Also, because I know this is often an issue on the ICWP list (naturally and quite rightly), I should say that the majority of the respondents quoted are women.

Enjoy.  - Michael

This is the query that I sent to the LMDA list: 

a recent post to the international center for women
playwrights list raised this question (i paraphrase): 
when it says on a submission listing that the theatre
wants a letter, synopsis and ten sample pages, which
ten should i send?  do they want beginning, middle,
end? 

so, literary wranglers: if your theatre uses the ten
page sample (or any excerpt length) what elements do
you like to see that help you most?  (one person i
asked about this a few years ago said, rather
snippily, "Oh, I just want to see if they can write." 
- i hope there's more to it than that...)

Responses:

I get teased sometimes for reading the whole play ... and I certainly understand that volume makes us all make hard choices. 

The decision on if you should read the whole play really depends on what you are looking for ... if you are looking for a readily producable work, then there is no point (well very little) in reading the whole play. Most people on this list can tell after a few pages if the play is right for their theater. 

Where it really helps to read the whole play is if you are looking for a "voice." And I think this is what G. was talking about in his post. If you  really want to know what someone is capable of ... you need to read the whole plays. Some plays grow on you as they go on their journey. Plays  won't read well, but will haunt you for weeks afterward. I've often dismissed a script on an initial read, but after then I realize that I keep thinking about it days afterward. Some part of the characters' journey has stayed with me and made me think. Then I know I have to go back and see what this playwright has to offer. 

But in a busy world, and especially when you are looking to fill a hole in your season, 10 pages is enough.

I have been the one to read submitted plays and also the person who works directly with new playwrights.  I don't care about "formula" or anything else when I receive a script. What I do care about is whether or not the play grabs my attention by the third page.

To paraphrase Robert Patrick:  even if a play is not organized chronologically or as a well-made play, the audience always experiences the first ten pages first.  If the script doesn't engage  us early on, what good is a boffo climax?  The audience may have left by  then!

However,   there  is  another  act.  And    in   this act  things got   hot  and   sweaty and exciting.  Completely  different   authorial   voice,  huge  formal    and  structural changes,  wild non-linear  textuality  -   exactly   what  the  rest of  the  play  was  not.  Exactly  what I  would  never  suspect  this playwright was  capable  of  had I  not  seen it  on a  page. Unfortunately, this act  was  so  dependent  on  the  rest of  the 
play    for  (con)text   that  there is  no  way  it  would  ever  end up  as 
those magic   10 pages-  it  would  seems incoherent.   And there would be  another playwright I  would have mistakenly written off.

I  know  that   this   seems to  lead  to  huge piles   of  scripts on one's  desk-  it  doesn't have  to. I'd  take the  other   route and limit  submissions. Make it  invitation  only.   Put out  a  call to   selected    Literary Managers  whose company  has  a  similar 
mission   to  your  own. Ask  them  for  5   writers they  love  but aren't able  to  produce.  Ask  those  writers   to  submit work. If    their  work   resonates   with you,  ask   those  writers  to each  recommend 5  writers..... Or ask the  writers  you  work   with now. Only  work   with  writers   you know. Get  to  know  lots of  writers.

Eventually,   if you   use   the  structure outlined   above,  you can 
A) Read   only   plays  that  are   right    for  your  theatre 
B) Always read the   whole   play 
C) Develop real relationships with  writers   that  are   based  in  more  than just  a production  or  development  model 
D)  Build  a patchwork    quilt of writers who know  and  respect  each other's  work-  your theatre   also  becoming a home  for a community  of  writers. 

Call  it  the Prell  System   of Literary  Management--  And  she told  two  friends,  and  she  told  two  friends.......

Whatever  you   do,    read the  whole play.

In response to X's point about the first ten pages, doesn't that  presuppose that all plays are written in a certain well-made play format, in which we BEGIN at the Beginning and go through exposition, point of attack, etc?  Doesn't that somehow eliminate plays 
that are like, say MEMENTO, where we begin at the end and there's some  mystery involved?  What would she/he do with a play like, say, Prince's BETRAYAL?

