THE WASSERSTEIN PRIZE AFFAIR

Wendy Wasserstein was an important woman playwright who died in 2006 at the age of 55. She was much honored (Tony, Pulitzer...). She was known for woman-centered plays including The Heidi Chronicles, The Sisters Rosensweig, and Uncommon Women and Others.

In her honor, a prize was set up to honor young women playwrights. It is given to "a female playwright under 32 who has yet to receive national attention." It is funded by the Educational Foundation of America (AFAW) and administered by the Theater Development Fund (TDF).

In 2010, there were 19 finalist plays competing for the Wasserstein Prize. The Wasserstein Selection Panel decided that none of the plays was worthy of the prize (see the quote below).

Note: Nov 16, 2010 - According to the NYT, the "Administrator" of the Prize has decided to review the process and procedure for awarding the Prize and reconsider whether the Prize should be awarded this year:

A Do-Over for the Wasserstein Playwriting Prize
By PATRICK HEALY, NYT:
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/a-do-over-for-the-wasserstein-playwriting-prize/

A Youngblood Playwright at The Ensemble Studio Theater protested -- for a variety of reasons -- that declining to award the prize was a terrible thing to do.

I'm not sure I agree. First of all, a prize should not be awarded if none of the finalists is deemed worthy: it protects the value of the prize that the "standards" are maintained.

Secondly, as some people have pointed out, the Wasserstein Prize is sexist (women only) and ageist (young women only). From my perspective, older men who have plays also have trouble getting them produced, as does every other demographic! I think prizes should be for everybody.

Thirdly, none of us actually know if the plays were any good, or if the 19 plays nominated were "better" than other plays that were eligible but not nominated, nor who the judges were, nor what their aesthetic criteria were. It's kind of presumptuous to assume the panel of judges was wrong when it's not even known what plays were considered, much less how well they were written.

(Note 1: Of course, from the point of view of the prize-giving organization, declining to award a prize not only protects the "integrity" of the prize, it generates a lot of publicity -- some good, some bad. Assuming the decision was reasonable or wise, and not just stupid, this raises the public awareness of the prize.)

(Note 2: Of course, not awarding a prize also saves money and avoids making one kind of hard decision -- while making a different hard decision. Trying to look up information about the current state of the prize, neither the TDF which administers it, nor the Educational Foundation of America (EFAW) which funds it, seems to have much to say about the Prize. Indeed, EFAW seems to be retrenching at the moment. So perhaps the failure to award a prize is more administrative retrenching than any intended insult to the 19 finalist playwrights or to any other playwrights who never made it to the finals.)

Nevertheless, the result of this controversy is -- as perhaps they expected, see Note 1 above -- increased visibility for the Prize and theater, generally. There is now a movement afoot to produce readings of the 19 dissed plays, and even stream them over the internet. With a little -- or probably more than a little -- publicity the plays could reach a bigger audience than any black-box or OOB presentation ever would. It would also increase the experience of theater people with live streaming, for application to future productions.

Two of the leaders in this project are the Ensemble Studio Theater (EST), whose Youngblood Playwright escalated the affair, and a new group, 2AMT.

EST is well-known, but what is 2AMT? Here's their own description of 2AMT:

"2am. You’re wondering why this is called 2am. What does that have to do with theatre?"

"2am is when the ideas start to flow."

"The beginning: In January 2010, over on Twitter, a group of theatre folk started talking, brainstorming, tossing out ideas and testing to see how they’d float. Or if they’d float at all. And even though it was late, the conversation kept going. As it went on, it started to pick up more and more people from more and more places. It was one of those conversations."

...

"#2amt: In order to keep the conversation’s focus, we now use #2amt when tweeting, adding the t for theatre. That’s only five characters out of your 140, which saves a lot of space. Why? Because nobody else is using that tag, and no one else would need or want to. It means you can drop in at any point in the conversation and, if you so desire, follow it back to its source. Or find new topics or ideas in the stream."

