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The Dramatists Guild vs. The Writers Guild
By Jeffrey Sweet
Though they both have the word “Guild” in their names, the
Writers Guild of America and the Dramatists Guild are very
different animals. The contracts for writers in film and TV
and contracts for the theatre don’t resemble each other much.
In film and television, you’re an employee, which means you
can be fired, even if the script was your idea to begin with.
You don’t have cast approval or director approval. The
producers not only can change lines in your script, they
absolutely will. (The only issue is how much.) And the
production company owns the copyright of what you created.
Because you’re an employee in this world, you can be
represented by a union. In fact, you have to be a member of
the WGA to write for most film and TV. As a union, the WGA
can (and has) ordered strikes that have shut down film and
TV studios in pursuit of better money and increased artistic
rights. (The strikes usually result in a little better money
but virtually no advance in artistic rights.)
It offers the benefits of being a union: if you earn enough,
you’ll be covered by very good health insurance, and there
will be a pension waiting for you at the end of your career.
The writer is not an employee in the theatre. You write a
script and, if you’re lucky, you find a producer willing to
bring it to the stage. The DG contracts give you cast approval
and director approval and the legal assurance that none of the
lines will be changed without your permission. (These are
terms film and TV writers dream of and don’t get unless they
also become their own producers.) You don’t sell a script in
the theatre; you license it. At the end of the run, it is
still your property. The copyright is in your name.
Since writers in the theatre are not employees, legally the
Dramatists Guild cannot be a union. Membership is advisable
but not compulsory. You can be a non-member and still get
produced. (If you do, though, you’ll probably sign a deal
that doesn’t meet Guild standards in terms of artistic and
economic rights.) Unlike the WGA, the DG does not offer
insurance coverage or a pension.
I wrote years of television – drama, sitcoms, soap opera
and TV movies. Not a single script of mine was shot exactly
as I wrote it. One sitcom episode for which I received
primary screen credit retained only my premise for the story;
not one line I had written was left. (It actually turned out
to be a pretty good episode.)
I’ve been writing for the theatre professionally since I was
20, and, although I can’t claim to be happy with every
premiere of every play, the scripts presented were as I wrote
them.
I did a lot of craftsman-like work for TV, but I was hired to
serve other people’s needs. When I wrote for the stage, I
wrote primarily to make myself happy.
A lot of us who write scripts do both. We are happy to pick
up assignments for film and television to keep our bank
accounts healthy. And sometimes we’re very lucky – what we
write actually gets produced, and we kind of recognize what
we see on the screen.
But many of us regularly return to the stage because it is
there we actually have influence over the production. A play
may flop or succeed, but it does so on our terms, expressing
our intentions.
Most of my scripts for television paid me way more than what
I earn from the stage. But when I’m asked to supply a bio
for a program, it is the stage credits I list.
BIO
Jeffrey Sweet is a resident playwright at the Tony-
winning Victory Gardens Theatre of Chicago and serves on
the Council of the Dramatists Guild. You can read about
his summer playwriting retreat in August at
http://www.artisticnewdirections.org/retreats.html
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