The Elements of Playwriting

The Elements of Playwriting
Author: Louis E. Catron
Publisher: Waveland Press
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2017-12-06
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1478636882

Louis Catron imbued experienced and fledgling playwrights with inspiration, guidance, and a passport to maximizing their writing skills as well as their overall ability to transform written words into a stage production. He understood that being a playwright is more than putting pen to paper. It involves expressing a personal point of view, bringing a vision to life, developing dimensional characters, structuring a play’s action, and finding producers, directors, and actors to bring the work to life. In the second edition Norman Bert infuses the enduring merits of Catron’s original work with examples, technological developments, and trends geared to today’s readers. Bert’s play references are familiar to contemporary students, including examples from plays written since 2000. He includes useful information on web-based research and the electronic submission process. A new chapter focuses on the playwright’s responsibility to lay the groundwork for production elements like casting, design, theatre architecture as it impacts audience–performer relationships, staging modes, and the uses and expectations of stage directions. Also new to this edition are reading resources for delving deeper into topics discussed.

Playwriting For Dummies

Playwriting For Dummies
Author: Angelo Parra
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2011-08-02
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1118017226

The easy way to craft, polish, and get your play on stage Getting a play written and produced is a daunting process. From crystallizing story ideas, formatting the script, understanding the roles of the director stagecraft people, to marketing and financing your project, and incorporating professional insights on writing, there are plenty of ins and outs that every aspiring playwright needs to know. But where can you turn for guidance? Playwriting For Dummies helps any writer at any stage of the process hone their craft and create the most dramatic and effective pieces. Guides you through every process of playwriting?from soliloquies, church skits, and one act plays to big Broadway musicals Advice on moving your script to the public stage Guidance on navigating loopholes If you're an aspiring playwright looking to begin the process, or have already penned a masterpiece and need trusted advice to bring it into the spotlight, Playwriting For Dummies has you covered.

The Elements of Playwriting

The Elements of Playwriting
Author: Louis E. Catron
Publisher:
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2002
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN:

This book tells how to write stageworthy plays, develop your theatre sense, create theatrical characters, shape plot and dialogue, and find the resources to get your play produced.

Playwriting with Purpose

Playwriting with Purpose
Author: Jacqueline Goldfinger
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 118
Release: 2021-08-16
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1000425061

Playwriting with Purpose: A Guide and Workbook for New Playwrights provides a holistic approach to playwriting from an award-winning playwright and instructor. This book incorporates craft lessons by contemporary playwrights and provides concrete guidance for new and emerging playwrights. The author takes readers through the entire creative process, from creating characters and writing dialogue and silent moments to analyzing elements of well-made plays and creating an atmospheric environment. Each chapter is followed by writing prompts and pro tips that address unique facets of the conversation about the art and craft of playwriting. The book also includes information on the business of playwriting and a recommended reading list of published classic and contemporary plays, providing all the tools to successfully transform an idea into a script, and a script into a performance. Playwriting with Purpose gives writers and students of playwriting hands-on lessons, artistic concepts, and business savvy to succeed in today’s theater industry.

The Architecture of Story

The Architecture of Story
Author: Will Dunne
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2016-04-08
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 022618191X

This new book from the author of The Dramatic Writer's Companion approaches some of the same issues as its predecessor but from a slightly different angle. It offers playwrights, screenwriters, and other dramatic writers in-depth analysis of the dramatic architecture of three award-winning contemporary American plays: Doubt: A Parable by John Patrick Shanley, Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks, and The Clean House by Sarah Ruhl. Each relatively brief chapter is devoted to a specific story element--from "Characters" and "Main Event" to "Emotional Environment" and "Back Story"--with subsections that break down this element in each of the plays. Readers can choose to read across the chapters to follow the analysis of each play, but the structure gives primary emphasis to the story elements, comparing and contrasting how different writers have successfully handled them. Each chapter ends with a set of questions to help readers analyze and develop that element in their own work.

The Director's Vision

The Director's Vision
Author: Louis E. Catron
Publisher: Waveland Press
Total Pages: 367
Release: 2015-05-04
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1478629509

The pursuit of excellence in theatre is well served by the latest edition of this eminently readable text by two directors with wide-ranging experience. In an engaging, conversational manner, the authors deftly combine a focus on artistic vision with a practical, organized methodology that allows beginning and established directors to bring a creative script interpretation to life for an audience.

Writing Your First Play

Writing Your First Play
Author: Roger Hall
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 176
Release: 2012-08-06
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 113608214X

Writing Your First Play provides the beginning playwright with the tools and motivation to tell a story through dramatic form. Based in a series of exercises which gradually grow more complex, the books helps the reader to understand the basic elements of drama, conflict, and action. The exercises help the reader to become increasingly sophisticated in the use of dramatic formats, turning simple ideas into a viable play. Topics include: the role of action in drama; developing action and conflict to reveal character; writing powerful and persuasive dialog; writing from personal experience:pros and cons; how to begin the story and develop the storyline. This new edition is thoroughly updated and contains new examples based on contemporary plays. The author has added additional writing exercises and a new student-written one act play. It also contains a new chapter on how to sell your play once it is written. With examples based on student work, this text both inspires and educates the student and fledgling playwright, providing solid tools and techniques for the craft of writing a drama. Roger A. Hall, a professor of theatre at James Madison University, had taught playwriting for nearly 20 years. Many of his students have gone on to write for theatre, television, and the screen. He has written numerous plays and articles and has acted and directed extensively in the theatre.

Playwriting

Playwriting
Author: Effiong Johnson
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2011-02-16
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1453584919

Summary The Nigerian theatre milieu is trapped in a cobweb of strangulating strings. Little wonder, therefore, that its growth has been impaired over the years. The numerous multi-tribal thrusts in Nigeria disallow the full growth and development of theatre forms and trends. The university and other degree-awarding institutions engaged in theatre studies, have not carved out uniquely distinguishing styles that can be said to be theirs. The Nigerian theatre makers themselves are not style-driven and technique-creating. An ideal repertory of form can hardly be identified with them in a sustainable manner. The National Theatre set up as a symbol of the nation's cultural pride, now stands as a totem for the nation's creative shame; The state-owned Cultural Centre Boards are devoid of objectives in focused cultural promotions. Many graduates of the arts-prefer other creative businesses. A few die-hards are bedeviled by frustrating dilemmas as businessmen refuse to patronise theatre because they consider it a wasteful venture, while international agencies shun it because of its profit-making outlook.