Playwrights MUST be Producers
Especially if you want your work to actually exist.
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Hello! Welcome to my weekly newsletter!
Enjoy a dose of my playwriting process,
writing confessions, and all the mess in between.
Let me be specific:
In Malaysia, I strongly advocate for playwrights to become producers.
I don’t know how it works in the rest of the world. But here?
We have lots of actors. Honestly, throw a stone…
What we don’t have enough of are producers. Producers who will read your script, believe in it, and do all the hard, boring, money-grabbing, risk-taking stuff to put it on stage.
So what happens?
You write. You wait. You hope.
And nothing happens.
I was a producer before I was a playwright.
People would often ask me to produce their scripts.
And I’d hesitate.
Not because I didn’t want to.
But because I had other priorities. And well, I didn’t want to lol.
There were always other shows I wanted to do.
And honestly?
Sometimes I just didn’t connect with their script.
That’s the reality.
We don’t have producers who are just producers.
Because producing takes serious time, energy, and business sense.
Not to mention — money.
And let’s be real, not everyone wants to do that.
So here’s the truth:
If you want your work to live outside your Google Drive…
you’re probably going to have to produce it yourself.
And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Being a playwright-producer is power.
It means:
You know how to write within your limits.
You know what you can afford, so your writing is tighter.
You build worlds that are doable, not just dreamy.
You set creative and logistical guardrails that help your story actually happen.
You don’t need to be perfect at budgeting.
You don’t need to love excel sheets.
You just need to take ownership of your work’s life beyond the page.
The good news?
You’re not alone.
We’re all figuring it out.
And trust me — the moment you see your script come alive
because you made it happen, it changes everything.
So, playwrights:
Don’t wait to be picked.
Pick yourself.
Agree? Disagree? Tell me how you really feel!