WHEN WRITERS NEED HELP WITH A PLAY, THE SCRIPTEASERS ARE THERE

The first time Janet S. Tiger offered a play for a public reading, it was almost the last time she offered a play for a public reading.

The work was called “Little Horrors,” and “it was a big horror,” says Tiger. She laughs about it now because that was more than three decades ago, and because she can.

The problem maybe wasn’t the play itself so much as the fact it took four hours to read, at that 1980 gathering of the San Diego dramatist-development group known by the playful name Scripteasers.

“At intermission, I was so embarrassed I wished I could crawl under a rock,” recalls Tiger, who notes that, shortly afterward, Scripteasers passed a rule that every reading had to be over by 10:30 p.m. “or it’s over.”

Yet what Tiger most recalls about the experience is how Jonathan Dunn-Rankin — the San Diego actor, former TV newsman and longtime Scripteasers leader — asked attendees not to harp on the play’s length during the regular post-reading discussion period. Instead, they offered candid but respectful criticism and guidance.

“I never touched that play again,” says Tiger. “But the next play I brought them was ‘The Waiting Room,’ which was about 45 minutes long. It worked really well, and it’s been produced all over the world.

“I like to say that Scripteasers is the reason I am a writer. If they had been mean to me, I probably would’ve just gone away.”

Dunn-Rankin is still a principal of Scripteasers, which has been meeting regularly for an astonishing 65 years. And Tiger is still testing out her plays there.

Dramatic traditions

On a recent Friday evening in February — 33 years to the day after the “Little Horrors” incident, in fact — Tiger was back at the group’s regular gathering of about 30 people, witnessing volunteer actors read a new play of hers called “I Was a Teenage Grandpa” at Dunn-Rankin’s home.

This is the way it’s been done at Scripteasers for decades: Playwrights submit their work in advance for consideration, and if a play is selected for reading, it gets into the hands of an ever-shifting lineup of actors at the group’s get-togethers.

After the reading, the play is opened up for discussion, with a moderator guiding the conversation to such topics as character development, use of language and the work’s potential marketability.

“A lot of these people have amazing backgrounds and information,” says director, actor and sketch comic Mitch Feingold, a former Scripteasers vice president who has been participating for about 10 years. “(I) may or may not agree with things (they say), but I enjoy the discussions a lot. It’s been an education — a good one.”