton, Oklahoma: David Blakely, Portland, Oregon: Matthew Miller, and Austin/San Antonio, Texas: William Razavi.

These folks take their Guild involvement one step further, by volunteering their time and energy to work with staff, DG members, and other representatives across the country. They also aide in local engagement and fostering community, a keystone of our organizational mission.
 
Upcoming Regional Elections

Do you know someone who could be a strong community leader, advocating for playwrights, composers, lyricists, and librettists? Be on the lookout for NOMINATIONS and ELECTIONS emails for the next Regional Representatives if you reside in the following regions: 
 
  • Baltimore/Maryland State;
  • New England East (Eastern Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont);
  • Northern California;
  • Ohio;
  • Philadelphia (current Rep running incumbent);
  • Southwest (current Rep running incumbent);
  • Utah.
 
Regional Reps work on the front lines, across the country, to connect with their community, and to provide support to members in their respective area. A position in the Rep program can lead to long lasting change in artistic communities, on both the local and national level.

For more information, be on the lookout for those emails, or contact Jordan Stovall, Regional Programs Manager at jstovall@dramatistsguild.com with any questions.
Upcoming Events
THURSDAY
July/Julio 29

Writing and Producing in Spanish: Reshaping Theatre in the USA


Join us for a working group discussion, led by dramatists of varying factions of the Latinx and native Spanish-speaking diaspora, on how the American theatre can be a cultural leader in the inclusion of artists who write and perform in the Spanish language.

This discussion will take place in the form of a ‘working group,’ in which all participants will be encouraged to engage in idea-sharing and the vision of future work. Focused questions will be posed to participants, before, during, and after the discussion, to formulate further action and direction of the working group.
Dramaturgia y Producción en Español: Hacia una Reestructuración del Teatro en E.E.U.U

Únase a este debate del grupo de trabajo liderado por dramaturgos de distintas facciones de la comunidad latina e hispanohablantes nativos sobre cómo el teatro estadounidense puede ser un líder cultural en la inclusión de artistas que escriben y actúan en idioma español.

Este debate se realizará bajo el formato de "grupo de trabajo," en donde se invita a todos los participantes a compartir ideas y su visión del trabajo futuro. Se desarrollará en forma de preguntas concretas que se plantearán a los participantes, antes, durante y después del debate para formular nuevas medidas de acción y guiar al grupo de trabajo.
SATURDAY
July 31

Unsafe @ Any Age: Creative Aging in the American Theatre


Join the Dramatists Guild, Honor Roll, and DG Copyright Management (DG©M) for the first in a series of online events that will explore the challenges and opportunities inherent in aging as an artist in the American theatre. We'll hear from artists and thinkers who are studying aging and human development, and from organizations that are working on creative responses to ageism in the industry. Please note that Unsafe @ Any Age's events will all take place via Zoom.