Download or read book The Playwright at Work written by Rosemarie Tichler and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2012-06-30 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rosemarie Tichler and Barry Jay Kaplan take us behind the scenes in conversations with thirteen of today’s most distinguished playwrights, including Tony Kushner, John Guare, Wallace Shawn, Suzan-Lori Parks, David Henry Hwang, and Sarah Ruhl. To familiarize the reader with the world of each playwright, Tichler and Kaplan introduce us to the environments in which the work happens, conducting their interviews in the playwright’s home, a dark theater, or a coffee shop. Topics of conversation range from the playwrights’ earliest memories of the theater to finding their unique voices, and from their working relationships with directors, actors, and designers to their involvement in the purely commercial aspects of their profession. Taken together, these conversations constitute a collectively taught master class in the art and craft of writing for the stage.
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 Audience and the Playwright written by Mayo Simon and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2003 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Structured as an evening in the theatre, this book is analytical but straightforward, serious but entertaining. Mayo Simon presents a working playwright's view of what really happens between the stage and the audience, from the beginning of the play until the end." --BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book The Playwright s Workbook written by Jean-Claude van Italie and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2000-05-01 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: (Applause Books). 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; and much more.
Download or read book The Dramatist s Toolkit written by Jeffrey Sweet and published by Heinemann Educational Books. This book was released on 1993 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Dramatist's Toolkit , playwright and Backstage columnist Jeff Sweet offers an intensive and practical guide to being a working playwright.
Download or read book The Subversive Copy Editor written by Carol Fisher Saller and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-08-01 with total page 151 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Each year writers and editors submit over three thousand grammar and style questions to the Q&A page at The Chicago Manual of Style Online. Some are arcane, some simply hilarious—and one editor, Carol Fisher Saller, reads every single one of them. All too often she notes a classic author-editor standoff, wherein both parties refuse to compromise on the "rights" and "wrongs" of prose styling: "This author is giving me a fit." "I wish that I could just DEMAND the use of the serial comma at all times." "My author wants his preface to come at the end of the book. This just seems ridiculous to me. I mean, it’s not a post-face." In The Subversive Copy Editor, Saller casts aside this adversarial view and suggests new strategies for keeping the peace. Emphasizing habits of carefulness, transparency, and flexibility, she shows copy editors how to build an environment of trust and cooperation. One chapter takes on the difficult author; another speaks to writers themselves. Throughout, the focus is on serving the reader, even if it means breaking "rules" along the way. Saller’s own foibles and misadventures provide ample material: "I mess up all the time," she confesses. "It’s how I know things." Writers, Saller acknowledges, are only half the challenge, as copy editors can also make trouble for themselves. (Does any other book have an index entry that says "terrorists. See copy editors"?) The book includes helpful sections on e-mail etiquette, work-flow management, prioritizing, and organizing computer files. One chapter even addresses the special concerns of freelance editors. Saller’s emphasis on negotiation and flexibility will surprise many copy editors who have absorbed, along with the dos and don’ts of their stylebooks, an attitude that their way is the right way. In encouraging copy editors to banish their ignorance and disorganization, insecurities and compulsions, the Chicago Q&A presents itself as a kind of alter ego to the comparatively staid Manual of Style. In The Subversive Copy Editor, Saller continues her mission with audacity and good humor.
Download or read book Arthur Miller written by Enoch Brater and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 143 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An informed study of the esteemed playwright's career evaluates his role in charting the landscape of the modern American theater, offering insight into his seminal dramas while tracing his life from his prize-winning student days through the successes of such pieces as Death of a Salesman.
Download or read book Equivocation written by Bill Cain and published by Dramatists Play Service, Inc.. This book was released on 2014 with total page 131 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "England, 1605: A terrorist plot to assassinate King James I and blow Parliament to kingdom come with 36 barrels of devilish gunpowder! Shagspeare (after a contemporary spelling of the Bard's name) is commissioned by Robert Cecil, the prime minister, to write the "true historie" of the plot. And it must have witches! The King wants witches! But as Shag and the acting company of the Globe, under the direction of the great Richard Burbage, investigate the plot, they discover that the King's version of the story might, in fact, be a cover-up. Shag and his actors are confronted with the ultimate moral and artistic dilemma. Speak truth to power-and perhaps lose their heads? Or take the money and lie? Is there a third option-equivocation? A high-stakes political thriller with contemporary resonances, EQUIVOCATION gallops from the great Globe to the Tower of London to the halls of Parliament to the heart of Judith, Shag's younger daughter, who finds herself unexpectedly at the very heart of the political, dramatic and-ultimately-human mystery." - from publisher's website.
