failsafe

@teethwax - that does sound like good news! i'm pretty sure they take 8 playwriting/8 television writing/8 screenwriting students per year. re: yale - i know 30-somethings got into yale under paula vogel's chairmanship, but after hearing your account i am curious whether jeanie o'hare is actually open to older writers--everything i've read about her suggests that she is very focused on commercial success, and branding younger writers as opposed to older ones would be considered by some as "hot". that said, maybe they just didn't like my play and i'm just whining. i do know that juilliard accepts writers in their 30s regularly (they also are the only program that reads blindly--or at least did the year i applied. do they still?), but that is more like a fancy emerging writer's group than a graduate program. @k-hotspur - thank you for your post! it is definitely a nice reminder how many successful writers both did not start until later and did not go through MFA programs (and according to my teacher who has her MFA from yale, the majority of those who go through these programs do not actually become writers). maria irene fornes also didn't start until her 30s, and i'm sure the list is long (in my early 20s, i got to meet the novelist russell banks who said "no one writes anything worth a damn until they're 30!"--to which i admit i was a bit like, "cool, see you in 10 years."). i think what i've been realizing is that i have had this kind of "MFA or bust" mentality, but that it might be the culmination of a very specific track into the theater world that i just have never been on. it was definitely a nice reminder that i could just e-mail a nyc theater and have them respond, "yes, send it to us!" i often think about an interview i once saw with bill murray, where he said that when he started out he wasn't all that great, he just kept going, and a lot of his actor peers who were better than him stopped doing it along the way and he just persevered and kept learning and getting better as he went. i've also heard it said that there is talent, perseverance, and luck, and all you need is two out of three to make it...that said, a little luck at some point would be nice!

Ha, I didn't get that yet, either. And didn't get Yale's until last Friday. I feel like they're all awkwardly avoiding me. *update, I just checked the website--no letter, even. they ARE all awkwardly avoiding me!

Yeah, I've been anticipating rejection across the board for a few weeks now and would really just like to get it over with...not at all sure I'll apply again next year. I hate to say it but I really do think these programs are ageist--I simply didn't have the luxury of majoring in dramatic writing as an undergrad or pursuing playwriting seriously until after 30. (I know that Columbia at least has accepted one 38 year old, and USC also has at least ONE person also 38--but ALL nine Yale finalists were early to mid 20s? Come on!) But on the bright side, I am very excited that from my very first inquiry, a fantastic NYC theater wants to read my play (yay!) so I have been spending the day doing a final polish before submitting it. =)

Still nothing from NYU for me...and I am stuck staring at a computer screen until 5 PM. This is torture!!!

that's awesome, longwalktonever! are you going to take it or go to USC? (btw i still have to read your play--i will get to it this weekend!) it sounded like they release all letters on the same day, sooo...i guess it's today. good luck, everyone!

thanks, reds. i actually just got my yale rejection via e-mail--didn't seem to be anything too special about it, although it did say they were impressed with my writing, which is nice. as for my project ideas, thankfully the first two are already written! glad i'm finally cooking with gas with the new one, though. i've been in a really fallow period since finishing my last play in december so it's a huge relief to have a lot of new ideas again. =)

well, it sounds from tjack's comment like brooklyn college notifications have gone out...so holding out a still small hope for tisch (i actually got offered a spot at tisch asia last year, even though i didn't apply, which was weird but nice i guess) congrats on everyone getting accepted this year! i think i might have one more application season in me...it definitely increases the difficulty level to only apply to three programs. in better news, i think i finally cracked my new play wide open (or at least open enough to find a way into it)...so it's looking like i'll soon have a family comedy set in the present, a naturalistic tragedy set in the past, and a dystopian drama set in the future...i'd like to think that writing something different each time makes me a look like a versatile writer to admissions committees but maybe it just makes me look schizophrenic! and just as a sidenote...i've still never gotten a rejection from yale! i was thinking i'd get a "special rejection" maybe like last year but now i am starting to think they just forgot...

