The Playwright The nature of playwriting, the qualities that make a fine play, and the process and career of playwriting.

What does a playwright do?

The playwright provides the point of origin for nearly every play production...the script.More and more today, the

role of the playwright is to write the play and then to disappear

Today’s playwright is considered an independent artist whose work is executed primarily in isolation.

Some notable playwrights

Sophocles 497-406 BCE William Shakespeare 1564-1616

Hamlet and GertrudeAct 3, Scene iv

HAMLET “The Closet Scene”

ACT THREE, Scene 4Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, has just learned that his uncle Claudius was responsible for the murder of Hamlet’s father, the former king. He has come to his mother Gertrude’s “closet” to confront her about the murder. Hamlet cannot believe that his mother would marry the man that murdered her husband and wants to confront her with the truth. The king’s advisor Polonius is hiding in the room and during the encounter, Hamlet kills him thinking he might be Claudius spying on him. Derek Jacobi and Claire Bloom

David Tennant and Penny DownieMel Gibson and Glenn Close

Hamlet and GertrudeAct 3, Scene iv

Notable American playwrights

Eugene O’Neillb. Oct. 16, 1888, New York, N.Y., U.S. d. Nov. 27, 1953, Boston, Mass. in full EUGENE GLADSTONE O'NEILL foremost American dramatist and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1936. His masterpiece, Long Day's Journey into Night (produced posthumously 1956), is at the apex of a long string of great plays, including Beyond the Horizon (1920), Anna Christie (1922), Strange Interlude (1928), Ah! Wilderness (1933), The Iceman Cometh (1946), and A Moon for the Misbegotten (1947).

Notable European playwrights

Henrik Ibsen

Anton Chekhov

Samuel Beckett

21st Century Americans

Suzi Lori Parks Sarah Ruhl

Tony Kushner

Neil La Bute

We are all playwrightsAs dreamers, we are all beginning playwrights

WHY a playwright?A playwright “makes” plays as a wheelwright makes wheels or a cartwright makes carts

So, although a literary art, playwriting is much more than an arrangement of words, rather it is a blueprint for a play.

Examples of the playwright’s craft

Oh! Oh! Oh! (Shakespeare’s OTHELLO)Howl, howl, howl, howl! (KING LEAR)The above are more than text, they are pretexts

for great acting...Playwrights use formal literary values that are fully

integrated into the whole of the theatrical event

Playwriting as event writing

The core of the play is action...the ordering of observable events that can be dramatized

A series of events forms a PLOT which are expressed using the playwright’s tools

Fundamentally, the playwright works with two tools

1. Dialogue2. Physical action

Events of a play are linkedChronologically (cause and effect) as in realistic

theatre. Such plays are CONTINUOUS in structure and LINEAR in chronology

Many plays are discontinuous and nonlinear as were many of our classic plays which were character-driven and episodic

Shakespeare’s plays shift, time, place and actionModern and postmodern audiences accept

whatever structure the play requires

Qualities of a fine play

Credibility and intrigueDeath of a Salesman

Peter Pan

CREDIBILITY is the audience imposed demand that the play’s actions and characters flow logically and believably

INTRIGUE is that quality of a play that makes us curious to know what will happen next

SpeakabilityA line of dialogue should be written so that it achieve its maximum impact when spoken...as in this example from Shaw’s MAJOR BARBARA

UNDERSHAFT [hugely tickled] You don't say so! What! no capacity for business, no knowledge of law, no sympathy with art, no pretension to philosophy; only a simple knowledge of the secret that has puzzled all the philosophers, baffled all the lawyers, muddled all the men of business, and ruined most of the artists: the secret of right and wrong. Why, man, you're a genius, master of masters, a god! At twenty-four, too!

National Theatre production of MAJOR BARBARA

StageabilityA STAGEABLE script is one which staging and stage business are not adornments but essentials

Peter and the Starcatcher

Flow. A play that continuously says something to the audience and is not constantly interrupted by changes of scenery, shifts in time, or too many intermissions.

Richness is not an easy quality to develop in writing

It is depth, subtlety, fineness, quality, wholeness and inevitability. Here is an example from Margaret Edson’s Pulitzer-Prize winning play WIT

VIVIAN. I don’t mean to complain, but I am becoming very sick. Very, very sick. Ultimately sick, as it were. In everything I have done, I have been steadfast, resolute—some would say to the extreme. Now, as you can see, I am distinguishing myself in illness....What we have come to think of as me is, in fact, just the specimen jar, just the dust jacket, just the white piece of paper that bears the little black marks.

A scene from WIT

Depth of Characterization

Phylicia Rashad as Big Mamain Cat on a Hot, Tin Roof

Anthony Sher as Richard III

Laurence Olivier as Hamlet

GravityA play’s theme must be important...

