Introducing Indie Theater Now

Martin and Rochelle Denton have taken yet another fantastic step forward in sharing the work of New York City's Off-Off Broadway (or "Indie") scene with the broadest possible audience. It's a truly exciting and innovative offering.

Indie Theater Now

Indie Theater Now is a website that offers readers to sample and enjoy the full range of the drama being produced in New York City at the vibrant smaller stages all over the city. A range of playwrights are offered. Many of them have multiple works available, some for the first time. The collection includes production photos, playwright bios, a review from nytheatre.com, an excerpt of the script, and a synopsis.

In order to take advantage of the service, you must create an account. Then, you can add a play to your digital "library" for $1.29. If you'd like to add multiple plays to your online library, you can purchase at a bulk rate of 5, 10, or 25 plays (which is now discounted as an introductory offer).

In order to roll out the large number of works, they will be bundled into collections. The first of which is the timely FringeNYC Collection.

Plays can be sorted by genre, in this handy keyword list.

All in all, a remarkable offering and a great price.

Several things to love about this.

First of all, the playwrights will receive a percentage of all sales, much like other publishing houses might offer. Instead of this being simply a nice way to promote their works, they're being treated like the professionals that they are.

Second of all, it protects the playwrights digitally. These works are digitally locked and formatted, so illegal copying will be difficult at the very least.

Third, there are many plays here that cannot be found elsewhere. (My plays The Great Escape and The Most Wonderful Love, for example, were both critical successes and audience favorites, but have never been elsewhere. I'm excited that they'll soon be available in this way.)

Finally, it's a wonderful new model/smart hybrid. It's curated to be a more user friendly-experience than a database, it's digital, it offers royalties, it highlights exciting but perhaps relatively unknown works, and it moves the capture and celebration of the Off-Off scene into (yes) the 21st Century. I'm extremely proud to be a part of it, and I hope you'll use it, discuss it, and support it.