Chris Neville-Smith

Frequently asked questions

In the hope that I can reduce the number of times I answer the same questions, here is apage on frequently asked questions. I am restricting this to questions that are actually being asked frequently (as opposed to the FAQ page that contains answers to lots of questions that no-one's asking but the author wants to tell everyone anyway), so it's going to be brief. If there's anything not here that you think you should be, contact me with your question, and if enough people pester me often enough I'll add it.

1) Where is this Durham City Theatre? Are you sure you don't mean the Gala?

2) Are you trying to get any of your plays published?

3) Will you put your scipts online?

4) Are you sending your scripts to professional theatres?

5) Are you doing any more Shakespeare in Limericks?

6) When can we see you at the Edinburgh Fringe?

7) Can I be in your play?

8) Can we produce your play?

9) Will you produce my play?

1) Where is this Durham City Theatre? Are you sure you don't mean the Gala?

This is the inevitable question I get countless times every time I'm either acting in or directing a play at the City Theatre. The fact that the most prominent theatre in the city is the Gala Theatre doesn't help. And, to confuse matters even further, the Gala Theatre's box office now sells the tickets for the City Theatre's productions.

So ... no, the City Theatre isn't the Gala Theatre. It's a small 71-seat theatre in Fowler's Yard, and you can find Fowler's Yard in Back Silver street, and you can find that by ... err, this is a lot easier to navigate yourself than explain to someone else ... right, you go down the slip road just before crossing the River Wear when driving along - oh forget it. Have a map, courtesy of Openstreetmap:

(Or, if you prefer, find Fowlers Yard on OpenStreetMap proper, Google Maps, or Bing Maps.)

2) Are you trying to get any of your plays published?

I've looked into this, but so far it's been a no.

The big two publishers, Samuel French and Nick Hern, generally only consider plays that have had a significant run in professional theatre. I understand this usually means a good run in the West End, and right now I'm nowhere near that.

At the other end of the scale is vanity press. These are publishers who you pay in order to have your work published, usually on the premise that - so these publishers claim - all writers have to get started this way. I'm perfectly aware of the dangers of vanity press; there's a number of good articles around the web on this, but this website is a good one to start with.

Somewhere in the middle there are things such as New Theatre Publications and Lazy Bee Scripts. I haven't looked closely at the business model, but the general idea is that the publicity is done online and script copies are printed or e-mailed as and when someone orders one. That's a model I'm more interested in, but the catch is that you can lose a lot of control over who performs your play - you can even end up losing the right to produce your own play. So whilst I may consider this if the terms are acceptable, at the moment I'm putting my energy into producing plays rather than publishing them.

3) Will you put your scripts online?

You can find a small amount of my stuff on the samples and freebies page. That is free for anyone who wants it to download and use, as long as it is not for profit.

Beyond that, I have no plans to put scripts online, either on this website or any other website that offers to host plays. I am quite happy to consider distributing plays to anyone who asks, but I want at least some idea of where my scripts are going. With online material, it is near-impossible to keep track of where it ends up.

So if you're after a script, please contact me and tell me who you are, what you're interested in, and why. Ask me nicely and I should be able to help.

4) Are you sending your scripts to professional theatres?

The most common option for aspring playwrights (indeed the only option if you don't have a drama group handy) is to send off their scripts to various theatres. However, whilst I have kept this option in mind, so far I've made little more effort than the odd pot shot.

The problem is that most theatres - even those that claim to champion new writing - have very exact ideas of what sort of plays they want; and they rarely distinguish between plays that aren't any good and plays simply not to their tastes. This means that unless they see you as their new poster boy, your script is likely to get binned without any kind of feedback. The most useful place in the north-east to send scripts was Live Theatre's reading service (which was one of their ways of spotting writers with potential); now, sadly, even that has been discontinued.

A further issue is that many places who advertise for scripts, through either playwriting competitions or script calls, attach conditions in the fine print. Many places charge entry/reading fees, and whilst I don't object to paid reading services (if their output's useful), I am very much opposed on principle to charging writers for the privilege of being considered. Meanwhile, some companies say by sending your script to them you grant them exclusive performances rights, or give them right right to modify your script as they see fit - and I have no intention of signing away rights to someone who hasn't even expressed an interest yet.