It reminds me of the old Syd Field screenplay controversy.  As you know Syd  invented the three-act form for screenplays.  A million people studied screenwriting using that formula and learned to expect that formula in the scripts they read... and when a script comes along that doesn't precisely FIT that formula, it's rejected because it's not good.... when all it is, is not formulaic.

As for me, I've often sent my best ten pages which are often a climactic 
scene.  I take care, however, to  provide a one to two paragraph intro so  the reader knows what these pages are all about.  And it's often worked in  that I do get invites to send the whole script.  So perhaps it's in the presentation rather than the position of the pages.

Since all the queries to (Theatre P) end up on my desk, I get asked this question a lot--not, as one might imagine, by the writers themselves, but by non-theatre folk who can't quite grasp what the heck a Literary Associate does all day long. 

Anyway, I find that I'm immediately suspicious of  writers who, for whatever reason, choose to submit anything other than the first ten pages of their script.  What don't they want me to see? The opening of a play should be one of the most engaging, provocative,  well-thought-out sections of the entire piece, deliberately designed to 
grab and hold the attention of both reader and  audience. If I'm dropped  somewhere in the middle, I spend most of my reading time trying to figure out what's going on and rarely ever get to that crucial point of needing to know "What happens next?" By page 10, I expect the characters to be established and the fuse to be lit on the primary  action that will drive the play; otherwise, I'm probably gonna pass.  While it's certainly
possible to sample a writer's way with dialogue at any point in the script, those first ten pages contain important clues to structure and technique that always help me decide whether or not I want to add this manuscript to my already-bulging shelf. 

I want to begin at the beginning -- it's as simple as that. 

In general, I think it should be left up to the playwright to submit those ten pages that best represent his/her work as a whole. That is often, as it turns out, the first ten pages of the play - but not always. Sometimes, the later the excerpt is in the play, the more difficult  it can be to follow for clarity. Events and conflicts have been set up earlier in the play and the reader might not have a frame of reference for them reading the scene out of context. The resulting struggle to understand might not serve the play
completely, even if it is the most beautifully written passage.

At the end of the day, though, I trust that writers will know which ten
pages best represent their work as a whole and will send accordingly.

Of course, this just my take on it. Their are probably as many opinions as
there are literary folk.

That said, just about any 10-page clip from the play generally achieves this  purpose, though I think playwrights should generally pick sections that have less stage direction and more dialogue, and avoid sections in which you need  to know a lot of the back-story in order to understand what's going on.  Whether this excerpt comes from the beginning, middle, or end is generally  inconsequential.

One other thing I'd say to anyone inquiring about submission guidelines is  to be really sure and follow the guidelines exactly as the theatre says.  We  found it really aggravating when people would just disregard the guidelines,  and we often discarded those submissions on principle.  One playwright wrote  in the cover letter that she couldn't possibly pick just 10 pages out of her  entire play to send us, so she was sending us the entire script and we  should pick ten pages.  That script didn't make it very far.  Also, some  playwrights think that the 10-page submission is the writing sample, and  that their writing in the rest of the submission letter isn't as important -  not true.  I've definitely seen literary managers throw  submissions in the trash based on the way the cover-letter was composed.  The best cover letters are generally the most concise and 
professional.

<< "Oh, I just want to see if they can write."  >>

Well, of course that's a large part of it.  A play can sound fascinating in 
the synopsis while the execution falls short due to lack of talent or skill. 
I also like to see what the language is like.  A play's language/dialogue/"sound"  and how they are handled are very important to me  and weigh heavily in what plays we choose.  The play's basic style is also  revealed in the sample- stylized?  "Realistic"?  What type of tone, mood,  feel, what have you.

I prefer sample pages because I don't have the room for a huge stack of 
scripts.  It's just that simple.  I got tired of the giant pile next to my desk. 
So first I got a literary manager and then I got wise and started 
asking for sample pages.

I want to see what the dialogue is like, their ability to capture characters and their ability to handle a dramatic event - infer dramatic action etc..  - in some ways, yes, it is "can they write?"  Sorry.

Addendum - perhaps not so much "can they write" but "what is the voice" - 10  pages is tough, but the choice of which ten pages also reveals something  about a writer's understanding of their strengths, etc..