Filing Your Taxes When You're A Playwright

Greetings, and welcome to theater is a sport.  My name is Bobby Keniston, and this is my little piece of the internet to talk about all things theater.  Yay for me.  Got some thoughts, get a blog--- why not?

I tend to write about what's on my mind for this blog, and what's on my mind right now is taxes, since the filing deadline is tomorrow (April 15th).  Now, taxes and theater do not an exciting combination make, but, there are a few things I learned as a playwright for schools and community theaters (the "amateur" market, as it is annoyingly called) about filing taxes made from royalties that not everyone may know, so I figured I would pass it along today.

First off, if one of the companies you're published with pays royalties only once a year, then they will send you your tax information with your royalty payments.  Others that pay twice, or quarterly, will send them out with the last payment you get of the calendar year.  The forms they send you are 1099-Misc forms, for "Miscellaneous Income".  The only boxes that will have anything in them are the payers address, the payer's federal identification number, the recipient's identification number (SSN), and then box number 2 for Royalties.

Here's the important thing to remember from this blog:  nothing is withheld from your royalties.  No Federal Income Tax, no State Income Tax, no medicare or anything like that.  This fact, of course, makes a big difference in how one handles their money.

Since nothing is withheld from your royalties, that means Uncle Sam is going to want his cut come tax time.  I know some playwrights and other artists under the 1099-Misc will make quarterly payments to the IRS, a kind of withholding as soon as they receive their funds.  But most people I know, myself included, just set aside money as soon as we receive our royalties.  If I get a payment from one of my publishers in October, and say it's for $1,200.00, I will 20% and tuck it into an account that won't be touched, so that I can have it ready to pay my taxes if need be.  I found that 20% is a good enough number for me that covers the bases.  Of course, I'm very poor, so I don't have to pay too much in too often, but, you get the idea.  So, with this $1,200.00 check, I would take $240.00 of it and squirrel it away.  Not necessarily a great feeling at the time, but better than worrying about paying it down the road when it's already been spent on your new sunglasses and meal or two at a restaurant with your sweetheart.

I do the same with every check I receive for royalties.  A simple, clean 20%.

A few other things to think about:

Since being a playwright means you are your business, think about saving receipts for certain items that are for your business--- obviously paper, printer ink, writing supplies will add up over time.  Certainly any travel expenses, like to a theater conference to make connections and hawk your scripts should be able to be used as deductions.  I once heard that going to the theater as "inspiration" and "keeping abreast of market trends" can be deducted by playwrights, but in all honesty, I've never tried.  That would certainly be cool though, wouldn't it?

So, that's all I really have on the subject.  If you're a 1099-MISC like myself, and you have other suggestions, please comment below.  Hey, tell me I'm wrong, if you want to.  I've only done what has worked for me over the years, and would be happy to hear other ways of handling our precious money.

All the best to you, and thanks for reading!  Not the most glamorous post, but I hope you found it somewhat helpful.

THE TRUTH ABOUT MAKING MONEY WRITING PLAYS FOR THE AMATEUR THEATER MARKET or PLEASE DON'T RIP OFF PLAYWRIGHTS

WRITING PLAYS = $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Whoa!  Slow down.  As much as I would love to have you believe that I can teach you how to earn fat stacks of cash by writing plays, I really can't.  I'd like to, honest.  But first, I would have to be proficient in making fat stacks of cash by writing plays, and, though I'm happy and grateful for all the successes I have achieved, I do not make a living writing plays.

Welcome to Theater is a Sport.  My name is Bobby Keniston, and this is my little piece of the internet that I use to write about theater.  Thanks for stopping by.

Today I want to talk about writing plays for the amateur market (schools, community theaters, etc.), and the truth about how the money works.  If you're looking for the financial possibilities for a playwright who has a play on Broadway, you've come to the wrong place.  Sorry.

