Letter from Theatre Building Chicago to Hedy Weiss

We have never previously spoken beyond a brief greeting. And so I was taken by surprise at your angry phone call to me on Friday. I hope that, after the heat of the moment, we can begin a more friendly dialogue.

You received a letter from the Dramatists Guild about your review of Stages 2006, our festival of new musicals in progress. Perhaps you decided to phone me since Stages is produced by Theatre Building Chicago. However, since I did not ask the Guild to send the letter, nor have I seen the letter, I think it would be best for you to contact the Dramatists Guild with your concerns. As the Stages festival producer, the Guild contacted me for background information about the event, and as a member of the Guild, I support its desire to protect writers and their work.

Stages 2006 was our 13th festival of new musicals in progress. The annual event is a forum where the authors, the participating artists, and the public can discuss the pieces presented in order to advance their completion. With Stages 2006, we had an artistic success with an exciting weekend of creative conversations. We also had a financial success with a surplus in our budget for this season's festival.

Stages is open to the public and we certainly encourage the press to give the event attention. We did not expressly ask the press not to review the event this year although we did in the beginning years. The event, after all, is a festival of new musicals in progress -- works that have potential, rather than finished products. That is the history of the festival, the context of our media material, and our general understanding with the press and the public.

I appreciate from your phone call that it would have been clearer for us, despite our history, to tell you explicitly that the musicals in progress presented at Stages deserve press coverage but not reviews. Certainly you are free to write about the work you see, just as others are free to comment about your work. My usual response to positive comments in the press is to enjoy them and plaster them everywhere. And my usual response to negative comments is to hope for better next time and learn from them.

And so I do hope we can engage in a dialogue about developing and critiquing new musicals. I know that our artistic director, John Sparks, would also enjoy such a dialogue. When the immediate heat of the moment subsides, let's begin the conversation.