I agree - the catalogues never tell you what you really need to know. I buy about 100 scripts a year and 50% won't work for one reason or another - that should have been known before I bought them. Of the remaining 50%, about 90% don't interest me. If I come up with 5 scripts a year worth a second look it is a good year. The big libraries - Seattle is about 3 hours drive from us has a LARGE collection of scripts - I can go in and read them there but since I don't live there I am not allowed to check them out. You might try that route - I have looked in the catalogs to get some titles that interest me then go to Seattle to give them a quick read. I have also heard that universities with drama departments have large collections too but I have never tried that route. I regret that I have not kept a diary of the scripts I have read - sometimes I remember the theme of a play and go back and try to find it - it never seems to work.

I keep track of a lot of community theaters on the web and see what they are doing and read reviews - that helps a lot - a reviewer sees a lot of things that help me decide whether to read it - if it is populated by 20 and 30 year olds, forget it - I can't cast it. I wish that the catalogues listed the year it was written and the cast ages - that would help a lot but we end up casting most shows older anyway.

When I see a movie I like I try to see if it came from a play - many do - I found one of my all time favorite plays "To Gillian on Her 37 Birthday" that way. I always give the "new addition" sections of the catalogues a close look - I hope to find more contemporary stuff there but I have been surprised too.

I have put questions out to the sites like this one asking for suggestions but seldom get anything. I travel a lot and see a lot of shows on the road. I stay away from the big theaters and go to the small (< 200 seats) places and commnity theaters and have found a lot of good stuff there - stuff I never would have picked out of the catalog - I also go to the fringe festival and see what is there - also have gotten several good ideas from there.

Many people around here travel also and they bring me programs and entertainment sections of newspapers and that helps a lot too.

No simple solution.

Our local "big" theater has tried three different systems. I don't think any of them have worked but, in my opinion. it is more the personalities than the process.

Several years ago, they selected plays and had an "approved list" that directors could choose from. That didn't work so they went to open submissions where directors would submit their proposed play, the theater committee would read it and select their season. That became a travesty - person A always got the fall slot, person B the winter slot and so on. Plays were approved that had never been read by the committee because A had always done a good job. My inability to get a slot after years of trying resulted in my forming a second theater in our community. This year they selected the plays for the season then solicited proposals from directors. This is a travesty also because the same people keep getting the same slots. The committee actually approved a play that hadn't even been written!!! They often approve plays that have been read by just one or two committee members.

Now that I have bitched and gotten it out of my system, our group does not pick a season. We do about 10 to 12 projects a year. Two full productions, 4 to 8 readers theaters, 3 or so Dinner Mystery Theaters, and tonight we try our first musical evening - local singers singing their favorite songs from broadway shows. We intersperse several training programs from short weekend intensives to 6 to 8 week scene study workshops.

In every case, someone comes to us with a proposal to do something. We judge the proposal and the person making the proposal and if we think it will work, we go ahead with it. We have done a lot of good work. Our mantra is quality, quality, quality. If the quality is there everything else will work.

We have never done a show that has lost money and our audiences have grown from low double digits to 50 people SRO at our last two performances (different shows). We have had to find larger venues to do our work.

We like to see someone who is passionate and excited about their project. We don't have a selection committee - the whole board decides on a project by project basis. So far we have always been unaminous - we don't turn much down.

I looked over the theater committee list of approved plays and all that they had done is cull out the plays that might offend someone. I think the problem with the theater committee selecting proposals is that all the slots went to members of the theater committee - from what I heard, those presenting projects were there to support their selection and those who were not there (either absent or not on the committee) were not able to champion their proposal.

I think it is crucial to this process that those making the selection not be allowed to make a proposal and to make sure that the same people don't get chosen each year.

I recently heard that director C was mad because she didn't get "her" slot because the play she submitted and the theater committee approved, was rejected by the theater executive director. And they wonder why other people don't submit proposals. In four years there has only been one other director given a slot and that was because person A was not going to use her slot that year for personal reasons

Anyway, I like our process, we have probably used a dozen directors in our productions. We do have some projects far into the future - like a June slot at our big theater that we need work around so we don't run out of people. We do know what large projects we will do for the next 8 to 10 months and we will fill in around the edges with new projects as they come up. We know we have time in January for a readers theater and expect a proposal soon to do something there. We are also looking at a major training program in the spring. This system has worked very well for us.

We live on an island with a winter population between 2,500 and 3,000 going up by 1,000 or 1,500 between June and August. The mainland is a one hour ride by ferry and the ferries run about 5 times a day so we are pretty self contained when it comes to theater.

Many plays, or anthologies of plays by one or more playwrights, are available from the public library. You might also want to try to contact other local community or high school theater groups that usually keep back copies of scripts.

OH -- and I almost forgot to mention that I buy a LOT of my scripts on half.com and on ebay. For CHEAP.