Wednesday, October 12, 2011

LinkThinks - What Would You Say?

Say that I'm a wealthy business man with some money to spend. I've retired (early) to a small town in the American South. You wouldn't recognize the name if I told you, so I won't tell you the name of it.

So say for a moment that I'm rich, retired, and living in this small little no-name town. I grow to like the town and become curious about its history. I become so curious that I decide to put a full page ad out in all the papers, including the local paper as well as The New York Times. The ad has no pictures, simply this text:

Wanted: Playwright to compose a play that depicts the history of this town. If not the entire history, at least a critical moment that allows me to relish in some of the complexities that have made this town what it is. Generous pay with generous living. Play must be complete and performed for me within three years with various milestones along the way. Content can be rated G or X, depending on what your topic dictates. Cast can include 1 to 100 characters and cannot be any longer than 120 minutes.

Now say I did all of that and I really wanted a quality play to be written about this town. Ideally, I'd want a play that could be performed every year of my life (and maybe after) that would be free for all the town to see. Now say I came to you with the following questions:

1. Should I hire a local writer or writer from somewhere else (for an outside perspective) to pen this play?

2. I only have time to look at their script samples or their resumes. Which should I look at?

3. When I interview this writer, what's the most important question for me to ask?

What would you say?

2 comments:

RVCBard said...

This is what immediately comes to mind (which means that it might be completely wrong).

1. Hire local, definitely.
2. Samples.
3. Why do you believe you are uniquely capable of creating this piece?

Patrick Link said...

I'd say that's about right.