teethwax (and everyone), i completely know how you feel. i would even go one more, i know people who have been through top programs who i feel like my writing is markedly better than! hang in there. i actually didn't even have the guts to submit my writing anywhere until i was nearly 31 (i was too busy dealing with other kinds of rejection) and now i worry that i'm too old, too white, too this, too that to get in anywhere (plus i am geographically bound to only NYC programs b/c my fiance has kids here) and aside from a very nice reading at a semi-prominent theatre company (via a personal contact, at that), i have achieved really nothing yet. my first play was just a semifinalist for the o'neill and my second play is by many accounts better--and i have zero doubt that it and i am as good or better and had an as good or better personal statement and as good or better recommendations than anyone else getting accepted into the top programs (except you know, people who know famous people). all of which led to me accidentally breaking down and sobbing in front of 10 near strangers in my writing class (even though 2/3 schools i applied to have still not made their decisions! i was feeling that defeatist). anyway, it opened up a very good discussion for the entire class, and everyone was incredibly supportive. EVERYONE goes through this. one story was was that david-lindsay abaire sent 30 letters to agents every six months for five years before finally getting an agent (an agent's assistant from the first year who had read his script by then had become an agent and took him on as one of his first clients). he also got commissioned to write "rabbit hole" by a theater that then REFUSED TO PRODUCE IT! and a woman in the class who went through tisch's MFA program pointed out something very, very important: once you get to a certain point in the admissions queue, EVERYONE is amazing and there just are not enough spots so it becomes totally arbitrary who they actually pick. one big way many people have told me (we'll see, anyway?) to move up the queue is to re-apply the next year. i know about 3/4 juilliard spots go to people who applied at least once before (several more than once). a guy i know who went there didn't even get an interview the first time he applied, and his play had already won the NYC fringe festival the previous year! so, it sounds to me from the responses you've gotten so far like you're an amazing writer who could get into one of the top programs (and not even unlikely for this year, still, it sounds like), and one with funding. even if you don't you have already done WAY better than most people ever do in the application process and it's just your first year applying. (and as it has been speculated, an mfa is not a cost-effective degree.) and as someone who has held down shitty jobs for 10 years, let me reassure you that you can do it for one more! =) (and all that angst in the meantime will help your next script be even better--alan ball wrote "american beauty" after he had left his playwriting career in NYC for a staff job on "grace under fire", which he talks about as the worst event of his life.) -- that said, the jury IS still strongly out for this year so chin up!

just an update on remains' nyu update--i had e-mailed the (extremely nice) director of grad admissions right before that and he just now got back to me with this: "We are close. I anticipate getting the decisions from the Department in the next day or so which means they will probably go out (in accordance with our queue system) by Tuesday or Wednesday next week.... but don't hold me to that! Our policy is as follows: Notifications of admission to the 3000 plus applicants to the 15 Tisch programs may go out ANY time between February 15 and April 15. We are still well within those parameters. each letter (accept, waitlist, denial is carefully customized). Hang in there."

tjack, that's awesome!! i imagine there is a fair chance of the first alternate being accepted off the waitlist...for instance, if one of the accepted students got into yale as well, or into a New York school and decides they would rather be in NYC than spend 3 years in the midwest... as for me, i am dying...i only applied to 3 schools and they happen to be one of the earliest notifiers (yale, which btw i still have not received a rejection from!) and the latest, nyu and brooklyn college. i have not heard ANYTHING in an entire month!!! hopefully this week, and hopefully some good news for a change... good luck to everyone still waiting and congrats on all the acceptances!

aww, teethwax! that totally sucks! i'm sorry. i just found out via buckminster that i am not a finalist for the o'neill, so there's that. (same play that was a semi-finalist for juilliard...does that mean there is something innately semi-finalisty about it?) buckminster--the juilliard interview (i had one two years ago) is a lot like it sounds like the columbia interview is, only much less awkward. tanya told me right off the bat that it was mostly informational, for the playwrights to find out more about the program and to ask questions. so i would recommend having some thoughtful questions prepared (and then perhaps act like you didn't have any prepared but you DO actually have several, come to think of it?) good luck!!

i concur, this forum is such a huge help managing insanity levels! and teethwax, i guess i forgot to add before i also really hope you get it!! it does sound like a great fit for you. eccentricdreamer--one more thing i just thought of re: juilliard is that tanya barfield has her new play opening at playwrights horizons like, right now, so i could definitely understand if that stalled things a little bit this year as it's only her and one other person reading all the plays at this stage. (i think that the one other person is perhaps a few other people splitting the plays but she reads them ALL.)