"Primarily, this site will act as a gathering place for theatre ideas."


STREAMING

Here are some thoughts on the process of streaming readings of the plays:

There are several sites that provide an easy method of streaming... USTREAM and LIVESTREAM are two. Actually, Skype may be another.

Simple streaming is easy: Point a camera, upload in real time to the streaming site. Access the streaming site.

Effective streaming is a little harder:

=1=> It is necessary to check every element of the technical chain all the way to the end user before starting.

For example:
Camera + mic =>
computer =>
streaming site =>
streams (how many?) =>
computer (MAC? PC? Linux?) =>
browser (which - IE? Safari? Firefox? etc?) =>
streaming video window.

Also: Log in process; startup, etc

=2=> It is necessary to reach out to the audience and get them to tune in. Getting a large audience requires significant promotion.

=3=> And the audience must be available for the whole broadcast. People at home are fickle. There's a reason theaters put people in seats that are not that easy to get out of, and have them turn off their phones before the show starts.

Indeed, it might be worthwhile to stream the readings not just to people's own computers, but to large, high resolution monitors in theaters. (See item =1=> Make sure the theater system works -- to avoid a really bad experience.)

The NYFF has used SKYPE for interactive press conferences with directors. The Metropolitan Opera has started streaming operas to movie theaters. Streaming to theaters avoids the problem of interruptions to audience attention in the "distractionacious" real world.

=4=> A production seen through a camera should be directed not just as a reading, but as a production seen through a camera. The camera must be pointed at the right place at the right time, the audio must be picked up clearly, and the way actors convey a sense of reality can be somewhat different from either a table reading or a staged reading.

=5=> Of course, once live streaming is over, the recorded event should be available for on-demand streaming.


CONCLUSION

So, perhaps the Wasserstein Affair will turn out to be not just a win-win, but a win-win-win...win-win (that's one "win" each, for the 19 playwrights, the Wasserstein Prize itself, EST, 2AMT, and theater in general).


HERE'S WHAT TDF SAID ABOUT NOT AWARDING THE WASSERSTEIN PRIZE:

“We regret to inform you that of the 19 nominated plays, none was deemed sufficiently realized by the selection panel to receive the Prize. As a result, the Wasserstein Prize will not be presented in 2010. While the panel thought that many of the scripts showed promise, they felt that none of the plays were truly outstanding in their current incarnation.”


HERE'S THE LINK TO MICHAEL LEW'S LETTER:

Michael Lew's letter to the Theater Development Fund, which administers the prize (following the letter there are gazillions of comments which explore several of the issues) :

http://youngbloodnyc.blogspot.com/2010/11/no-wasserstein-prize-in-2010-selection.html


HERE ARE SOME MORE LINKS TO THE SITES OF INTEREST:

2AMT ON TWITTER
twitter.com/2amt
( #2amt is the thread on Twitter.)

2AM THEATER... COMMENTS
http://www.2amtheatre.com/
http://www.2amtheatre.com/where-2am-began/

THE ENSEMBLE STUDIO THEATER - EST
http://ensemblestudiotheatre.org/

EST - YOUNGBLOOD
http://ensemblestudiotheatre.org/programs/youngblood/

WENDY WASSERSTEIN on WIKIPEDIA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Wasserstein


WASSERSTEIN PRIZE 2010:
I could not find a clear link to this! Not to the nomination process, not to the judging criteria, not to the panel that makes the decision. There is more information about 2009:

WASSERSTEIN PRIZE 2009:
http://www.tdf.org/TDF_NewsDetailsPage.aspx?id=86

USTREAM
http://www.ustream.com/

LIVESTREAM
http://www.livestream.com/

SKYPE
http://www.skype.com/

THE THEATER DEVELOPMENT FUND
http://www.tdf.org/

THE EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION OF AMERICA
http://www.efaw.org/