The Dramatists Guild of America is a professional organization for playwrights, composers, and lyricists working in the U.S. theatre market.
1915 – First attempt by a sub-committee of the Authors League at creating a Dramatic Contract to stake out the ill-defined rights of dramatists.
1917 – A committee headed by Cosmo Hamilton, in which Edward Childs Carpenter and Channing Pollock began their yeoman service to dramatists, drew up a new Standard Dramatic Form Contract.
While some producers were cooperative, those who dominated the then powerful, tightly controlled Manager’s Protective Association resented its “gall.” The Shuberts sent a message via Augustus Thomas, that they would “close their theatres sooner than sign the proposed contract…managers would treat authors individually and in no other way, and that the part of good business was for a manager to get the best and most he could.” 1919 – The Authors’ League granted Channing Pollock’s suggestion that the playwrights form an autonomous committee of 32 “working dramatists,” to unite into a “Dramatic Committee” which by then had in all 112 adherents.
1920 – A Standard Form Minimum Dramatic Contract was negotiated between the Managers Protective Association and The Authors’ League (not the still amorphous Dramatists Guild).