Recently I was reminded of the excellent Back Stage article ["Understanding the Playwright-Director Relationship," by Michael Lazan, April 19] after a director rebuked me for not rewriting my one-act play as he had told me I should. The cast was present for the first rehearsal and he informed me, as if I had exhausted his patience, that my play needed to be rewritten as he saw it or it could not remain in the scheduled evening of short pieces—even though the production had already been publicized. He evidently thought I deserved this sort of treatment, whereas I was not about to swallow this from someone whose conduct was too dictatorial to credit as professional. After I urged him to work with the actors, who were standing by, on what I had already revised several times, he saw that I would not bend to his demands and told the producer it was "not going to work." Needless to say, I could not conceive how this director's insisted-upon changes to my characters and plot would make sense in the light of my intentions in the play. I withdrew from the show in an email to the producer the following morning.
On the basis of this experience, an incredible one considering that it concerned a showcase mounting of a 14-page script, I would like to suggest some guidelines for fellow playwrights:
First—and I am not naming any names—in this instance the showcase was one in which both the producer and the director were appearing onstage in important roles in the plays. I would urge playwrights to consider whether a production of this kind is intended to serve the play and its audience primarily, or the actors primarily. The director's job and the actor's are different from several perspectives, and a new play will best be served by someone who is a director first and foremost, embracing a director's responsibility to the play, with the desire to creatively discover and then deliver the author's message.
Second, be suspicious when you are told, in the case of your own work, that you would be better off thinking someone else's thoughts instead of your own. (Also, beware the person who expects you to do that unquestioningly—that is, only on the basis of his or her superior, if undemonstrated, artistry.)
Third, remember that you have a right to withdraw your work, rather than bend to "make the changes we demand or we won't do your play."
Dale Ramsey, New York, NY