Fran Pruyn, Pygmalion Theater Co.
general audience doesn’t,” Pruyn says. “Then sometimes it’s just the tone of the show. There are times when you read a script and go, ‘Yeah, that show is really, really good, but it’s also really, really depressing, and I don’t think people want to go to see depressing shows right now. There’s so much opportunity for entertainment in so many different places, and disposable income is so limited. You really need to provide something that people want to see.” While programming new plays can present a challenge in marketability, it can also come with unique opportunities—and specific questions beyond the quality of the work. Pruyn notes that when staging new work, often with the involvement of the playwright, it’s worth considering the reputation of the writer in terms of being easy or hard to work with, and how receptive they are to suggested changes. “With Sweetheart Come, we spent a whole year workshopping it,” Pruyn recalls. “I said [to playwright Melissa Leilani Larsen], ‘I love this script, but this set is impossible. Can you workshop this so we can figure out how to make the set work?’ She had a tree in the middle of the stage. She was really thinking cinematically.” And while there are more obvious logistical considerations—like the cost of hiring musicians—that factor into programming decisions for a company on a limited budget, it’s the things you’d never even consider that might be the difference between a company saying “yes” and saying “no.” “One play I looked at, the playwright had salad dropping from the sky,” Pruyn says. “I don’t want to have to clean up salad.”
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Thinking about the next season is a year-round proposition, according to Pygmalion Theater Co.’s Fran Pruyn. As part of the National New Play Network, Pygmalion gets solicitations from playwrights all over the country all year. “If I don’t have a play in front of me for consideration, I go looking for one,” Pruyn says. “There’s always something on my dining room table I’m looking at.” Pruyn describes a three-part checklist for consideration that she always has at the forefront of her mind when looking at scripts for a season that generally includes only three full productions: “Does it drive the mission statement [to present work ‘through the eyes of women’]? Can it fit in the [Rose Wagner Black Box]? And can we afford it? … We tend not to look for shows that have been done to death, even if they do fit the mission statement. A lot of it is, do we have the passion for this play?” As a small theater company, Pygmalion also faces the reality that they can be competing for certain plays with other local companies, and that those companies might have an advantage. “Full Equity houses will get first crack,” Pruyn says. “Just because it’s perfect for us, it might be perfect for them, too.” Also an important consideration for a small company is the matter of selling tickets. Without the buffer of a large season-subscriber base enjoyed by PTC and SLAC, each individual show needs to be able to draw patrons. “There’s a reality about the fact that just because the theater community knows a script really well, the
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