Playwright David Mamet Will Not Allow Post-Show Talks About His Work

The Guardian reports that playwright David Mamet has placed a ban on any post-show panels about his work, something that has become commonplace in theatres and cinemas. The license to stage one of Mamet's plays, most famously including House of Games and Glengarry Glen Ross, now includes a clause preventing any official debates within two hours of a performance. Every post-show talk that violates this clause results in a loss of licence and a fine of $25,000.

Sir Ronald Harwood, the Oscar-winning writer of plays such as The Dresser, voiced his opinions on this by saying, "Oh dear, oh dear. I don't know why he's done that. What's his reason? I like after-the-show discussions. I've taken them and I've talked to people who have questions. I think they're perfectly all right. I'd like to charge $25,000, but I'm not going to."

Mamet's agents in the UK and US declined comment. Peter Hagan, president of the Dramatists Play Service in New York, which publishes and licenses plays, said: "The restriction applies to all of Mamet's plays which we license. We were instructed to do this. It's fairly recent. We were told this at the end of March."

Read the full article here.

Mamet has won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) and Speed-the-Plow (1988). As a screenwriter, he has received Oscar nominations for The Verdict (1982) and Wag the Dog (1997). Mamet's books include: The Old Religion (1997), a novel about the lynching of Leo Frank; Five Cities of Refuge: Weekly Reflections on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy(2004), a Torah commentary with Rabbi Lawrence Kushner; The Wicked Son (2006), a study of Jewish self-hatred and antisemitism; Bambi vs. Godzilla, a commentary on the movie business; The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture (2011), a commentary on cultural and political issues; and Three War Stories (2013), a trio of novellas about the physical and psychological effects of war.