There's an old expression, credited to Robert Anderson, that says you can make a killing on Broadway, but you can't make a living.  And it's true--- many of the top playwrights working today supplement their income working for the movies.  Which really means, these screenwriters supplement their income writing plays.

The late Tim Kelly, who published over 350 plays for the amateur market, once gave  talk describing how one could make a living writing for the amateur market, the way way way way way way off-Broadway stages.  Mr. Kelly admitted that writing for this market wasn't going to bring you critical acclaim, or glitz and glamour, but you could make a living.

By and large, I think Mr. Kelly is right.  But it's not easy.  If you've ever glanced through school and community theater catalogs for plays, you might notice that a playwright's name shows up many many times.  In the five years since I've first been published, I know have 33 plays with four different publishers, and have been called prolific by some people.  This might seems like a lot, but I would appear practically blocked next to many of my colleagues.  To make headway in the school and community theater markets, you need to write and focus on output.  However, you must also focus on quality, so that you'll be published and produced in the first place.

Even though this is a theater blog, I'm going to do a little bit of math right now to demonstrate.  I'm often asked by people about the financial side of my career, not out of nosiness, but out of a genuine curiosity of how it works.  I know I didn't know much about it until I was published.  In fact, to be honest, I was a bit naive.  I thought a few plays doing well meant moolah city, but it's really not that simple.

So, that one act play you write for middle schools and high schools (and yes, you want it to be suitable for both if at all possible) has just been accepted for publication!  Congratulations!  You deserve to celebrate!  And this excitement is well-deserved... it's not easy to be a published playwright!  So feel free to dance around.  I'll bet you even get goosebumps when you sign that first contract.

Now, you're a person who's looking to make writing plays for schools and community theaters a full out career.  Please do not quit your job just yet after your first publication.  Unless you've got huge savings to draw from, or are independently wealthy, in which case, go for it.  But for the rest of us, stay employed.

So, most likely, if you've just got your first one act play published, your publisher will offer it out in their catalog for a licensing fee of anywhere between $35 and $45 a performance.  Of this sum, you, the playwright, will receive anywhere between 50-60%, sometimes more, depending on the company. A good number of my plays, I receive 60% of the performance royalty.  Others, I receive 50%.  It's important to not just look at this percentage, but also to the quality of the catalog, how often it's mailed out, it's reputation for handling plays, etc.

Okay, along with this percentage of the performance royalty, you will also (most likely) receive a 10% royalty on the book sales.  For a one act play, an individual script can cost anywhere between $5.95 and $7.99, depending on the publisher.  To be honest, it wasn't until I had a few plays published that I made sure I received a royalty on script sales, but it's important to have.

For the amateur market, it is very unlikely that you will get any kind of advance, like you might for a novel.  By and large, advances for playwrights go to the shows with the big New York runs and reviews.  I've heard of only one amateur market publisher who paid an advance, and it may very well have been due to the author's previous successes.

Now, on a special note, again, before you quit that day job... pay special attention to when royalties are paid out.  Some companies pay twice a year, a select few pay quarterly, and some only once a year.

So, you want to make a living.  Well, what's a living?  Let's look at something as simple as $20,000.  I should note, I have yet to make this much in a single year from my playwriting, but I do okay.

Let's split the difference, and say your one act play is licensed for a $40 royalty per performance, and your contract gives you 60%.  That means your cut for each performance is $24.  This means you would need to have your play performed 834 times to make $20,016 from a performance royalty.  Now, let's say that the average number of performances a school will license is 3.  You will need 278 productions of 3 performances each to make that money.

Now, factoring in book sales:  let's say that each school needs to order ten books, that are priced $6 a piece.  That gives you another $6 per production.  So $6 multiplied by 278 gives you another $1,668, for a grand total of $21,684.  Well that's not too bad for a one act play, now is it?

