(This report by Maureen McGranaghan fleshes out the briefer summary in Christopher Rawson's On Stage Journal for April 3.)

Gary Garrison comes to the Dramatist's Guild from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where he is Division Head of the Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing. He is also the former National Chair of Playwriting for the Kennedy Center's American College Theatre Festival, as well as the Artistic Director for the First Look Theatre Company and the recently formed Playwrights PlayGround.

Gary Bossler graduated from Carnegie Mellon University's conservatory program and went on to an acting career in New York, where he eventually started his own theatre company. He studied at the renowned BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and now writes musicals.

And Julie Tosh writes theatre for young audiences, teaches at Sewickley Academy, which has commissioned works from her, and is published by Bakers.

Garrison began the town meeting with a description of the Dramatists Guild and the services it provides to its members. He defined it as "a member service organization for playwrights, composers, lyricists, and librettists" that seeks to help them develop creatively while also acting as an advisor and advocate. He pointed out that the Guild is not a Union. It does not itself negotiate contracts or preside as an umbrella organization over smaller guilds in different markets.

Rather, as Garrison puts it, it "functions as your father, your advisor, and your best friend." The Guild dispenses legal and business advice and provides sample contracts to members negotiating agreements for the production of their work, commissions, and dramatic rights for adaptations. The Guild also acts as an advocate for writers if a production company breaches a contract and can be a mediator in disputes between theatres and playwrights.

As an umbrella organization for dramatists throughout the country with a Council of the craft's most distinguished practitioners, the Guild can also establish industry standards. Recently the Dramatists Guild Council defined what a standard page of dramatic writing should look like and shared the information with developers of the software Final Draft (who have agreed to offer a discount to Guild members).

Garrison, who is just beginning his tenure as the Guild's Director of Creative Affairs, has a number of goals. One is to reach out regionally and extend some of the services now only available in New York to members across the country. He would like for instance to see the Guild's Friday Night Footlights reading series happening in multiple cities and envisions a national mentoring program like that which exists in New York.

He also wants to institute a yearly national conference for members (there has never been one). The first would take place in New York and thereafter alternate between New York and cities throughout the country, highlighting different theatre scenes while bringing dramatists together to discuss, share, and appreciate each other's craft. Yet another goal is to create a Women's Network, which could deal with the particular issues and challenges faced by women writing for the theatre.

Bossler spoke about the Guild's publications, primarily "The Dramatist," a bi-monthly magazine that promotes Guild members through profiles and production notices, features articles on craft, and contains an extensive list of upcoming contests, festivals, grants and fellowships, with their deadlines and submission information. The latter is collected in a yearly Resource Directory along with a list of theatres that produce new work. The Directory is also available to members on the Guild's website www.dramatistsguild.com.

(Garrison has plans for the website too, which he believes should be "the clearing house for all the information in the country on playwriting and musical theatre writing." Writers can currently maintain their own web pages on the DGWeb system, and Garrison wants to enable them to store their scripts online in PDF format as well.)

Bossler also outlined several new publication initiatives, including a paper back series of master classes on playwriting, musicals, and business; a publishing service that would make new works available to reviewers; regional resource directories with more targeted, specific information; and a self-producing guide to encourage and support playwrights to mount their own work.

Garrison then opened the floor to questions and comments from those present, and individuals in the group expressed frustration at a perceived barrier to local playwrights among the city's professional companies. Garrison sympathized but emphasized the multifarious factors that influence the selection of a season, particularly when money becomes a significant issue. Others reflected that the barrier may be one of the factors in the emergence of a vibrant community of small theatre companies, many of whom do produce local writers in abundance.

Several of these smaller companies were subsequently represented on a panel to talk about what they are doing to develop new plays. Thee included David Vinski of the Pittsburgh Playhouse; David Skeele from Slippery Rock University; Wayne Brinda of Prime Stage; Tami Dixon from Bricolage; Mark Southers of Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre, and Susan Zimecki from the Pittsburgh New Works Festival.

The Pittsburgh Playhouse is home to four companies: The Rep, its professional company; the Conservatory Theatre Company, devoted to Point Park University's theatre conservatory program; the Playhouse Dance Company for the university's dance program; and Playhouse Jr., which mounts plays for young audiences. Vinski acknowledged that the Playhouse's association with Point Park University gives it a certain freedom to pursue a variety of projects without the pressure of meeting overhead costs for their space or selling enough tickets in order to stay in business. As a result, they do a mix of classic, contemporary, and new plays, including world premieres, sometimes by local writers. Pittsburgh playwright Tammy Ryan's play, "FBI Girl: How I Learned To Crack My Father's Code," will be performed this May by The Rep.

