The more things change, the more they stay the same: Young playwright, you are not the first to have trouble getting produced

Others have discussed some of Albee's comment's about playwrighting recently.

But this, from today's NYT, stood out to me with concern to all the discussion we've been having lately about getting new work up.

It talks about Albee's first big creative breakthrough. Apparently not even Inge and Copland could convince producers to sink money into a show penned by a guy who was, at the time, a no-name.

A freakin' GERMAN premiere.

For Mr. Albee, that was his first play, “The Zoo Story,” which he completed in just three weeks in 1958. Still, not even William Inge and Aaron Copland were able to help him get it produced in the United States. It wasn’t until after the play’s German premiere, when a critic from The New York Times happened to comment that it was a shame a young American playwright couldn’t get attention back at home, that it made it to Off Broadway.