Download or read book Focus on Playwrights written by Susan Johann and published by Univ of South Carolina Press. This book was released on 2016-04-05 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A photographer's intimate view of writers' personal and creative journeys In 1989 Susan Johann was hired to photograph Christopher Durang for a magazine article about his play Naomi in Her Living Room. The playwright was known for his outrageous comedy, so Johann anticipated a session with a rather wild, young eccentric. To her surprise, the man who came to her studio was mild mannered and buttoned down. Johann found this twist captivating, and it was then that this project was born. Over the ensuing twenty-year period, she photographed more than ninety playwrights, including many winners of the Pulitzer Prize and other prestigious awards. Johann photographed Wendy Wasserstein, Anna Deavere Smith, August Wilson, and Nilo Cruz in the weeks after they won the Pulitzer. Tony Kushner sat for his portrait between the productions of part 1 and part 2 of Angels in America. Eve Ensler came to Johann's studio during the week she was previewing her famous one-woman show, The Vagina Monologues, and George C. Wolfe sat for her the morning after his play Spunk opened at the Public Theater. Each playwright was photographed in Johann's studio using the same film, a single light, and a plain backdrop, creating a portrait that captures and distills something essential—an intimate view. Her interviews explore the writers' personal and creative journeys including their inspirations, roadblocks, and obsessions, which influenced their work on paper and on the stage. Even those who know Edward Albee's plays intimately, for example, may be surprised by his incisive wit and inimitable voice as revealed in his interview with Johann. Beyond the book, Focus on Playwrights is also a live, multimedia presentation in which Johann narrates an inside look at creativity—the theater and photography. It has been given at such venues as the New Dramatists in New York, the Eugene O'Neill Theater, the Tryon Fine Arts Center and at the Photo Expo in New York.
Download or read book Building Your Play written by David Rush and published by SIU Press. This book was released on 2010-06-30 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book To Be A Playwright written by Janet Neipris and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-04-23 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 2005, To Be A Playwright is an insightful and detailed guide to the craft of playwriting. Part memoir and part how-to guide, this useful book outlines the tools and techniques necessary to the aspiring playwright. Comprised of a collection of memoirs and lectures which blend seamlessly to deliver a practical hands-on guide to playwriting, this book illuminates the elusive challenges confronting creators of dynamic expression and offers a roadmap to craft of playwrighting.
Download or read book New Dramaturgies written by Mark Bly and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-08-08 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In New Dramaturgies: Strategies and Exercises for 21st Century Playwriting, Mark Bly offers a new playwriting book with nine unique play-generating exercises. These exercises offer dramaturgical strategies and tools for confronting and overcoming obstacles that all playwrights face. Each of the chapters features lively commentary and participation from Bly’s former students. They are now acclaimed writers and producers for media such as House of Cards, Weeds, Friday Night Lights, Warrior, and The Affair, and their plays appear onstage in major venues such as the Roundabout Theatre, Yale Rep, and the Royal National Theatre. They share thoughts about their original response to an exercise and why it continues to have a major impact on their writing and mentoring today. Each chapter concludes with their original, inventive, and provocative scene generated in response to Bly’s exercise, providing a vivid real-life example of what the exercises can create. Suitable for both students of playwriting and screenwriting, as well as professionals in the field, New Dramaturgies gives readers a rare combination of practical provocation and creative discussion.
Download or read book Playwriting with Purpose written by Jacqueline Goldfinger and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-08-16 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Book of the Play written by Marta Straznicky and published by Massachusetts Studies in Early. This book was released on 2006 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection of essays examines early modern drama in the context of book history, and focuses on the readership of plays that opens different perspectives on the relationship between the cultures of print and performance.
Download or read book Twenty First Century American Playwrights written by Christopher Bigsby and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduces nine exciting and talented playwrights who have emerged in twenty-first century America, exploring issues of race, gender and society.
Download or read book Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Plays by Women written by Penny Farfan and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2021-07-22 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores how women playwrights illuminate the contemporary world and contribute to its reshaping
Download or read book The Playwright s Survival Guide written by Gary Garrison and published by Heinemann Drama. This book was released on 1999 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Playwright's Survival Guide is written for both aspiring and established writers looking for an emotional, spiritual, or just plain practical connection back to what's important - the writing. It's a "how-to-be" book - with thoughts, stories of inspiration, a few tricks of the trade, a few outlets for venting frustrations, and a reassuring voice that speaks to all the doubts with an "I know. I've been there. This is what you do . . ." Gary Garrison demystifies the playwriting process, speaking honestly, poignantly, and with humor about the lessons he's learned along the way. He explores the issues playwrights face every day, including: inspiration criticism self-doubt relationships with teachers and mentors the art of self-promotion writer's block staying healthy in the art after your fingers are off the keyboard.
