Unknown Playwright Harnesses Power of the Internet

American dramatist Walter Wykes has parlayed his Internet prowess into more than 30 productions of his previously unknown plays.

In 1999, shortly after graduating from the MFA Playwriting program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, his award-winning one-act play, "The Father Clock," was published in an anthology by traditional play service Dramatic Publishing.

“I thought I’d just sit back and wait for the productions to start rolling in,” he says. “But seven years later, I’m still waiting.”

Frustrated by the traditional system, Wykes decided to take his plays online. By posting the full text of his scripts on websites such as theatrehistory.com and 10-minute-plays.com, he has managed to generate several dozen productions of his absurdist dramas, many of them overseas in countries such as India, Israel, and Dubai.

“Now I can say I’m internationally produced,” Wykes says. “Those are markets that would have been closed to me fifteen years ago. But with the Internet, I’m able to connect with theatres in other countries and get my plays produced. It’s a pretty amazing tool.”

As a result of the interest generated in Wykes’ work online, a collection of his plays, entitled Three Plays of the Absurd, has just been published by Black Box Press.