Scene Nights

During COVID-19 shelter-in-place, we are conducting Virtual Scene Nights, supplemented with Scene Swaps.

Scene Nights are invaluable in your writing and revision process. Bring pages in to be read by professional actors, hear your scene come to life, find out how well it's working or not working and get immediate feedback from peers. No submissions, no applications, no committees, no judgments.

Don't be shy, bring in your work and get feedback that will help you make your work its best.

Member playwrights of all experience and style often find it useful to attend these readings because it gives them some of the benefits of a full production earlier in the writing process. For those who haven't participated in a Scene Night before, playwrights sign up to have up to 10 minutes of your work read by volunteer actors. Each reading is followed by a short feedback session.

  • Scene selections must be no more than ten minutes.
      • The following typical page counts are based on Courier 12 font – if you use Times New Roman 12, you should assume 1-2 pages fewer – Times New Roman font is tighter and fits more on a page. Courier or Courier New is better for accurate timing.
      • In a properly formatted script, this is typically 8-10 pages where each line of dialogue is one to three sentences.
      • Scenes that include longer lines of dialogue, for example, characters speaking paragraphs to each other, would be seven or eight pages, sometimes less.
      • Monologues, or scenes with very long speeches are at most four to five pages.
      • Reading your own work out loud at home before bringing it to scene night is encouraged. This will let you know if your piece is likely to fit within the 10-minute limit as well as help you catch typos or difficult lines which can trip up actors and slow them down.
      • By adhering to these guidelines, playwrights will not only develop a better sense of their work's true runtime, this will allow all scene night attendees to have the best experience possible.

Scene Nights are free for everyone to contribute, but non-members must pay $10 if they wish to have a scene read.

Scenes by PCSF members in attendance are read first, and non-members scenes will be read if time allows after all attending members' scenes have been read.

(For in-person scene nights only:) Because scene reading priority is first come, first served, many playwrights arrive as early as 7 p.m. So, come at 7 p.m., get your name on the list, and take 30 minutes to network and get to know each other better!

If you are an actor interested in honing your cold reading skills while helping pcsf members develop new plays, please email us at volunteers@playwrightscentersf.org.

How it works when we're not sheltering-in-place

We sit in a circle and read about 10 pages of a scene. The playwright selects the readers from the evening's 4 paid actors, with any additional parts assigned to whoever else is willing to read. We strongly recommend that the playwright not read their own work.

After the reading, we critique what we have heard, emphasizing the strengths and possibilities. Usually we have seven or eight scenes, allowing 20 minutes for each, including the reading and the critique.

Although Scene Nights are first come, first served, we try to fit everyone in!

Updated 10/24/20