O’Neill Playwright Festival Policy Change Angers Many

“As might be expected, the announcement of the policy change has caused great consternation in the playwriting community. On one prominent, Web-based email service, dramaturgy.net, word of the policy change preceded the O’Neill’s formal announcement by a week, during which time dramatists took out their frustrations. Among the charges: By moving to a who-you-know-based nomination/submission process, the O’Neill shuts the doors on the unknown playwright who doesn’t happen to be well-connected enough to actually know one of the nominators, and that the new policy, in effect, only serves to solidify the American theatre as a closed, exclusive, artistic plutocracy.”