Jonathan Rand is among the most popular contemporary playwrights writing today, his stage plays having been performed over 23,000 times in theaters across 65 countries. According to an independent survey of American schools, his one-act comedy Check Please was the #1 most-produced short play every season for the last 15 years. A four-time Heideman Award finalist, his work is published by Random House, Stage Partners, Playscripts, Smith & Kraus, Dramatics magazine, and Macmilllan. He also served as CEO and co-founder of Playscripts, a publishing and performance licensing company for new stage plays and musicals.
I’m not going to reveal all the secrets to how he built his career in this preamble to the podcast, so if you want the full story, you’ve got to listen in and hear Jonathan talk about:
- How entering a contest kicked-off his writing career.
- How a couple lines of HTML and ZERO expectations changed his life.
- What high schools are looking for when they decide to license a play.
- The day he founded Playscripts and why (the most successful artists I know have great business skills – and this is one of the best examples in our industry).
- How plays are discovered by the subsidiary market, how that’s going to change, and what you can do to get your stuff noticed.
Keep up with me: @KenDavenportBway