Pear Playwrights Guild

• Post By: Meghan Maugeri
• Date: June 22, 2017
• Category: Uncategorized

Hi Gang,

I have a small bit of good news to share. I was accepted into the Pear Playwrights Guild (PPG), a local playwright group that is affiliated with the Pear Theatre in Mountain View. So, I am officially in a guild! I get a suit of armor now, right? I will be a probationary member for some time while everyone sees if it’s a good fit. So, maybe after that, I will get my suit of armor?

So, what is this guild anyway? The PPG is a group of about twenty Bay Area playwrights who meet at the theatre on a bi-weekly basis to workshop up to 10 pages of work each. The Pear also facilitates several opportunities for members of the group. The first is Pear Slices, which is an annual production of ten-minute plays by local writers. You have to be in PPG to submit a play and only about half the plays are chosen for production. The next opportunity is a series of developmental readings for chosen members. These are for full-length plays and would be perfect for a couple of the full-lengths I have been working on if I get the opportunity.

How do you apply to PPG? In order to be admitted, you have to be invited to apply. A writer I met in a local film group was a member of PPG at the time, liked some of my work, and set things up so I could apply last year. (Lesson: a playwriting opportunity came about through someone I met in a film group. You never know how these things will work out!)  I applied, but wasn’t admitted at that time. Looking back at what I submitted, I can see why. This year, I decided to give it another go and submitted pages from Keep, the play I wrote last summer in the Berkeley Rep School of Theatre Program. All three readers must agree unanimously for admittance. They did!

It’s a small victory, but while embarking on a path that often seems to be laid with bricks of rejection, it was wonderful to know that someone out there thinks that I’m doing something right. If you remember, I decided to focus on dramatic writing about a year ago, so this is affirmation of that decision as well. Not to mention that is shows I’ve grown, and not just in ability. In the past, I may have said something along the lines of, “Well, they rejected me last year, so no point in trying again.” But, after many years at writing, I have discovered this: writing is much more than a talent you are born with. It’s a craft, a skill. You put in the hours, you work harder, you revise, you learn, you improve. It’s a long journey. So, in one word, persistence.

I have been to two meetings and so far I think it’s a positive step forward for me. Most of the members are produced playwrights and several members also act in local theatre productions. I’m learning by reading and listening to feedback on their works, in addition to getting feedback on my own material. Not to mention that just being in the company of like-minded individuals is a blessing in and of itself.

During the last meeting, one playwright workshopped a piece that has been commissioned by a theatre in San Francisco and another presented pages from a play that will be given a reading at the Pear this Sunday. Although I held off on workshopping my own pages at the first meeting, I decided to bite the bullet last night and I workshopped the first ten pages from Keep. The feedback was helpful and honest. The general consensus was that the second scene was working well, especially the comedic relief. However, the language in the first scene does need improvement. This makes sense because the first scene was added after my workshop at Berkeley last year and hadn’t received any feedback prior to this meeting.

So, as always, there is work to be done. But I love this work. I am one of the lucky ones.