THEA 006: Playwriting (SC)

2016, by Kim Wiltshire. "Writing for theatre is a unique art form, different even from other kinds of scriptwriting. Making theatre is a truly collaborative process which can be a tricky aspect to grasp when starting out. This book will take you on a journey from the origins of theatre to what it means to write for the stage today. It includes a series of interviews with writers, directors and dramaturgs, all of whom are making theatre now, providing an unrivalled glimpse into the world of contemporary theatre making. Kim Wiltshire explores the foundations, traits and skills necessary for playwriting alongside the creative possibilities of writing theatre in the digital age. Each part of the book ends with a series of exercises which students of the craft can use to practise their art and stretch their creativity."

2016, by Fraser Grace. "Full of inspiration and practical advice, Playwriting: A Writers' & Artists' Companion is a comprehensive companion to writing for the stage. PART 1 includes reflections on the art and the craft of playwriting, guidance on writing for a full range of genres and spaces and a brief history of playwriting itself. PART 2 contains inspiring advice and reflections from leading playwrights:April De Angelis, Bryony Lavery, David Greig, Christina Reid, Dennis Kelly, Frank McGuinness, Lynn Nottage, Howard Brenton, Roy Williams, Tanika Gupta, Timberlake Wertenbaker, Polly Stenham, Tom Stoppard, Jack Thorne, Steve Waters, E.V. Crowe, David Henry Hwang, Lin Coghlan, Zinnie Harris and Anne Washburn. PART 3 offers practical exercises and advice on planning and conducting research, working out plots and characters, mastering authentic but accessible dialogue, navigating the industry and the rehearsal and production process."

2011, by Jim Linnell. "In this bold new way of looking at dramatic structure, Jim Linnell establishes the central role of emotional experience in the conception, execution, and reception of plays. Walking on Fire: The Shaping Force of Emotion in Writing Drama examines dramatic texts through the lens of human behavior to identify the joining of event and emotion in a narrative, defined by Linnell as emotional form.Effectively building on philosophy, psychology, and critical theory in ways useful to both scholars and practitioners, Linnell unfolds the concept of emotional form as the key to understanding the central shaping force of drama. He highlights the Dionysian force of human emotion in the writer as the genesis for creative work and articulates its power to determine narrative outcomes and audience reaction. Walking on Fire contains writing exercises to open up playwrights to the emotional realities and challenges of their work. Additionally, each chapter offers case studies of traditional and nonlinear plays in the known canon that allow readers to evaluate the construction of these works and the authors; practices and intentions through an examination of the emotional form embedded in the central characters; language, thoughts, and behaviors. Walking on Fire opens up new conversations about content and emotion for writers and offers exciting answers to the questions of why we make drama and why we connect to it. Linnell's user friendly theory and passionate approach create a framework for understanding the links between the writer's work in creating the text, the text itself, and the audience's engagement.

2010, by David Rush. "David Rush takes beginning playwrights through the first draft of a play and deep into the revision process. Drawing on examples from such classics as Othello and The Glass Menagerie, Rush provides detailed models for writers to evaluate their work for weaknesses and focus on the in-depth development of their plays. Rush encourages writers to make sure their plays are clear and focused. He shows how to keep plays dramatically compelling and offers ways to avoid common mistakes that make them dull, confusing, or ineffective. He then distills the essence of traditional revision into key questions and discusses frequently overlooked tools, terms, and strategies that go beyond established methods of evaluation."

2017, by Will Dunne. "Moss Hart once said that you never really learn how to write a play; you only learn how to write this play. Crafted with that adage in mind, The Dramatic Writer’s Companion is designed to help writers explore their own ideas in order to develop the script in front of them. No ordinary guide to plotting, this handbook starts with the principle that character is key. “The character is not something added to the scene or to the story,” writes author Will Dunne. “Rather, the character is the scene. The character is the story.” Having spent decades working with dramatists to refine and expand their existing plays and screenplays, Dunne effortlessly blends condensed dramatic theory with specific action steps—over sixty workshop-tested exercises that can be adapted to virtually any individual writing process and dramatic script. Dunne’s in-depth method is both instinctual and intellectual, allowing writers to discover new actions for their characters and new directions for their stories."

2008, by Machelene Wandor. "The Art of Writing Drama is an indispensable textbook for wherever writing for the stage is taught, but also serves as a foundational book for any student taking courses in performance media - radio, television and film. Coupling theory with practice, the book opens with a survey of the current methodologies of teaching playwriting and of textual analysis. The theories of Bakhtin, Foucault and Derrida are examined as are the agendas of play reviewers from the national press. In the second section of the book, a wealth of guidance with practical exercises on the skills of writing for the stage is provided. Throughout the text, Wandor draws on her extensive experience as both playwright and teacher of creative writing to provide a guide that is both a scholarly and an immensely practical guide to writing for the theatre."

2007, edited by Donia Mounsef and Josette Féral. "Throughout the twentieth century it has been argued that theatrical writing does not belong to literature nor should its critical tools proceed from literary studies. This stage-centric view has occluded textual analysis and undermined the autonomy of the theatrical text. Far from simply suggesting the reestablishing of this autonomy, the articles in this collection address the richly diverse body of work of contemporary writing for the stage as a creative, political, and sociocultural space and provide new critical tools that take into account the text in its linguistic, aesthetic, and cultural contexts."

2005, by Sam Smiley. "This practical guide provides the principles of dramatic writing. Playwrights and screenwriters will discover these essential principles and acquire the tools to put them to use. Sam Smiley incorporates extensive new material in Playwriting: The Structure of Action, a revised edition of the book that dramatists in theatre and film have relied on for more than twenty-five years. No writer, director, critic, or teacher concerned with dramatic writing should be without this intelligent and inspiring guide. Sam Smiley offers insights derived from a lifetime of writing, teaching, and consulting. While preserving the best of the earlier edition of the book, he offers new discussion on contemporary playwrights (Tony Kushner and Tom Stoppard), on copyright law, on new writing approaches, and on nontraditional dramatic forms. Reaching far beyond simplistic how-to instructions, the book focuses on identifying and explaining principles essential to creating dramas: plot, character, thought, diction, melody, and spectacle. Smiley explains these classic topics and provides the modern keys for realizing each element in effective dramatic scripts."

1997 by Jean-Claude van Italie. "A series of 13 written workshops covering: conflict and character: the dominant image: Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller * Overheard voices: Ibsen and Shakespeare * The solo performance piece: listening for stories * Terror and vulnerability: Ionesco * The point of absurdity: creating without possessing: Pinter and Beckett."

1994, by Louis Catron. "Looks at what being a playwright means, the essentials of a stageworthy play, turning ideas into plays, creating theatrical characters, shaping plot, action, and dialogue, and finding the resources for getting a play produced."

1966, edited by Toby Cole

Use Tripod Books and More to find relevant books, scores, recordings, dissertations, journals and other material owned by Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore Colleges. Click on the "request" button at the bottom of an item's record to have it delivered to your library.

This is a gigantic catalog of millions of materials owned by libraries all over the world describing books, essays, scores, videos, sound recordings, websites, and manuscript collections. If you find something in WorldCat not owned by the Tri-Colleges we can probably get it for you.

ProQuest Dissertations and Theses is a collection of scholarly research in the Humanities and Social Sciences that consists of 2.7 million searchable citations to dissertations and theses from around the world, and 1.2 million full-text dissertations that are available for download in PDF format. Coverage is from 1861 to the present day.