Dramatic Publishing Co.`s lone northwest suburban client, playwright Nancy Robinson Crist of Crystal Lake, is steadily building a following around the region, though she`s not growing wealthy in the process.
The 34-year-old Crist is at work with composer Mark Hollmann of Chicago on her fourth play, titled ”Jack the Chipper,”a musical scheduled for a reading Oct. 31 at the New Tuners Workshop in Chicago. After that, another play, a comedy drama called ”Soul Survivors,” will be presented by the TownSquare Players in Woodstock over a single weekend in January.
Crist is best known in the area for her close relationship with the Crystal Lake Park District`s StageCrafters group, which produced her comedy
”Everything`s Relative” two years ago before an audience of some 200 people, and another work, ”And the Theory of Relativity,” last January. Dramatic publishes ”Everything`s Relative” and is considering the other plays for possible addition to its annual catalog.
So far, Crist has reaped all of $25 in royalties. Her plays haven`t been produced anywhere else, though she earns a small portion of sales on playbooks.
”This isn`t just about making money,” said Crist, who also free-lances as a writer of newsletters, brochures and video scripts. ”It`s a real feather in your cap just to say you`ve had a published play. It will help open doors in the future for me. People know Neil Simon and David Mamet, but they don`t know Nancy Crist.”
How long will Dramatic wait for the play to catch on? Typically the firm will give a play five years in its catalog. A quarter-page entry in the annual catalog will catch a producer`s eye, but after that word of mouth-high school drama instructors quiz each other at theater conferences for ideas-usually helps seal a deal to actually stage a show.
As an unknown, Crist is exceedingly lucky to be published at all. Most New York play publishers don`t accept unsolicited manuscripts. Dramatic receives some 1,500 plays a year and from that total publishes perhaps five from unknowns who aren`t represented by agents.
”Dramatic Publishing is far more personal than other publishers,” Crist said. ”They actually read every play you send them and remember who you are. It`s nice to be able to sit down in person in their offices and work with an editor directly, rather than trying to communicate through the mail to somebody you`ve never met in New York.”