Download or read book The Collaborative Playwright written by Bruce Graham and published by Heinemann Educational Books. This book was released on 2007 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The interaction between the ideas of the playwright and the know-how of the dramaturg is vital to the success of any production. But not every writer is accustomed to thinking like a dramaturg. The Collaborative Playwright changes that by offering a lively dialogue between a highly successful playwright, Bruce Graham, and an equally accomplished dramaturg, Michele Volansky, supported by hands-on exercises to get you thinking and writing in new ways. The Collaborative Playwright gives you professional advice on how to get started with a play, how to structure it to be performed, and how to work with a dramaturg to turn it into a staged production. Graham and Volansky's fun, smart conversation offers step-by-step advice on each of the components of the craft - exposition, rhythms, characterization, structure, and story generation - all illustrated with clear examples from Graham's own plays. But unlike other books that advise playwrights, The Collaborative Playwright is written from two points of view: the playwright's and the dramaturg's. It's both friendly and packed with indispensable nuggets of information, including interviews with more than thirty current theatre artists whose collective advice articulates some of the more practical aspects of working in the theatre - knowledge that playwrights need as they write. Want to write plays that work as well on stage as they do in your head? Read The Collaborative Playwright, listen in as two theatre veterans discuss the crucial characteristics of good writing, and find out why, if you're writing for the theatre, it pays to listen to your dramaturg.
Download or read book Lorraine Hansberry The Life Behind A Raisin in the Sun written by Charles J. Shields and published by Henry Holt and Company. This book was released on 2022-01-18 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The moving story of the life of the woman behind A Raisin in the Sun, the most widely anthologized, read, and performed play of the American stage, by the New York Times bestselling author of Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee Written when she was just twenty-eight, Lorraine Hansberry’s landmark A Raisin in the Sun is listed by the National Theatre as one of the hundred most significant works of the twentieth century. Hansberry was the first Black woman to have a play performed on Broadway, and the first Black and youngest American playwright to win a New York Critics’ Circle Award. Charles J. Shields’s authoritative biography of one of the twentieth century’s most admired playwrights examines the parts of Lorraine Hansberry’s life that have escaped public knowledge: the influence of her upper-class background, her fight for peace and nuclear disarmament, the reason why she embraced Communism during the Cold War, and her dependence on her white husband—her best friend, critic, and promoter. Many of the identity issues about class, sexuality, and race that she struggled with are relevant and urgent today. This dramatic telling of a passionate life—a very American life through self-reinvention—uses previously unpublished interviews with close friends in politics and theater, privately held correspondence, and deep research to reconcile old mysteries and raise new questions about a life not fully described until now.
Download or read book The Book of Will written by Lauren Gunderson and published by Dramatists Play Service, Inc.. This book was released on 2018-06-18 with total page 95 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Without William Shakespeare, we wouldn’t have literary masterpieces like Romeo and Juliet. But without Henry Condell and John Heminges, we would have lost half of Shakespeare’s plays forever! After the death of their friend and mentor, the two actors are determined to compile the First Folio and preserve the words that shaped their lives. They’ll just have to borrow, beg, and band together to get it done. Amidst the noise and color of Elizabethan London, THE BOOK OF WILL finds an unforgettable true story of love, loss, and laughter, and sheds new light on a man you may think you know.