i got called on march 17--i only remember the specific date because it happened on the same day as my first date with my fiance. (it was a pretty good day!) but they do it on a rolling basis, and i believe over the phone for out-of-city semifinalists. i think i was in the third or fourth "batch" of interviews (based on where your play is in their reading queue) and there was going to be one more batch after me. (with I think 3-4 plays chosen from each batch of 50 or something like that). four friends of mine applied this year and i don't think any of them have heard anything yet, either.

wow, that sounds amazing! thanks for all the detail. i can at least feel slightly better (is that really the right word?) that i wouldn't have gotten the fairyland-sounding campus experience anyway, even if i'd been a finalist... for those of you who like me are waiting on brooklyn college, i e-mailed the program administrator who responded, "Our admissions process is currently ongoing. Some but not all of our admitted/waitlisted students have been notified." ... (i feel like this means they do not interview)

yeah, NYU's deadline was so early I didn't have the "final" draft ready yet but I still felt it was pretty strong...(PS what is with a super-early deadline and then super-late notification?) you just had your yale interview, right, teethwax? how was that?

I haven't, Lucy. Or from Brooklyn College...seriously has anyone else heard from either place? I can at least share that my friend who got her MFA at Tisch told me that they often accept without interviewing.

congrats on the interview, Troy! i guess the rest of us NYU hopefuls will just have to wait and see... @k-hotspur--I thought Neva was pretty dreadful. They were smart to pack the house with insider comps on reviewer weekend, as there were a lot of "this is what actors do, amiright?" "jokes" that got warmer-than-deserved responses from the young theater crowd going to a free show. A weird directorial choice to have the play in near-total-dark the whole time made it even more agitating. (Only one portable spotlight, set on the fake stage, illuminated anything at all and sometimes they even turned that off and just practiced coughing like they had tuberculosis in the dark for a while.) There was a pretty spectacular monologue at the end, not in the writing of it so much as the acting.

Hooray!!! I have a friend who's there right now...he is great and he loves it!

@longwalktonever - now that i think of it, i got my yale rejection later last year, too. it was a fancy one saying "yay, you're great! we just won't accept you!" with a handwritten note attached...perhaps we are both in that queue this year. ;-)

anybody else not get a yale rejection?

thanks for calling at least, longwalktonever! i imagine that timeline includes all rejections being sent out, too...even if they notified finalists (or do they, even? do they just accept? i think they might be wishy washy about interviewing vs. not year to year) TODAY, i feel like that e-mail from 2 weeks ago was totally premature! ("the departments are in the process of finalizing their decisions"?) also congrats to everyone getting accepted and good luck to everyone with interviews!

i *might* be able to see isaac's eye closing night. i also have tickets to see NEVA at the public on friday, but have heard nothing about it yet. this morning i saw something from NYU in my inbox and got all sick and panicky and excited just in time to realize it was some alumni newsletter...how many more days of torment must we endure??

Thanks for stepping forward, remains. I do feel a little exposed at times when I post something and then I see all these lurkers reading and no one responds! (I'm stuck at a 9-5 job all week though with hours and hours in front of a computer with absolutely nothing to do except troll the internet...=torture) I feel really solid about my application this year, too, but only applied to yale, nyu and brooklyn college so a nix from yale followed by a week of silence is just brutal! my "shut out" application last year (0/4 interviews) was a play that is currently a semifinalist for the O'Neill (in its identical form!), and I just really doubled down in every possible way this year. But to update the old phrase, that and a MetroCard will get me on the subway...and it really doesn't help that i've had a virus for two weeks that actually does physically make me feel like I'm going to vomit!

I got to see "Talley's Folly" at Roundabout over the weekend. While there were many things to love about it, I especially enjoyed watching Danny Burstein's physicality. There's at least one upside to the quietness of the forum--it's nice to know in the meantime that nobody's gotten called for interviews yet while I haven't! =)

That's awesome, @janesays! Congratulations! Re: funding, I think it has to be an individual call. I couldn't even think of applying to MFA programs in my 20s because I was totally broke and amassed a huge amount of debt (unemployed for two years, blech). Now I am out of debt and willing to accrue a little again to get an MFA (of course, hoping for the best)...but I have a financial safety net now and if I didn't, things might be different. I want to be able to write while teaching writing, a scenario that promises to pay a lot less than I currently make...but after working crap office jobs and substitute teaching in inner city schools for the last ten years, I put a huge price on quality of life. @longwalktonever--I had to cheat and googled it so I can't answer!