Indie Theater Guy (book)

So I wrote a play. In 1997, The Vampyres was produced at Dobama’s Night Kitchen and I thought I was on my way to becoming a serious playwright. I printed one hundred bound copies of the script, got a copy of the Dramatists Sourcebook, and sent it to every theater in America whose submission policy seemed open to such a work.

And I waited and nothing happened and I didn’t write another play for five years.

It wasn’t until a chance visit to NYC and an invitation to see some shows at the fledgling New York International Fringe Festival (FringeNYC) that I became aware not only of the vast amount of great (and not-so-great) independent theater, but that there was a movement afoot to share and raise the profile of such work.

Around the same time, a New Jersey accountant named Martin Denton decided it wasn’t enough to experience and enjoy new works by Downtown theater artists, he needed to participate, and he has told his story, and the story of early 21st century “fringe” theater in his new book Indie Theater Guy.

He could have called it Internet Theater Guy, because it was Martin who first chose the fledgling internet as his venue for promoting and celebrating experimental work. Gatekeeping media like the New York Times or Time Out New York may, by necessity as well as design, could or would only review a few shows a week. Martin started nytheatre.com which (among other things) was dedicated to reviewing every single show at FringeNYC, every single year.

Think about it. Let’s say you were an out of town act, maybe from Cleveland. You spent time and money and effort to get a show to New York, it may or may not have received any attention. But at the very least, you were guaranteed one New York City review, at least one, and you found it at nytheatre.com.

Martin Denton

Martin himself came to see And Then You Die at the 2009 Fringe, and he viewed it with a critical eye, questioning whether or not I had stuck the landing with my solo performance about marathon running. I was just flattered that, out of two hundred shows to choose from and with a staff scurrying around lower Manhattan to see and report on all of them, Mr. Indie Theater himself chose mine.

Here’s the thing: While Martin’s efforts were concentrated on what was happening exclusively in New York City, the impact of his work in the first two decades of this century had a wide-ranging impact, on me in Cleveland, and for so many others. And he used the internet to make it happen.

When podcasts were first becoming a thing, Martin produced the nytheatrecast which featured independent theater professionals interviewed by empresario Trav S.D. I was a dedicated listener.

Then there was the Indie Theater Now project, an online database of play scripts. For only $1.29 you could buy a script! And playwrights across the country were encouraged to do so. I did. And people read them.

All of these efforts have served their purpose, and they have come and they have gone. But their effects are lasting. Would New Play Exchange be a thing if Martin hadn’t first proved that playwrights were not only willing but eager to get their work out there for people to read in such great quantity? Who knows?

Martin’s organizational work within NYC has also paid great dividends, and you can learn about them in his brief memoir. But this playwright is grateful for the way he used new technologies to greatly expand access to and awareness of modern theater writing for artists far and wide, and diffusing New York as the epicenter of American drama.

Last year I submitted many plays to well over one hundred theaters, without printing a page, sealing an envelope, or spending a dime. And unlike in 1997, my efforts have been successful. Can Martin Denton take credit for that? Yes. Yes, he can.

"Indie Theater Guy" is available in paperback or ebook at Amazon.