David Skeele described Slippery Rock University's Brave New Plays Festival, which takes place every April as part of Slippery Rock's Kaleidoscope Arts Festival. It features student written and directed works as well as plays and performances by professional artists. This year N.Y./L.A. performance artist Antonio Sacre will travel to Slippery Rock to participate in Flying Solo, an evening of original solo plays.

Wayne Brinda, artistic director of Prime Stage, emphasized the company's mission to "educate, entertain, and enrich families, students, and educators," especially through stage adaptations of literature. The company has also produced premieres of original plays, such as Tammy Ryan's "The Music Lesson," and commissions work. Commissions go through a two-yo-three year process of development when the company works with the writer to hone and polish the piece and prepares the public with a marketing campaign. The latest of these projects is Christopher Scott's "Jack and Rochelle," an adaptation of the memoir "Jack and Rochelle: A Holocaust Story of Love and Resistance" by Jack and Rochelle Sutin, set to premiere this June. Brinda welcomes submissions but emphasized that they must fit Prime Stage's mission and strongly advised playwrights to familiarize themselves with any company before sending their work.

Tami Dixon is producing director of Bricolage Theater Company. Bricolage means "making artful use of what's at hand," and true to this mission the company has developed a six month staged reading series that makes artful use of local talent and limited resources to produce a variety of work throughout the year. A director, actors, and designers have a week with a script and present a spare but always creative staging over two days, a Sunday and Monday night. The readings are open to the public free of charge, but all artists, including the playwright, are paid a stipend for their work. At the end of the series, the audience votes through a web survey on the piece they would most like to see produced, which becomes part of the Bricolage season the following year. Currently inundated with scripts, Dixon encouraged playwrights to get involved: volunteer, voice ideas, and take part in the company in multiple ways.

Mark Southers started Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre in 2003. Since then the company has acquired a space downtown at 542 Penn Ave. Devoted to new work and local writers, Pittsburgh Playwrights has produced 79 shows in four years. It started the Theatre Festival in Black and White, now an annual event in October, to encourage collaboration between artists of different races and also to create a diverse audience. Scripts for the festival do not have to address racial themes, but those by black writers are directed by white directors and vice versa. The company also houses the Pittsburgh Pride Festival, which takes place in June, and last month mounted a March Madness reading series of one or more readings every day. Pittsburgh Playwrights pays writers a stipend that varies depending on the length of the work and nature of the run. Southers welcomes scripts and introduced Wali Jamal, his literary manager, who reads all submissions.

Susan Zimecki represented the Pittsburgh New Works Festival, whose deadline is April 7, 2007. The Festival accepts scripts of up to 30 minutes in length for an annual fall one-act festival of four weeks (three works per week). In the initial screening, each submission is read by two people. Those that advance to the next stage are read by the producing theatre companies from all over the Pittsburgh area, each of which selects a script they would like to stage. All writers who submit receive comments, and the Festival welcomes plays previously submitted that have been reworked. There is a submission fee of $15, and playwrights whose work is selected receive a nominal stipend as well as a pass to attend the whole Festival ($25). This year, New Works is moving to Open Stage in the Strip District from the High School for the Creative and Performing Arts downtown.

Following the presentations, the panelists accepted questions from audience members, and discussion focused on the avenues for development of new work, namely a playwriting lab or labs such as exist in New York. Southers offered his space for a program called Scenes, which would consist of writers, directors, and actors collaborating to workshop scripts in progress. The program is in need of an organizer. He also mentioned a group called the Pittsburgh Playwrights Collaborative that meets to read and discuss new work, and others invited writers present to join their own informal groups.

Nearly all were surprised by the turn out and the number of people writing plays in Pittsburgh. Though many knew each other and have collaborated, both writers and producers noted a multitude of unfamiliar faces. The comment was made that it only remains to connect the dots. Tosh, as regional representative, will provide updates to Pittsburgh's community of writers, be available by e-mail for their questions and concerns, and act as a direct link to the Dramatists Guild in New York.