“You just can’t look at it like that. You got to look at the whole thing. Now, you take a fellow go out there, grab hold to a woman and think he got something ‘cause she sweet and soft to the touch. It’s in the world like everything else. Touching’s nice. It feels good. But you can lay your hand upside a horse or a cat, and that feels good tool What’s the difference? When you grab hold to a woman, you got something there....”

Roger Robinson as Bynum

Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 1)HAMLET: To be, or not to be--that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or to take arms against a sea of troubles And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep-- No more--and by a sleep to say we end The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to. 'Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep-- To sleep--perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. There's the respect That makes calamity of so long life....

PertinenceThe play needs to be relevant to its time. Arthur

Miller wrote THE CRUCIBLE in the 1950s during the McCarthy hearings to mirror the witch-hunting frenzy in 1692 New England...

Other qualitiesCOMPRESSION refers to the playwright’s skill in

condensing a story

ECONOMY relates to an author’s skill in eliminating or consolidating characters, events, locales and words

INTENSITY is the result of the playwright’s success in compression and economy AND can take many forms...harsh, abrasive, explosive, calm, physical, etc.

CelebrationFinally, a play celebrates life...relishing the

human experience in all its forms

Playwright’s ProcessDIALOGUE should sound fresh and authentic as

if the words spoken really happened

CONFLICT is at the core of drama, but if forced can come across as ineffective. Events such as discovery, victory, rejection, revelation, separation, or death are climactic scenes in a play and define structure.

STRUCTURE connects the various parts of the play together in a whole...some playwrights work from outlines, others from inspiration, still others from transcripts. But wherever the structure comes from, it needs to “work.”

Playwright’s rewards

Edward Albee withthe TONY Award

The Pulitzer Prize

“The rewards are tangible and intangible. At itsbest, playwriting is more than a profession andmore than just a component of theatre. It is a creative political act that enlarges human experience and enriches our lives...”

Current American Playwrights

David Mamet (born 1947)

“Race” NYC, 2010

Tony Kushner

Born 1956

David Henry Hwang

Born 1957

...was awarded the 1988 Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critics, and John Gassner Awards for his Broadway debut, M. Butterfly, which was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. For his play Golden Child, he received a 1998 Tony nomination and a 1997 OBIE Award. His new book for Rodgers & Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song earned him his third Tony nomination in 2003. He was the book writer of Disney's Tarzan, with score by Phil Collins, and also co-authored the book for Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida, which ran almost five years on Broadway and won four Tony Awards. His most recent work is Chinglish which opens on Broadway this fall.

M. Butterfly

Chinglish

Joe DiPietro JOE DIPIETRO was most recently represented on Broadway with NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT, a new musical based on the works of George and Ira Gershwin. He won Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Score for MEMPHIS, which was also awarded the 2010 Tony Award, Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical. His other shows include ALL SHOOK UP; I LOVE YOU, YOU'RE PERFECT, NOW CHANGE (the longest-running revue in Off-Broadway history: THE TOXIC AVENGER and THE THING ABOUT MEN (both winners of the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Off-Broadway musical) and FALLING FOR EVE. His plays include the much produced comedy OVER THE RIVER AND THROUGH THE WOODS, THE ART OF MURDER (Edgar Award, Best Mystery Play), CREATING CLAIRE and THE LAST ROMANCE.  A New Jersey native, he lives in Manhattan with his pug, Rocco.

http://www.theatricalrights.com/node/2887

STEPHENSCHWARTZ

Stephen Schwartz was born on March 6, 1948 in New York City, New York, USA. He has been married to Carole Piasecki since July 6, 1969. They have two children.

Ironically, being a major Broadway composer, he's lost the Tony award six times, whereas for writing songs for animated movies he's received three Oscars. His six Tony nominations are: in 1973, as Best Score (Musical), both music and lyrics for "Pippin;" in 1977, as Best Score, both music and lyrics, for "Godspell;" in 1978, as Best Book (Musical) and, for both music and lyrics, as one of several people sharing a nomination as Best Score for "Working;" in 1987, his lyrics with the music of Charles Strouse for "Rags;" and in 2004, as Best Score (Music and/or Lyrics) for "Wicked.” He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Live Theatre. His new adaptation of the musical, "Working", was nominated for the 2011 Equity Joseph Jefferson Award for New Adaptation.

