The ability to speak with authority, enchantment, and precision about one’s own work is invaluable for an artist. There are two reasons why this is the case.
First: in a theatrical ecosystem that fails to judge work simply on its own merits—that assesses us by our credentials and connections as much as by our creations—playwrights who can articulate the value of their artistic vision to institutional gatekeepers are more likely to get produced.
Second: in an American landscape crowded with stories and with storytellers, playwrights who can build their own brands with theatergoers—who can engage audience members (with brio and personality and intelligence and energy) in a conversation about their work on their own terms and, most importantly, outside of an institutional context—are much more likely to stand out.
Being that articulate is damned difficult… and for some of us (for a wide variety of societal and personal reasons) it’s nigh on impossible. I have great sympathy for those who struggle with it. I’ve had to teach myself, often by failing badly, how to attempt it.
Recently, though—and this is decades after I started writing, mind you—I’ve actually started to enjoy it. And the last few years have convinced me, beyond a shadow of a doubt, of the necessity of the skill.
So my first bit of advice is this: learn how to talk about your work. Take some of the hours you devote to developing yourself professionally and put them toward learning this one very essential skill. You’ll be very glad you did.
Write blog posts about your plays… and ask for comments about what you’ve written. Talk to your close friends about your work—people you’re more comfortable speaking with—and ask them for their thoughts. Trade synopses with fellow playwrights and give each other honest feedback.
Practice, learn, revise, fail forward, try again. Gin up some confidence. Screw your courage to the sticking place. See a therapist if you think it might help. Even those who are naturally shy or introverted can, I believe, get good at this. Or at least good enough to get the job done.
The job, by the way, is NOT self-promotion. It’s engagement. There’s a very important difference between the two.
Self-promotion is about being louder than the next person. Engagement is about making real two-way connections. So first and foremost: abandon your megaphone.
Self-promotion is about asking—or, in its worst moments, begging—to be seen. It’s about showing off. Engagement is about offering to show somebody something. Something valuable.
Self-promotion is about getting. Engagement is about giving.
Self-promotion is about shouting at a broad, undefined audience: talking to everyone and no one at the same time. Engagement is about reaching out to specific audiences with intent and clarity and purpose.
So… what does it look like, specifically, to engage instead of just promoting yourself? Here are a few examples:
Let’s say you’ve got a reading coming up. Do you invite every single theater artist you know? No: that’s self-promotion. Do you reach out to a few individual theater artists whose work you admire and ask them to come and give you feedback? Or do you ask one or two of your best theater artist friends to come share in your joy or support you? Yes on both counts: that’s engagement. (Better yet: invite a few artistic directors and literary managers who you really think might have interest in your work. That’s really engagement.)
Suppose you find yourself to be a finalist for some prestigious award. Do you post the news on The Official Playwrights of Facebook group? Nope: that’s self-promotion. (That group in particular, for all it has to offer, sometimes dissolves into an endless stream of “Look at how awesome I am!” posts. I love it despite itself. So much so that I’ll even share this blog post there and risk some blow-back.) If you crow about your successes on your blog, however, or send notes to your personal email list? That’s engagement, between fan and artist. Post on your own Facebook wall? That’s engagement once again… this time, between friends.
How about if your new play lands at a really exciting theater? Do you submit it to the Dramatists Guild or the Playwrights’ Center for their e-newsletters? Once again: self-promotion. (The “News from Members” sections of those email newsletters are—I know this directly—consistently ranked as the least-read sections; only those who submit to them consider them valuable.) Engagement, by contrast, might mean reaching out to communities that are local to the theater in question—groups whose missions might relate to the subject matter of your play—and sending personalized emails inviting them to your show. It’s a very different effort.
And with that, one final note of sympathy. I know this work can be brutally hard. It’s incredibly difficult to know what’s effective and what isn’t. Since the advent of social media, furthermore, the rules of marketing have changed drastically. We’re all trying our hardest to keep up and to learn new rules as we go. So don’t expect to figure it all out in one day. Give it time… and don’t give up.
Gwydion, you are the guru of engagement! Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us!
And thank you for sticking with me until I was able to fix the comments system on my blog! And, I should add, for engaging with me as well!
