I'm keeping this off the other thread since it's a more general question, and that thread's getting pretty long.
I read a post about comedies in contests at another website, and you posted there that fewer than 1/3 of this year's Nicholl entries were comedies. You also seemed to imply that within that 1/3, a much smaller percentage were straight comedies (as opposed to comedy-drama, rom-com, etc.). To a writer of straight comedies, like me, my odds for the Nicholl seem pretty good just in terms of numbers. But-
Conventional wisdom has it that comedies don't do well in competitions. I even read an intereview with a former AFF final-round judge in which he said that in the first couple years of that competition, comedies definitely got the short end of the stick. He recalls a meeting among judges to select a winner from the finalist scripts, and that no one could agree on a winner...until they introduced a new criteria, of how "meaningful" the script was. And at that moment, the comedy finalist went right to the bottom of the pile. It's ironic; among writers, consensus is that comedy is very hard yet among Academy members and contest judges it seems to be consensus that comedy's nothing special.
Looking at past results, comedies have not fared well with either the Nicholl or the Academy. So my questions to you are:
1. Are the small numbers of straight comedy winners due to a small number of straight comedy entries, or some other reason?
2. Why doesn't the Nicholl have separate categories? I've read many interviews with contest judges who speak to the difficulty in comparing Action to Drama, Drama to Comedy, etc.
3. Does a straight, commercial comedy have a snowball's chance in the Nicholl? I know 4 have won in the past, but that's only 4 out of a total 73!
Thanks in advance for any response.
Edited to make corrections - the AFF judge cited was a man, and the criterion cited was "meaningful", not "affecting".
I read a post about comedies in contests at another website, and you posted there that fewer than 1/3 of this year's Nicholl entries were comedies. You also seemed to imply that within that 1/3, a much smaller percentage were straight comedies (as opposed to comedy-drama, rom-com, etc.). To a writer of straight comedies, like me, my odds for the Nicholl seem pretty good just in terms of numbers. But-
Conventional wisdom has it that comedies don't do well in competitions. I even read an intereview with a former AFF final-round judge in which he said that in the first couple years of that competition, comedies definitely got the short end of the stick. He recalls a meeting among judges to select a winner from the finalist scripts, and that no one could agree on a winner...until they introduced a new criteria, of how "meaningful" the script was. And at that moment, the comedy finalist went right to the bottom of the pile. It's ironic; among writers, consensus is that comedy is very hard yet among Academy members and contest judges it seems to be consensus that comedy's nothing special.
Looking at past results, comedies have not fared well with either the Nicholl or the Academy. So my questions to you are:
1. Are the small numbers of straight comedy winners due to a small number of straight comedy entries, or some other reason?
2. Why doesn't the Nicholl have separate categories? I've read many interviews with contest judges who speak to the difficulty in comparing Action to Drama, Drama to Comedy, etc.
3. Does a straight, commercial comedy have a snowball's chance in the Nicholl? I know 4 have won in the past, but that's only 4 out of a total 73!
Thanks in advance for any response.
Edited to make corrections - the AFF judge cited was a man, and the criterion cited was "meaningful", not "affecting".
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