FROM THE DESK OF GARY GARRISON

Dramatists Guild web site

To Fee or Not to Fee – Is There a Question?

Several times a month a member will write in and ask why we publish submission opportunities that have fees attached when the Guild vehemently does not support submission fees of any kind. The answer is really simple: your Council believes that the choice to submit for an opportunity that has a submission fee should be up to the individual dramatist; we should not make that decision for you (by not posting the opportunities).

I know most of you know how I feel about paying a fee to submit your work, so I won't raise my blood pressure (or yours) by stating how outrageous, unjust, disrespectful, unfair, unnecessary and. . . oh, wait. I wasn't going to do that. Okay, what I should simply say is this: I won't pay them. I hope you won't either. But that should be a choice you make, and not me for you, or anyone else for that matter.

What I absolutely love, by the way, is when one of you copies me on an email you write to a theatre that essentially says, "I'd love to submit to your contest, but my Guild does not support submission fees of any kind. When and if you rid yourself of this unfair tax on a community of starving artists, I'll gladly reconsider submitting my material."

That said, and reading what I've written above, I know some of you pay submission fees. I understand – genuinely I do. There are fewer and fewer opportunities for more and more dramatists. But here's what I'd ask you to think about: if a theatre knows they can get just one fee from one dramatist, their led to think there are more dramatists where that one comes from. Imagine if a theatre opened a contest with a submission fee and the only thing that was submitted were letters that said, "I'd love to submit to your contest, but I can't and won't pay your fee."

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Gary Garrison is the Dramatists Guild's Executive Director of Creative Affairs
Thanks to Gary for permission to post.