Unfortunately, you'd have to be the rarest of the rare, or luckiest of the luckiest to hope that your one act play received 278 productions in one year, for 834 performances.  It's a pretty full market.  The play catalogs are thick, after all.  Yours is but one name among hundreds.  You'd be pretty lucky to have your play receive 25 productions in its first year (much better than mine did).  And, even more likely, it will be lower than that.

(Starting to see why we publish a lot?)

I don't mean this example to be discouraging, but just honest.  It is often true in this market that the harder you work the more successful you become, so that's a good thing.  Try not to think of yourself as competing with other playwrights, because you're not, not really.   You're competing with yourself to keep creating quality work at a decent rate.

All I really wanted to show here is how playwrights for this market are compensated, and how, not licensing a production, or not paying for every performance, is truly stealing money from a playwright's pocket.  And it adds up.

I've been saying this a lot lately, but you can't claim to support the arts without paying the money to support artists.

Thanks for wandering through this little lesson in finance with me.  Again, it's all relative--- some folks are lucky and publish major hits that do get hundreds of productions a year.  And if you become one of them, good for you!  I hope to become one too, and that's why I keep telling my stories.

Until next time, thanks for reading Theater is a Sport.  You can learn more about my plays by clicking HERE,  HERE, HERE, or HERE.  Thanks for reading, and feel free to comment below.

How Do Playwrights For the Amateur Markets Make Money or Bobby Keniston Takes Stock of His Relatively Young Playwriting Career

Note:  This is not me.  Not yet.

Greetings everyone, and welcome to Theater is a Sport.  My name is Bobby Keniston, and I am a playwright, director, actor and theater teacher.  Basically, I am a drama geek.  That is why I have this blog.  I write down my thoughts about theater on a given day and then wonder if anyone wants to read them.  I have been pleasantly surprised to find that the answer is yes, some people do. 

Today I am going to talk about a subject that I think will interest people more than many subjects I may talk about.  I tend to talk a good deal about the "craft" and have not talked too much about the actual "business" of theater.  So, today, I decided I would talk a bit about money.

Money.  Money.  Money.

Many people could joke that the title of this post very well could have been "Do Playwrights Make Money?" as opposed to "How Do Playwrights Make Money?"   In fact, when you have people at the top of the field like Tony Kushner running his mouth about how he can't make a living as a playwright (wonder if he would want to switch royalty checks with me), I guess it is a fair question.  Of course, Mr. Kushner does not write for the amateur market as I do. 

The late Tim Kelly, a very prolific playwright for the school and community theater markets, published over 350 plays in his life, and, when his career really took off, would have about 6,000 performances of his plays every year, all over the world.  His pieces were translated into dozens of languages.  He adopted the old quote and paraphrased it for the amateur theater market:  "You can make a living, but you can't make a killing". 

The reason so much of this is on my mind is that I have been taking stock or my playwriting career today.  A little more than three years ago, my very first play was accepted for publication.  No books out yet, no contract signed, just accepted for publication.  In the three years since (which have seemed to fly by), here  is where I am at:

--- 22 publications (including a contribution to an anthology of monologues, and co-author of a book of improvisation starters),
--- 80 productions of my plays
--- 140 performances of my plays
--- Productions of my plays in 36 states, as well as in Canada and Australia,
and
--- and unpublished play of mine represented the state of Maine at a New England Regional Festival for community theaters, where I won an award for Best Emerging Playwright

This looks pretty good listed out, I must confess, and I am proud, I truly am, and grateful for my successes. 

But let me make this clear:  I do not make a living from being a playwright. 

Okay, this may seem weird, but this blog is about education, so I'm going to share some stats with you, just so you know a bit about the money side of things as I have experienced them.  I will limit this to my published plays.  If nothing else, maybe this will make some people think twice before skipping out on paying royalties for producing plays.  I am going to limit this to my royalty earnings from the company with whom I have the most publications.  Again, this is neither bragging nor complaining--- I share these figures strictly for educational purposes.

