Selling Your Artistic Soul
Written by TMS Director of Creative Development & Mentor, Eric Webb
Hello, TheaterMakers!
Real talk here.
I’m bad at pitching.
I’m working on it. I’m getting better at it.
So I guess perhaps it is more appropriate to say I was bad at pitching (and can sometimes still fail).
For me, part of it was that it felt gross. It felt like I was commodifying my work, turning it into a product that I needed to sell. It felt icky to me. I wanted to be on the ARTISTIC side of things, not the BUSINESS. And what was worse was that, unlike back in my sales days as a teenager, a customer rejecting my pitch was PERSONAL.
They weren’t just rejecting the item I was selling.
They were rejecting ME.
And that sucks.
The simple truth, however, is that… until you have an agent, or until you have the reputation of a Miranda or a Nottage or a Huang… you’re your only advocate. Nobody else is going to pitch your work, nobody is going to knock down your door screaming “I know you’ve got a great play in there, hand it over!” And if you can’t or won’t pitch, your stuff is just going to rot in a drawer somewhere (and guess what? Even Miranda, Nottage, and Huang have to pitch their stuff sometimes).
Connected to this idea of self-advocacy was my intense feeling of imposter syndrome. I still struggle with it, and I know for a fact that a good number of you reading this do as well.
That syndrome was the thing that made me start mumbling or only say a few small words about my work.
Because
“it’s not that good,”
“you’re not really interested anyway,”
“you’re not really a writer…”
But here’s the thing: somebody asked you about your work. So they ARE interested. You wrote something. So you ARE a writer. And is it good? That’s for THEM to find out, and they can’t find out if you don’t share.
You are your own advocate. You love your work. Share that love. And don’t be ashamed of it. Theater is a collaborative art. We WANT more people on our team. We WANT people talking about us and our work. But it starts with you.
You are the patient zero of your artistic infection in the world. So be the super spreader.
(what a weird metaphor)
You get what I mean, though.
And I get it. It’s weird, it’s hard, it’s awkward. It can sometimes feel like you're part of some kind of machine… but remember, nobody is out there hoping that you fail.
It’s just like being in a job interview.
You want this job.
But they also want to hire someone. They HOPE you’re the one.
And every producer HOPES your project is the one that’s going to make their artistic heart sing.
So get out there. Show them why your work is amazing. Show them how awesome you are.
Because if you don’t, who will?