Download or read book Contemporary Women Playwrights written by Penny Farfan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-01-23 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Breaking new ground in this century, this wide-ranging collection of essays is the first of its kind to address the work of contemporary international women playwrights. The book considers the work of established playwrights such as Caryl Churchill, Marie Clements, Lara Foot-Newton, Maria Irene Fornes, Sarah Kane, Lisa Kron, Young Jean Lee, Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, Djanet Sears, Caridad Svich, and Judith Thompson, but it also foregrounds important plays by many emerging writers. Divided into three sections-Histories, Conflicts, and Genres-the book explores such topics as the feminist history play, solo performance, transcultural dramaturgies, the identity play, the gendered terrain of war, and eco-drama, and encompasses work from the United States, Canada, Latin America, Oceania, South Africa, Egypt, and the United Kingdom. With contributions from leading international scholars and an introductory overview of the concerns and challenges facing women playwrights in this new century, Contemporary Women Playwrights explores the diversity and power of women's playwriting since 1990, highlighting key voices and examining crucial critical and theoretical developments within the field.
Download or read book The weak Subject written by Serena Anderlini-D'Onofrio and published by Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on the work of twentieth-century women playwrights, this book recuperates for feminism the notions of realism and mimesis, and proposes new readings of modern women's plays. It claims that modern women playwrights establish a new form of mimesis. Drawing on theories of French feminist Luce Irigaray, the author calls this dramatic structure "labial mimesis," marks its difference from the traditional structure based on a male hero, and emphasizes its hospitality to the representation of trust, love, friendship, and erotic intimacy among women. She offers a fresh perspective in the lively debate about the viability of realism for feminist writing.
Download or read book Tony Kushner written by James Fisher and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2006-04-21 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Playwright Tony Kushner is a voice of intellectualism, neo-socialism, gay activism and political outrage in an era when the political pendulum has swayed to the right. Through scalding humor, thought, and compassion, he explores political dynamics and the human condition in the modern era, shedding light on and giving hope for the direst of circumstances. His best known work, Angels in America, delves beneath the anti-gay rhetoric and political superficiality of the AIDS pandemic to true suffering and transformation. His political epic Homebody/Kabul engages the issue of terrorism and conflicting fundamental beliefs. In this book 11 scholars explore the works of Tony Kushner across his career. Several address Angels: one explores the presentation of homosexuality by Kushner compared to that of Tennessee Williams, who wrote in a less tolerant era; another places Angels in the contexts of Hegel's concept of freedom and the gay revolution; a third discusses the play in terms of queer theory and politics. Homebody/Kabul is examined in two essays, one analyzing media reaction, the other exploring cultural and economic differences, religious fundamentalism and the "West's luxurious predominance in the world." Other studies address relationships in Kushner's works to William Inge's 1950 play Come Back, Little Sheba; the plays of experimentalist Adrienne Kennedy; and fascist creep in the era of playwrights W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood, among other topics.
Download or read book Principles of Dramaturgy written by Robert Scanlan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-07-09 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Principles of Dramaturgy, Robert Scanlan explains the invariant principles behind the construction of stage and performance events of any style or modality. This book contains all that is essential for training a professional stage director and/or dramaturg, including the "plot-bead" technique for analyzing play scripts developed by Scanlan. It details all the steps for the full implementation of "Production Dramaturgy" as it is practiced in professional theatres, and treats form and action as foundational cornerstones of all performance, rather than "story" elements – a frequent and debilitating misprision in theatre practice. Scanlan’s unique approach offers practical training that is supported by detailed diagrams and contextualized instructions, making this the missing text for classes in dramaturgy. Serving stage directors, dramaturgs, actors, designers, and playwrights, Principles of Dramaturgy is a comprehensive guide that puts the training of capable practitioners above all else.