Neil LaBute (Born 1963)

Playwriting creditsFilthy Talk For

Troubled Times (1989)

In the Company of Men (1992)

Bash: Latter-Day Plays (1999)

The Shape of Things (2001)

The Distance From Here (2002)

The Mercy Seat (2002)

Autobahn (2003)

Fat Pig (2004)

This Is How It Goes (2005)

Some Girl(s) (2005)

Wrecks (2005)

In A Dark Dark House (2007)

reasons to be pretty

(2008)

Helter Skelter & Land of the Dead

(2008)

The Break of Noon (2010)

The New Testament & Helter Skelter (2009)

Some White Chick (2009)

The Furies (2009)

In a Foreset, Dark and Deep (2011)

Reasons to be Happy(2013)

Suzan-Lori Parks

Born 1964

Lynn Nottage

Born 1964

Ruined (2009 Pulitzer Prize)

Intimate Apparel (2003)

Mother Courage (adaptation)(1998)

Crumbs from the Table of Joy (1995)

Annie Baker Annie Baker grew up in Massachusetts.

Her full-length plays include JOHN (currently in an extended run at the Signature Theatre), THE FLICK (Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Susan Smith Blackburn Award, Obie Award for Playwriting), CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION (Playwrights Horizons, Obie Award for Best New American Play, Drama Desk nomination for Best New American Play), THE ALIENS (Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Obie Award for Best New American Play), BODY AWARENESS (Atlantic Theater Company, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations for Best Play/Emerging Playwright), and an adaptation of Chekhov's UNCLE VANYA (Soho Rep, Drama Desk nomination for Best Revival), for which she also designed the costumes. Her plays have been produced at over 150 theaters throughout the U.S., and have been produced internationally in over a dozen countries.

THE FLICKThe Flick is set in a run down movie palace in Worcester, Massachusetts and follows three underpaid movie ushers, Avery, Sam and Rose (who also runs the film projector) who do the humdrum and tedious labor necessary for keeping it running, including toiling to clean spilled soda from the floors. The show is a comedy of the mundane delivered in bits of chat that might be considered insignificant.

Up close – Arthur MillerArthur Miller was one of the major dramatists

of the twentieth century. In the years before his death he often was called the “greatest living American playwright”.

BORN October 17, 1925DIED February 10, 2005

SOURCE: Marino, Stephen. "Arthur Miller". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 16 May 2008[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3116, accessed September 2010.]

He earned this reputation during a career of more than seventy years, from his first plays as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan in the 1930s to his achieved critical success in the 1940s with All My Sons (1947) and Death of a Salesman (1949). In the 1950s he wrote The Crucible (1953) and A View from the Bridge (1955), refused to “name names” at his appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), and had a celebrated marriage to the film actress Marilyn Monroe.

He produced a critically acclaimed autobiography, Timebends (1987), and premiered new plays on Broadway and in London in the 1990s. In the new millennium, Miller remained as active as at the beginning of his career, publishing a collection of essays, Echoes Down the Corridor (2000), and completing two new plays, Resurrection Blues (2002) and Finishing the Picture (2004), which premiered a few months before his death.

Recipient of the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, and A View From the Bridge...

 

ALL MY SONS on Broadway with John Lithgow, Dianne Wiest, Josh Lucas and Katie Holmes (2008).

Death of a Salesman

American Actors in the title role of WILLY LOMAN

Philip Seymour Hoffman

Brian Dennehy

...the Pulitzer Prize for Death of a Salesman, the Tony Award for All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, and Lifetime Achievement and the Olivier Award for Broken Glass...

...Miller clearly ranks with the other truly great figures of American drama – Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, and Edward Albee – and the pantheon of great world dramatists, such as Chekov, Strindberg, Shaw and Beckett. 

Broadway revival of A VIEWFROM THE BRIDGE, 2009-10

Arthur Miller was not only a literary giant, but also one of the more significant political, cultural, and social figures of his time, well-known as a man of conviction, with rock-solid integrity, who frequently took popular and unpopular stands on many issues. At his death, the front page headline of The New York Times called him the “moral voice of the American stage”. In the great themes of his work – guilt and betrayal, family and society, individual and social conscience, private and public responsibility – he confronted the ethical issues of his time.

In his own words...

Plays by Arthur MillerThe Golden Years The Man Who Had All the

Luck All My SonsDeath of a SalesmanAn Enemy of the People The CrucibleA View from the Bridge After the FallA Memory of Two Mondays Incident at Vichy

The Price

The Creation of the World and Other Business

The Archbishop’s Ceiling The American Clock Playing for Time The Ride Down Mt. Morgan Broken Glass Mr. Peters’ ConnectionsResurrection Blues Finishing the Picture 

One-Act Plays

A View from the Bridge (one-act version)

A Memory of Two Mondays

Fame   /    The Reason Why   

Two Way Mirror:      Elegy for a Lady     Some Kind of Love Story

Danger: Memory!      I Can’t Remember Anything    Clara

The Last Yankee  

Screenplays

The Misfits

Everybody Wins

The Crucible

Autobiography

Timebends