Download or read book The Playwright s Guidebook written by Stuart Spencer and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2002-03-29 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A concise guide to playwriting to awaken creativity, from a playwright who has taught the subject for over a decade. “If you want to be a playwright, here’s your bible.” —David Lindsay-Abaire, author of Fuddy Meers and Wonder of the World During the more than ten years that Sturt Spencer has taught playwriting, he has struggled to find an effective handbook for his courses. Although most of the currently popular guides contain useful ideas, they all suffer from the same problems: poor organizations; quirky, idiosyncratic advice; and abstract theorizing on the nature of art. As a result, they fail to offer any concrete information or useful guidelines on how to construct a well-written play. Moreover, few of these books are actually written by working playwrights. Out of frustration, Spencer wrote his own. The result, The Playwright’s Guidebook, is a concise and engaging handbook full of the kind of wisdom that comes naturally with experience. Spencer presents a coherent way of thinking about playwriting that addresses the important principles of structure, includes insightful writing exercises that build upon one another, explores the creative process, and troubleshoots recurrent problems that playwrights actually face. “The Playwright’s Guidebook is indispensable. Clearly and thoroughly, Mr. Spencer—a playwright himself—leads all playwrights (not only the beginner) through the travails of creation and the jungle of production.” —Edward Albee “Eureka! A clearly written, well-structured, intelligent how-to book about playwriting. Like the good teacher and good writer that he is, Stuart Spencer guides rather than browbeats. Should be next to the laptop of any aspiring, or working, playwright.” —Warren Leight, author of Side Man
Download or read book The Playwright s Manifesto written by Paul Sirett and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-09-08 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A manifesto for the future of playwriting, this book challenges you to be a part of that future in the belief that it is fundamentally important to write plays. Plays help us understand ourselves, others, and the world around us. Reading this book, you will be challenged to learn your craft, explode what you know, prioritise what is important to you, and write in the way that only you can write. Most books on playwriting explain how to create a believable character in a story driven by plot. This book, however, goes even further in its exploration of the playwright's most valuable tool: theatricality. By learning from the past, and the present, the playwrights of tomorrow can create new, vivid, theatrical drama for the future. This manifesto also examines the process of writing, the art of collaboration, and the impact of writing on a playwright's mental health. It identifies the highs and lows, as well as the trials and tribulations, of life as a playwright in today's world. Theatre is a living artform. It is time for playwrights to acknowledge that fact and to celebrate the unique, primal thrill that a live theatre experience offers us. The future of playwriting is in your hands. Do you accept the challenge?
Download or read book The Playwright s House written by Dariel Suarez and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Happily married, backed by a powerful mentor, and with career prospects that would take him abroad, Serguey has more than any young Cuban lawyer could ask for. But when his estranged brother Victor appears with news that their father--famed theater director Felipe Blanco--has been detained for what he suspects are political reasons, Serguey's privileged life is suddenly shaken. A return to his childhood home in Havana's decaying suburbs--a place filled with art, politics, and the remnants of a dissolving family--reconnects Serguey with his troubled past. He learns of an elusive dramaturge's link to Felipe, a man who could be key to his father's release. With the help of a social media activist and his wife's ties with the Catholic Church, Serguey sets out to unlock the mystery of Felipe's arrest and, in the process, is forced to confront the reasons for the hostility between him and Victor: two violent childhood episodes that scarred them in unforgettable ways. On the verge of imprisonment, Serguey realizes he must make a decision regarding not just his father, but his family and his own future, a decision which, under the harsh shadow of a communist state, he cannot afford to regret.
Download or read book Tiger Style written by Mike Lew and published by Dramatists Play Service, Inc.. This book was released on 2019 with total page 78 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Albert and Jennifer Chen were at the pinnacle of academic achievement. But now they suck at adult life. Albert’s just been passed up for promotion and Jennifer’s just been dumped by her loser boyfriend. So they do what any reasonable egghead brother and sister would do: go on an Asian Freedom Tour! From California to Shenzen, TIGER STYLE! Examines the successes and failures of tiger parenting from the point of view of a playwright who’s actually been through it.
Download or read book The Playwright s Guidebook written by Stuart Spencer and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2002-03-29 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the more than ten years that Stuart Spencer has taught playwriting, he has struggled to find an effective handbook for his courses. Although most of the currently popular guides contain useful ideas, they all suffer from the same problems: poor organization; quirky, idiosyncratic advice; and abstract theorizing on the nature of art. As a result, they fail to offer any concrete information or useful guidelines on how to construct a well-written play. Out of frustration, Spencer wrote his own. The result, The Playwright's Guidebook, is a concise and engaging handbook full of the kind of wisdom that comes naturally with experience. Spencer presents a coherent way of thinking about playwriting that addresses the important principles of structure, includes invaluable writing exercises that build upon one another, explores the creative process, and troubleshoots recurrent problems that many playwrights face.
Download or read book Playwriting written by Stephen Jeffreys and published by Theatre Communications Group. This book was released on 2020-03-10 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This essential guide to the craft of playwriting, from the author of The Libertine, reveals the various invisible frameworks and mechanisms that are at the heart of each and every successful play.
