Playwright Support Services
New Dramatists’ constellation of practical resources for playwrights grew out of our founding principal, that playwrights are one another’s greatest resource. Staff work to support connection and foster community through a range of physical and virtual resources: in-person meetings, a library, shared web-based platforms, computing & office resources, as well as three residence rooms and a stocked pantry. Playwrights find at New Dramatists everything an itinerant, professional artist needs in a home base – here they can host a conference call, print out those brand new pages, query other resident writers about a sensitive issue through a secure listserv, find a quiet place to write away from their children, or even do laundry.
Founded by playwrights for playwrights, our writers’ experiences, expertise, and feedback help ensure that our programming and services answer their needs. This season, writers participated in four writers’ executive committee meetings (a self-selecting committee of residents that guide ND on policy and governance); held four spots on our Board of Directors and on our board committees; and alongside staff, led and participated in our septennial program review in the fall/winter 2017. This was comprised of extensive resident surveys and a retreat for staff and writers at SPACE at Ryder Farm in December 2017.
This collection of initiatives deepens our writers’ connections to each other and to the field at large.
