Number of Characters

THE PLAYWRITING SEMINARS > STRUCTURE > CHARACTERS

'For me, it's always a question of trying to whittle things down to what the central question is and also what are the fewest number of characters I can have to make it fully dramatic. A play shouldn't have more characters than it needs at minimum and it shouldn't be any longer than it needs to be.'

-- Lee Blessing

Available Now: Playwriting Seminars 2.0

The revised and expanded e-book edition.

Here's the full Table of Contents and ordering link for the new edition.

No matter what anybody says, here's a Rule with [almost] no exceptions: What really matters in the contemporary theatre is how may performers you'll need to play the number of characters you want -- not how many characters you have.

And the equally problematic . . .