so that's what all the fuss was about ...

about a week ago, i received a letter from new york that had been sent to my parents' home in my name. as it was uncermoniously tossed onto my coffeetable by my messenger parents, i was told that it was from "james somebody, i think?"

turns out it was from james houghton of the o'neill - and he had sent a letter to anyone who had participated in the playwrights conference during his four years as artistic director. he wrote to inform us that he had resigned from the position and wanted to thank us for making the conference everything it was during his time there.

perhaps overly optimistic, perhaps just unsure of where i could find out what happened, i assumed he was moving on to tackle some new challenge or whatnot. i met him briefly at my festival, but it was more of a polite "hi, i'm the director, you're one of the critics i'll talk to about criticism and the theater." at the time, we were informing him of how the trustees had treated us during a discussion period, so he wasn't exactly relaxed and in the chattiest of moods anyway.

but i digress. turns out the o'neill is experiencing much more controversy than i had realized ... as reported by playbill and, in an article i missed, the times. frankly, reading about the decision to change the playwright submission policy, i'm exasperated. invite playwrights to submit their works? one of the conference's strongest assets has always been that anyone could submit. the work would stand on its own - in theory, new unknowns would be on equal footing with playwrights far more established.

i understand that the staff faces an arduous task, reading all of the plays. but the conference works so well (in my opinion) because it's open for anyone with a desire to put structure to the stories in his or her head. i just feel that the conference will be missing out on some absolutely brilliant work if this practice becomes permanent policy. and the sad thing is that no one will even realize it.