I began Lane’s List in 2006 as an informal ad-hoc thing, to help keep the writers I’d met via universities and workshops abreast of the industry information that might otherwise not be visible to them.
As a writer who had benefited from getting my hands on information in the past, via subscriptions to organisations like the now-defunct Writernet, I wanted to pass on the same assistance to others when I could.
Seven years later, more and more information was starting to come through my inbox. So at the end of last year I poshed Lane’s List up a bit, built a website – well, technically my wife built a website with one hand, whilst feeding our baby with the other, because I was too busy writing and dramaturging and all that and also bottles were total anathema to the wee one – and since then word has spread.
Over the last ten months the membership has almost quadrupled in size and along with it, the traffic to and demand from the List has risen, which is exciting and time-consuming in equal measure.
I’ve tried to respond to some of your excellent requests in the recent survey to make the List more user-friendly and, overall, have found it takes about half a day per week to compile – or a whole working month across a calendar year.
I’m going to try and stop writing ‘List’ now because the ‘List’ isn’t actually an organisation of any kind but just me, working in-between fourteen other projects of varying size that are focused on making theatre, rather than distributing information about it.
So, hello. Me here.
Lane’s List: the magic happens
In recent weeks I’ve consulted over thirty writers about my decision to make my emails a paid-for service – from established professionals to complete beginners – and along with their helpful advice, I discovered that the fact that this information didn’t come from a committee or organisation but from a working playwright made a big difference: it was characterised as candid, intimate, realistic, and had honesty and integrity in its perspective on the theatre landscape. And the honest perspective right now is that it’s difficult for me to maintain this for free, and part of me keeping that integrity intact is being upfront about what I’m doing.
I believe in the power of information for playwrights in this industry, particularly as we increasingly require a sense of connectivity now that direct routes into theatres are more rare.
I also believe that making visible to writers the opportunities where they can diversify and keep aware of the industry’s shape and politics – and maybe even change them – are an important part of them maintaining their relationship to the sector.
Finally I want to continue promoting, maintaining and – when I can – developing both of these things, by listening to what’s out there and to you too: but to do so I need to start levying a small subscription fee to cover that month’s work per year.
Otherwise the List will fold or I’ll have to outsource the editing and sifting process to a third party internship, which may end up looking something like this:
Lane’s List will become a paid-for subscription service with effect from the 3rd November 2014. The cost will be set at £30 a year (best value option), or £3 a month.