The word playwright suggests that plays are wrought rather than written, much as wheels were once made by wheelwrights. It suggests that raw materials must be shaped and formed into a working whole by following precise specifications. All parts must serve as a function of the finished piece. And like the wheel, the play must have a hub, a center, which distributes the load evenly. It must spin freely. It must have perfect balance. If a wheel is made wrong, it will quickly fall apart once running on the roadway. If a play is made wrong, it will quickly fall apart once running on the stage.
This book is intended as a basic guide for anyone considering “making” a play. It leads you through the process of (1) formulating an idea with dramatic potential; (2) creating characters who can bring that idea to life; (3) designing a sound structural framework; (4) getting it all down on the page; and (5) testing and launching the play once written.
Throughout, each step is illuminated by the comments and advice offered by the many established playwrights I’ve interviewed:
Edward Albee
Lee Blessing
Horton Foote
Athol Fugard
John Guare
Tina Howe
David Ives
Romulus Linney
Emily Mann
Terrence McNally
Arthur Miller
Marsha Norman
John Patrick Shanley
Wendy Wasserstein
Michael Weller
Lanford Wilson
Drawing heavily from transcripts of these sessions—most of which took place at the Dramatists Guild headquarters in New York City before audiences of member playwrights—The Playwright’s Process utilizes over two hundred and fifty quotes from these proven masters of the craft as they explain in their own words why they write their plays the way they do.
What is unique here is that, in a deliberate effort to deal exclusively with process, all the interviews were conducted using the same series of questions asked in the same basic sequence. Because of this, as you work through the book you’ll encounter numerous and personal responses to each specific aspect of the craft. Not surprisingly, the dramatists involved proved without exception to be thoughtful, generous people eager to share what they’ve learned over the course of their extraordinary careers. Their in-depth and personal accounts of how they work and what they’ve learned shed a rare and bright light on the often difficult endeavor of constructing a play that works.
The book is designed, then, to serve as a support system for you, the writer, as you navigate the often murky waters to get to that first readable draft and beyond. Its single goal is to help you “wright” your plays so they’ll run brilliantly and for a long time.
The basis for what is presented here, in addition to the wisdom gleaned from the interviews, comes from my own accumulated insights gained as a playwright, as founder and artistic director of Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, a professional company working exclusively with new American plays, and also from over twenty years of teaching playwriting at universities and in professional workshops around the country. A good portion of my career has been spent working closely with emerging and established writers as they’ve tested their new plays, uncovering what worked and what didn’t through readings, workshops, and productions. Over the years I’ve analyzed and dissected hundreds of plays and helped playwrights redesign and reshape their scripts.
What I’ve discovered is that most people usually approach the writing of a play with little or no grasp of the basic principles of the craft. As a result, their work remains on the shelf or, to put it more bluntly, on the reject stack in literary managers’ offices. I can’t count the times my theater has rejected a play because, although the writer definitely had talent, he or she had no sense of the essential dramatic ingredients that have to be operating from page one.
We’re just coming out of an era when—and this seems to be especially true for playwriting—the rigorous teaching of craft has not been considered a logical and necessary first step. Instead, from the start of a student’s training, personal exploration and complete liberation from all time-honored “rules” of dramatic writing have been the norm. To me, therefore, it’s not surprising that the majority of new plays being written today never see production. Several decades of an anti-craft mentality have flooded the market with plays that simply do not work on the stage. Sadly, thousands of these failed works keep on being written every year.
The fact is that there are a few simple principles of the craft which in one way or another need to be respected in all dramatic writing, principles which have been in place and functioning beautifully for twenty-five hundred years. A playwright ignores them at his or her peril. Without exception, every good play I’ve read or seen—whether written by an established, successful playwright or a student in a beginning course—has somehow incorporated the basic tenets successfully. There simply is no way around them if you hope to write successfully for the stage.
As the following pages show, the prominent playwrights I’ve interviewed confirm these assertions. And although their approaches to the craft vary, what has emerged from my discussions with them is that they all incorporate the same basic principles of dramatic writing whether they’re fully conscious of it or not. For most of them, the application of these basics has become so automatic, instinctive, and “programmed” into their brains that they sometimes have difficulty talking about the very elements that make their own plays come so beautifully to life. But unquestionably in every case—no matter the specific process employed—the same basic components are being applied.
The good news is that these essential tenets are not difficult to grasp and are relatively easy to incorporate into your work. In fact, the writing of a play—especially during a person’s first few efforts—becomes infinitely more enjoyable and ultimately more successful when the basic principles are consciously applied in a systematic way. As you write more plays these underpinnings will become more automatic, as they are with the playwrights I’ve talked to—more like driving a car, something you do without thinking about how you do it.
This book takes into account these basics of the craft from the very early thinking stages through the writing of a finished draft. It moves you through a simple, logical progression of working on a play, showing how the raw materials you draw from must be shaped into dramatic form and how, as your work unfolds, it must be constantly analyzed and tested to ensure that basic tenets are not being violated (or, if they are, that the writer is aware of it so that the necessary compensations can be made). It offers a simple process of thinking and constructing so that what you end up writing turns out to be a play that has “legs.”
The difficulty with teaching a beginning course in playwriting or writing a book about it is determining where to start. All the basics are important. You should have a working knowledge of just about everything as you start—why one character has to function as the central figure before the preliminary structure can be created; how the dominant need of this central character drives the play and helps guide in-depth character exploration; how the “event” of the play—the central character struggling with his or her dilemma—and its resolution ultimately determines what you’re saying; why a first draft can’t really be attempted until you have some mastery of the techniques of good dialogue writing; and so forth. There are many aspects of the craft that in one way or another must be utilized each step of the way.
To deal with this, I’ve arranged the book as much as possible to present concepts, principles, and techniques in an accumulative fashion so that as new information and procedures are introduced you can work them into what you already have under control. However, because it’s important early on to gain a working knowledge of the standard playwriting format and to develop your skill at writing dialogue and physical action, I suggest you begin working with Chapter 8 (“Working in the Standard Format”) and Chapter 9 (“Bringing It to Life”) at the same time you’re working through Chapters 1 through 7. Chapters 10 through 12, covering the evolution of the script—on writing the first and subsequent drafts and the eventual development of the play—should be saved for last.
The book, then, is designed to put you through a rigorous training program. My hope is that through using it you’ll gain a strong grasp of the basic craft and the process involved in creating a structurally sound play. Obviously, it can’t enlarge upon your God-given gift for writing. My hope is, however, that by using this book your work will stand a better chance of eventually coming to life on the boards and that you can indeed call yourself a playwright in the full sense of the word.