Download or read book Twenty First Century American Playwrights written by Christopher Bigsby and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-12-07 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The early years of the twenty-first century saw several losses for the American theatre but also marked the emergence of a new generation of exciting playwrights. In this book, Christopher Bigsby explores the work of nine of these developing talents, and the importance of issues including race, gender and politics for their writing. Increasingly, these new figures are gaining their reputations not on Broadway but in small theatres and small towns or even abroad, bringing fresh and diverse perspectives to contemporary American drama. With a focus on female writers and on issues of personal and public identity in contemporary society, this volume investigates the styles and techniques these playwrights favour, the themes they raise, and their role in a changing America and a changing world.
Download or read book The Development of Shakespeare as a Playwright written by Melissa Grönebaum and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2014-02-04 with total page 9 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essay from the year 2013 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 2,0, National University of Ireland, Galway, language: English, abstract: Shakespeare (1564-1616) was a formative figure of Elizabethan theater and one of the most popular playwrights ever. In his works he processed several basic themes and combined standard-language with slang, using about 17.750 different, partly newly created words; other than most Elizabethan playwrights he always was “with his eye on the public” (Baker 2). In this way, Shakespeare was able to reach all kind of audience, the simple as well as the aristocratic. After his, due to a lack of information, ‘lost 8 years’, he officially started a career as actor in 1992, at which time he must have already been started being a dramatist, too. According to Baker, Shakespeare’s first production could be traced back to 1592 and Shakespeare’s first release was not before 1597. Later, Shakespeare owned the main part of the globe theatre, developed his own style of playwright and gained in experience, influence and money. When Shakespeare wrote both the plays Henry V. (1599) and The Merchant of Venice (1596), he had already gone through a lot of writing experience. The aim of this essay is, to discuss Shakespeare’s development as a playwright. To do so, “we must fix our gaze upon separate courses of development (...) Thus, for example, (...) we must investigate how Shakespeare manages his plot, (and) how he characterizes his men and women (...).” (Clemen 1) Nevertheless, there are thirty-seven plays of Shakespeare with multiple acts and several scenes each. Obviously, it is not possible to display Shakespeare’s whole development in this small essay; therefore I will focus on those plays mentioned above.
Download or read book New Playwriting Strategies written by Paul C. Castagno and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-01-30 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New Playwriting Strategies has become a canonical text in the study and teaching of playwriting, offering a fresh and dynamic insight into the subject. This thoroughly revised and expanded second edition explores and highlights the wide spread of new techniques that form contemporary theatre writing, as well as their influence on other dramatic forms. Paul Castagno builds on the innovative plays of Len Jenkin, Mac Wellman, and the theories of Mikhail Bakhtin to investigate groundbreaking new techniques from a broad range of contemporary dramatists, including Sarah Ruhl, Suzan Lori-Parks and Young Jean Lee. New features in this edition include an in-depth study of the adaptation of classical texts in contemporary playwright and the utilizing new technologies, such as YouTube, Wikipedia and blogs to create alternative dramatic forms. The author’s step-by-step approach offers the reader new models for: narrative dialogue character monologue hybrid plays This is a working text for playwrights, presenting a range of illuminating new exercises suitable for everyone from the workshop student to the established writer. New Playwriting Strategies is an essential resource for anyone studying and writing drama today.
Download or read book By Southern Playwrights written by Michael Bigelow Dixon and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 1996-02-01 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By Southern Playwrights is a rare assemblage of works from the 1980s and 1990s by writers continuing the tradition of Tennessee Williams, Lillian Hellman, and Beth Henley, among others. This book makes available for the first time in print Marsha Norman's romantic comedy Loving Daniel Boone, novelist Harry Crews's only play, Blood Issue, and humorist Ray Blount Jr.'s ventures into one-act comedy, Five Ives Gets Named and That Dog Isn't Fifteen. Also included are novelist Elizabeth Dewberry's first play, Head On, Kentucky novelist and essayist Wendell Berry's The Cool of the Day, and Digging In, a remarkable array of Kentucky farm voices adapted for the stage by Julie Crutcher and Vaughn McBride. Southern playwriting is a distinctive voice in the American theater, a point eloquently made in the foreword by Jon Jory. The literary works of the South, he writes, are dominated by "great language, family, strong women, religion, the land, and the past," all of which makes them wonderful for acting -- and for reading. This entertaining book honors southern playwrights in a collection of works that have premiered at Actors Theatre of Louisville.
