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Had my ten minute play Anima Animus workshopped online last night. You can hear the reading or download the script at http://www.tenminuteplayworkshop.com/. Also, if you’re a playwright and have a :10 minute play lying around you might consider joining in.

The process was fairly painless: a quick download and login of gotomeeting, a bit of an interview/introduction to get things started, and then off we went. Like other of the readings I’ve listened to there were technical glitches, this time in the vein of one reader’s computer crashing. Other times it has been connectivity issues. Nevertheless, I think Jen Whiting has really hit upon something that can and should be pursued: online readings.

Anima Animus is a play that I have not heard before. I doubt that I would have pursued having it read had this opportunity not presented itself. Now that I have heard it, even under less than ideal conditions, I will pursue getting this piece staged somewhere, and even have the idea of staging it three times in a row with the characters all switching roles after the play “re-sets.”

Stumbled on Amazon Studios a few weeks back and have been exploring this. I recently submitted my script Shadow Machine to this process, despite dire warnings from other writers (who are more knowledgable than I) that it’s a bad deal.

I’m currently participating in a contest at Amazon Studios where I’m writing a treatment regarding how I would make one of the scripts more marketable (from Amazon’s perspective). The prize is $33K, which isn’t much compared to what you’d get if it were a studio re-write with proper WGA credit and residuals, but at this point in my writing career $33K is a pretty good deal for me and I’d have leverage to boast about the project. I’m thinking like one commenter on Craig post, that a bad deal might be better than no deal at all, especially for a script that’s in a figurative “drawer” right now.

Amazon Studios is also soliciting ideas for web series comedies, so if you’ve always wanted to write that television comedy pilot and see whether it would work, now might be the time. But as a PS, do read the contracts and rules and some of the blogs out there commenting on what Amazon is doing, it may be worth your while if you think your project has the legs to run elsewhere in the television/hollywood world.