The amazing benefits of paying it forward

The benefits of paying it forward

One of the big problems about being a writer is isolation.  Unlike playing music or acting, writing is a solitary activity. 

Even if you work in a café, as I often do, people are cautious about interrupting – or in my case, scared off by my intense look of scowling concentration.

But in the past 18 months,  I’ve unintentionally found one simple solution to writer isolation – making some of my work free.

Since October 2022, when I first took the paywall off my website for my short plays and monologues, my work has been performed in 29 locations around the world – mostly by emerging actors and directors in the USA, the UK, Canada, Ireland and Australia. (I use Pinmaps, an online interactive map service, to keep track of where it all goes.)

The only condition for use is that people let me know when, where and how my work will be used and send photos and feedback.

Members Only, my most popular free short play – about a woman who makes it to the pearly gates, only to find she doesn’t know the password – has been performed in Mt Barker, South Australia, and in the USA in Oregon, Wisconsin, Indiana and Arkansas, with performances in Texas and in the Huon Valley in Hobart, Tasmania next month. 

Members Only has also been submitted for a New Director Workshop, in Virginia (USA) along with three other short plays that are available for free on my website.

What I receive in return is priceless – connection with emerging and established actors, and directors – young and old – all over the world, and the satisfaction that I’m helping other artists grow and learn.

The actors and directors who use my free short plays and monologues mostly aren’t professionals. Mostly, they are female actors who are emerging, or re-emerging, or drama teachers and students.

Hannah Luciana, a junior theatre major at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, who directed Members Only in December 2023 for her final project in her directing class, said: “I loved the humour and characters and felt it would be a great way for me to grow as student learning directing.”

The purpose of the project was to practise casting, learn how to conduct rehearsals, interpret the text and then showcase the work to fellow students and the faculty in a free presentation at the end of the semester.

“In total honesty, directing this show was such a positive and educational experience for me! I loved the comedic aspects, of course, but also loved connecting them with the tangible aspects of religious figures and ideas – it gave the cast and myself material to build from which was great for our short time frame,” Hannah said.

Anne Marie Serano, Artistic Director at Acting Out Troupe in Mt Barker, South Australia, was looking for  material for the inaugural performance for a newly formed theatre group, which began with just six “senior ladies who got together and decided they wanted to have fun”.  

They chose Members Only as part of their first show, titled Senior Moments, performed in the Mt Barker library to a sold-out audience last November, followed by an encore performance in December.  

Anne Marie, who has a Masters degrees in Social Work and Drama, said the group would now expand to include general community members “not just older ladies”.

“I was very active in the community theatre in the US. Since coming to Australia  it has taken me 12 years to find my place in an acting/directing capacity. Being a part of the conception and the building of the Acting Out Troupe has been so rewarding. I finally feel totally at home in Australia. The members of this Troupe are warm, friendly and inviting. This has truly been a milestone in my personal and professional life.”

And mine.

When Acting Out Secretary, Pat Pearson, (who played Gabriel in the play), came to visit me in Castlemaine last month, she had a  list of questions about the play, which helped me improve it. (See the tweaked version here, with my other free short plays: https://janecafarella.com.au/ten-minute-plays/)

Gabriel, who appears with a trumpet, is the most popular character in Members Only.

Emily Golden, a sponsor of the drama club at Bismarck High School in Arkansas, which produced the play for a short play festival in December 2023, said: “It was an audience favourite, for sure. Everyone loved our Gabriel as well. We had him enter with a trumpet and play terribly, so everyone loved it.”

Here’s a great photo of Pat Pearson as Gabriel, also playing badly, in the Acting Out Troupe debut. (Scroll down for another great interpretation of Gabriel – Maselli Desantis  in the Butler University Production in Arkansas.)

I understand the importance of artists being paid for their work. I have two full length plays, a musical and a one act comedy which are licensed with agents, and for which I receive royalties when they are produced.

Uked! –the first play-along ukulele musical, which had two sell-out seasons in Central Victoria, Australia in 2019, will be produced by Libretto Productions in Auckland, New Zealand, in August 2024, and Supersnout, my one-act comedy about a talking dog, will be produced in May by the Lithgow Theatre Company in New South Wales, and by the Kegworth Players in Derby, in the UK.   Supersnout has previously been performed in Melbourne, (Victoria) Toodjay (WA), Aberdeen, (Scotland) and Stratford Upon Avon (UK).

But if, like me, you are in the later part of your career, and you can afford to pay it forward, there are enormous rewards in making some of your work free for those who will benefit.

Acting Out Troupe’s media officer, Lynn Bonython sums it up perfectly: “It’s about connecting with audiences and sharing our human experience.”