ROYALTY EARNINGS MY FIRST YEAR AS A PLAYWRIGHT :  $365.78
EARNINGS LAST YEAR:  $742.99
EARNINGS SO FAR THIS YEAR (I will be getting more before the royalty period closes):  $928.17

Again, this is not a representation of all monies earned through playwriting, just my published plays with Brooklyn.  As you can see, there has been steady growth, but not exactly living wages, right? 

Here's how it works:  a school or community theater group wants to put on my play.  They pay for the rights to perform it.  A one-act play with this publisher costs $35 per performance.  For my early one-acts with Brooklyn, I receive $17.50 of that $35, for more recent ones, $21.  For more recent plays, I also receive 10% book royalty, or roughly $0.55 for the scripts sold.  

For a ten-minute play, the productions cost $15 to license, of which I receive $7.50.  Since, when ten-minute plays are performed for forensics competitions the royalties are waived, the books are sold in script packs of $12.50, for which I receive $1.25 for each script pack sold. 

So, first off, you might be thinking, "wow, he doesn't make very much."  But, in truth, I'm actually doing pretty well considering the age of my career, and considering I am primarily earning income from publications for the amateur markets.  Clearly, a playwright like Neil Simon, who once had 3 shows running on Broadway at the same time, was (and is) making far more cash than myself.  But, my career is steadily growing, my name and my work is getting out there,and, yes, my publishers, all four of them, work hard to get my plays produced.  I am very lucky. 

So how do playwrights for the amateur markets make money?  Simple--- volume.  The more productions, the more performances, the more money.  So, how do you get more productions? 

This is actually a simple answer, too. 

Time, hard work, and luck.

Yes, once in a while, a writer may come along who, for whatever reason, has a really big hit with their first play for the school or amateur market, get 200 productions a year from it, and receive a good-sized royalty check.  This does happen.  It has not happened to me (yet), but it can happen. 

For the rest of us, it is a matter of writing, writing, writing.  And, of course, the writing has to be good, at least good enough for publication.  And I feel I should let you in on a little secret that is very important to this discussion:  I have 22 plays published with four different publishers, and I still get rejected.  Not every new play is accepted by the first company I send it to.  I still have to make sure I'm writing good stuff, and, even if it is good stuff, it doesn't mean it is going to be published.  Maybe it's not right for a market, maybe the catalogue has too many "similarly themed" pieces, but, for whatever reason, I am not automatically published because I have some credits.  Granted, I think my work is considered perhaps a bit more quickly than it was when I didn't have anything on my resume, but that's only fair, isn't it?

But I digress.

The reason the publications are important is because the more publications, the more plays you are presenting to the public.  This means your name appears a lot more in the catalogue.  When your name appears a bunch in the catalogue, there's a good chance people are reading the synopsis and a better chance that they are ordering a perusal copy that will hopefully lead to a production.  The more production that are out there, the more press.  If you write one-act plays for high schools, you have to hope upon hope they are taking your script to a competition, where other schools from the state will see it, like it, and look up you other work. 

I hope this doesn't sound like I'm complaining about how I'm not making the big bucks (yet).  Don't get me wrong--- I do think playwrights have a very justifiable reason to complain, at least in the amateur market--- people lying about how many performances, being the bottom rung on a theatrical latter--- but, to me, at least, I think the system is tough but fair.  You have to work hard.

You have to write. 

Write.

Then write some more. 

I don't do a ton of networking right now because of my location, but, even still, the more I write, the more my numbers are growing.  And that's how it should be.  Are they growing as fast as I would like?  Well, I think most people wish they were making more money than they are... it's an expensive world, and, yeah, I would love to have better financial independence.  But, the fact remains, whenever I receive a royalty check, I get a huge smile on my face, because it is money I have in my hand that represents working on something I love, and this work somehow inspiring complete strangers to want to work on it too.

Thanks for reading this post.  Find out more about me by clicking the links below.  Until next time, please remember--- theater is not only a craft and an artform.  Theater is a sport.

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