A description of the roles and status of various playwrights from throughout history.

1. Chapter 5: Playwrights
Learning Objectives
• Explain the history of the playwright's role and status.
• Describe different types of playwrights: individuals;
teams; collectives; playwrights who are also actors,
directors, and/or designers; and "play doctors."
• Discuss some common methods and processes in
playwriting.
• Describe some options for and benefits of formal
training for playwrights.

2. Chapter 5: Playwrights
Key Concepts
• Playwriting is often a solitary process that involves much more than just
writing; playwrights create actions, not just words.
• Except for the actor, the playwright is the earliest role in the history of
theatre.
• Although the position of playwright became more professionalized during
and after the Renaissance, few are now able to make their full living at it.
• Playwrights usually begin with an idea or inspiration of some sort,
although their working methods from there can vary drastically.
• Although training is not necessary to write plays, it can help the author
build on innate talents to become a better writer and theatre artist.

3. Major Playwrights in History:
Classical Texts
Aeschuyles and Shakespeare

4. Major Playwrights in History:
Modernism
Ibsen and Chekhov

5. Major Playwrights in History:
American Modernism
Treadwell and Glaspell

6. Major Playwrights in History:
American Realism
Wilson and Miller

7. Major Playwrights in History:
Contemporary Voices
Soyinka, Kushner, Nottage

8. Chapter 5: Playwrights
• Playwright – play/wright (noun)
– Wright – to make, to build
– Literally, one who “builds a play”
• Playwriting – verb
– The act of writing a play
– “crafting”/”building” a play is more appropriate
– A sad, sad, solitary pursuit

9. Chapter 5: Playwrights
• Playwrights create action, not just words
– “SHOW, DON’T TELL”
– Words are intense, selected, compressed
• “a heightened expression of everyday life”
• Playwrights create metaphors, images, themes
• Playwrights are specifically concerned with
structure (Aristotle’s Six Elements of Drama)

10. Chapter 5: Playwrights
• One of the earliest roles in theatre history
– Roles were often combined
• Playwrights, actors, directors, producers
– Playwriting was revered, but considered a social/civic
obligation
• Not done for the fame
– Primarily male, with some notable women
• Aphra Behn, Susana Centlivre
– Takes off as a profession in late 19th century
• Copyright issues were (and continue to be) a major concern
for playwrights

11. Chapter 5: Playwrights
• 19th c. playwrights were accused of being
“hacks”
– Melodramas – “a machine for pleasure” – were
not considered to be art.
• Late 19th c. playwrights developed realism as a
reaction against melodrama
• As level of importance increases, many
playwrights choose to work alone

12. Playwright as Solo Artist
Alan Ball, John Patrick Shanley, and Tennessee Williams are known for their insistence on
working alone.

13. Playwrights
• There are some very famous collaborations
– John Kander and Fred Ebb
• Cabaret
• Chicago
• Kiss of the Spider Woman
– WS Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
• HMS Pinafore
• Mikado
• Pirates of Penzance

14. Collaboration in Playwriting
Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County was written for a specific group of actors at Steppenwulf
Theatre

15. Collaboration in Playwriting
Neil LaBute (KU theatre graduate) often casts Paul Rudd (KU theatre dropout) in his plays and
movies, like here in The Shape of Things.

16. Collaboration in Playwriting
Members of the Living Theatre work as an ensemble, all contributing to all aspects of a
performance.

17. Collaboration in Playwriting
The Laramie Project is credited to Moises Kaufman and Members of the Tectonic Theatre Group.
Members split royalties.

18. Playwright as Auteur
• As was true in Ancient Greece, many
playwrights have double or triple
responsibilities
– Many playwrights choose to direct their own plays
– Many playwrights control adaptation of their plays
– Many playwrights continue to act in their own
plays (and others)

19. Sam Shepard is both a famous and widely produced playwright, and a character actor.

20. Bertolt Brecht wrote and directed most of his work, owing to the very particular style of staging
he was seeking.

21. Playwright as Auteur
LaBute writes, directs, adapts, and edits all of his own plays and any film versions.

22. Playwriting/Scriptwriting
• Many playwrights contribute to film and
television writing processes as well
• Scriptwriting tends to be much more
formulaic
– Consider the plots of these recent films, and how
they might be similar in structure:
• Skyfall
• Dark Knight Rises
• Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol
• Avengers

23. Playwriting/Screen writing
Theresa Rebeck is kind of a renaissance woman. She holds a BA, an MA, an MFA and a PhD, has
produced plays on-and-off-broadway, and wrote extensively for NYPD Blue, Law and Order, and
Smash

24. Playwriting/Screen writing
Martin McDonagh ‘s
plays are frequently
nominated for the
highest awards. In 2004,
he added to his
notoriety with the Oscar
Award for Best Live
Action Short film for Six
Shooter. Like his plays,
his movies are violent,
dialogue heavy, darkly
comic, and extremely
Irish.

25. Playwright as Fixer
Playwright Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa was brought in to re-write Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark,
owing to his extensive professional credits as a comic book author.

26. Playwriting:
The Process
• A playwright is “always writing”
• Must have a deep understanding of structure
• Once it’s complete, there’s a public/private
reading
• After numerous readings, there are workshops
• The play is sent to theatres for consideration
of production
• But even that isn’t the end…

27. Playwriting in Education
Playwriting can be taught…
Katori Hall, Wendy Wasserstein, and David Lindsay-Abaire all hold MFAs in playwriting

28. Playwriting in Education
• …but it doesn’t have to be.
Eugene O’Neil was thrown out of Princeton; August Wilson and GB Shaw dropped out of high
school.