Then there's what happens if your play gets chosen. I know of at least one person who was unhappy with the way the company performed his play. It doesn't help that most new writing theatres tend to make all their new plays stylistically identical. In fairness to these theatres, they have to come up with an identifiable style of plays (otherwise the credit for a good play goes entirely to the writer and not the theatre), but that's little consolation to any writers who are done a disservice. (Note: if I have sent a script to you, don't worry. That means I trust you to not screw it up.)

So in short, I'm more interested in doing it myself. It may not be the National Theatre, but at least I get to see my work on stage the way I wanted it. I am in a very fortunate position to be able to do this, and that is how I've been able to improve.

5) Are you doing any more Shakespeare in Limericks?

A surprise hit of mine has been Macbeth in Five Minutes in Limericks, which I wrote as a bit of fun but has been surprisingly popular from those people who have read it. So I've had a few requests to condense sine more Shakespeare plays into five-minute limericks.

Anyway, it's on my "to do" list, but I have so many different projects on the go at the moment I so far haven't had time to make a start on this. However, if enough people give me a prod, I may actually get round to it one day.

6) When can we see you at the Edinburgh Fringe?

This is a question frequently asked by people who know I've taken part in the Buxton Fringe and speculate that it's next stop Edinburgh. I can only assume it's mainly people who don't realise exactly how much it costs to do this. If you can do it for £3,000, you are very lucky, and whilst you can recoup money from ticket sales, it is very rare you can avoid a four-figure loss.

That's not to say I'm ruling it out for good. I would love to do it, and if I managed to pull off any funding from arts councils, who knows? But I don't want to take on the massive commitment of Edinburgh until I'm ready for that. And at the moment, there's a long way to go.

7) Can I be in your play?

Quite possibly. I now have a page about how I cast my plays if you're interested. In short, though, it varies a lot depending on what I'm doing. Plays in Durham Dramatic Society's main season have to go through a formal process. Other plays, however, may have hand-picked casts.

But if you can't be bothered to read that, there's one tip above all others I have for you. If you're interested in being in any one my plays, tell me! Half the time I have to make plans around who I've got available. If I know you're available, it's more likely I'll find a part for you.

8) Can we produce your play?

Okay, this isn't a "frequently" asked question as such, but I do occasionally get enquiries. There's an old saying that for every five enquiries you get like this, only one will amount to anything. As the invitation to stage The First Sign of Madness was the fifth, please excuse me if the next four are greeted with suspicion.

Seriously though, I'm happy to consider any offers on a case-by-case basis. Contact me, and tell me:

• who you are,
• what you're interested in doing,
• why you're interested,
• where you propose to perform it, who you propose acts in it, and
• how you propose to direct it.

Basically, I need to be satisfied you know what you're doing. This may sound over-protective, but if a play of mine bombs because someone else miscast it, or misdirected it, or forced their own interpretation on it, it's my loss. But ... if you're genuine and enthusiastic and capable, I'll be more than happy to help.

(The exception is Macbeth in Limericks. That is free for anyone to download, distribute or perform provided it is on a non-commercial basis. It's not necessary to ask me first, but it would be nice if you did.)

Oh, and in the event you're a professional company, I'll probably expect my fair share of the proceeds. Plenty of writers have to make a living, and I don't want to undercut anyone in a race to the bottom. But the most important thing is seeing my play done well. If I ever had the choice between a small-scale production by a group I trust, or a lucrative large scale production by a group I don't, I would always choose the first.

9) Will you produce my play?

I do occasionally produce unpublished/unperformed plays written by other people. Before you get too excited, however, so far they have been either plays I saw on stage that impressed me, or plays written by people I knew that grabbed my interest. So far, I have yet to find any interest in an unsolicited script from someone I don't know.

But you are welcome to send me an unsolicited script. Who knows, perhaps you can succeed where others failed. In fact, I'll even do someone that most script rooms won't - I'll give you feedback. I've written this page for anyone thinking of sending me a play. But do be aware that showing me something I'd be interested in performing is going to be a very tough task.