Great post! I’m often torn about how best to talk about my work in a way that seems truthful and not simply egotistical – thanks for so clearly putting into words what I’ve been trying to figure out for a long time now.
Thanks, Stephen!
Great, thoughtful comments, as usual! The line between self-promotion and engagement is so very thin; I would there are times when a little self-promotion is acceptable, yes?
I honestly don’t know. Maybe? I’m not sure.
@Adrienne and anyone else: The charm of Gwydion’s article is that it shows the way in for so many of us who struggle to find the moral impetus to promote our work, when every attempt we make feels like a self-serving exercise in narcissism. But standing up for what I believe? Heck, that’s what my plays are all about. So by extension, I ought to be able to make my intentions known, right? Thanks, Gwydion!
Standing up for what you believe? Always valuable. But that’s only one way to engage your audience, right? There are unnumbered others.
My other thought? I’ve noted that those who stand up often have the biggest megaphones. So… be careful. Connect with people. If all you do is shout… people might stop listening 🙂
It appeals to my dark sense of humor, Gwydion, that you reply to my comment with a caution that I not do the “megaphone” thing when I intended that as my point exactly. Darn, seems I’ve already blown it! Thanks, again, for the measured advice in your article. Now I guess I have to go do something constructive about my brand…. 😀
Seems to me your brand is doing just fine! Thanks for reading and responding!
Thanks, Gwydion. What do they say? The best teachers are those who remind us of what we already know…like deep within? Yes, I now realize it’s the self-promotion and picking up the megaphone that never feels right and makes me uncomfortable. But the engaging others…that’s why I write. I love people and I love to engage them in stories and in conversation. I’m sure so many of us feel this way. Your clarification is empowering. Bravo!
Thank you, my friend! That’s both kindly and beautifully said.
Had a grand time writing about my new play, but I soon discovered I couldn’t sit back and observe (blog) and write (write the play) at the same time, because the characters seemed to retreat and lost my thread/tether/mojo. That being said, I want to continue with this tack and plan to do so with future plays. The blogging did help and I reached out to a few people with this link: http://skangalworks.wordpress.com/category/slam-the-play-in-process/
That looks like a fascinating experiment. Well done.
I was about to object until I saw “engage instead of just promote yourself”. My original read was that you were advocating replacing self-promotion completely with engagement. Although I guess you’re saying the bulk of energy belongs in engagement, and it certainly would take that; if my new understanding is correct, I’ll respectfully agree.
As for the DG e-newsletter members’ news section, I read it regularly and pretty much completely, even though I rarely have anything in it. It helps me discover new theatres for submission opps (based on where playwrights doing work similar to mine are being produced), spot names that I know from blogs and various discussion lists, and give me hope seeing all those plays by active members being produced. And sure, it gives me an ego boost when I see my name in there, but so what? I get a smile (not a smirk) when I see friends and colleagues in there as well, or playwrights whose work I’ve seen and liked (and some I haven’t seen — I love seeing Caridad Svich’s name in there all the time and look forward to seeing her work). Maybe it isn’t most people’s cup of tea, but for those of us for whom it is, it’s valuable.
That said, I can certainly do more engagement and I appreciate the specific suggestions you provided in this post.
I think maybe I am proposing replacing self-promotion with engagement to a large extent. But perhaps I can say this another way. I would propose that:
1) Engagement is better than someone else tooting your horn.
2) Someone else tooting your horn is better than you tooting your own horn.
3) An occasional tooting of your own horn is fine.
What seems to happen too often is that the order here is completely reversed.
Now… I know that historically, the distribution of #2 hasn’t been particularly equitable in our culture. I wish that wasn’t the case, but it very clearly is. The customary response, though, is to double-down (or triple-down) on #3, because it’s easy to do. Engagement is hard… but much more effective, especially in the long run.
As for your taste in newsletters… to each their own 🙂
Self promotion:
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5z9newslM1ql141xo1_250.gif
Engagement:
http://i.imgur.com/aAV6cUu.gif
I really appreciated this article. A more than just a few “nuggets” in there for me and I really relate to the (ahem) needing to “practice” talking to people! And thankfully, I’m getting much better at it and have even developed some really great relationships. Thanks for posting! ♥
Thanks, Sina! Glad to have offered a few nuggets.