The Playwriting Seminars

HomepageRichard ToscanAn Opinionated Web Companion on the Art & Craft of Playwriting

What's
New

Quotes
on
Craft

SHORTCUTS

What's

Here

'There's something very perverse in me that loves trying to do the impossible and put things on the stage that are very hard to stage and that maybe people haven't seen before. And I have this impulse to see how far the form can take me. Because I think of all the arts, the theatre is the most conservative, because you have that ghastly problem of having to sell all the tickets every night.'

-- Tina Howe

The Playwriting Seminars focus on the kinds of new plays most often produced by the nation's 333 regional theatres. These nonprofit companies premiere the majority of new plays produced in the United States and -- whether they like it or not -- have become the research and development arm of the commercial theatre. The best of them are adventuresome rather than experimental. If you're fascinated by the work of Rachel Rosenthal, Ping Chong, or Robert Wilson, these theatres won't have much to say to you -- or you to them.

In this venue, story and the structure most playwrights have been using for the past 2,500 years are givens. The compensation for a nod toward artistic conventionality is a large market for new plays that resist giving the structural envelope more than a gentle nudge.

Primary Areas of The Playwriting Seminars

Content: Story & Themes, Characters & Dialogue
Film: The Screenwriting Craft vs. Playwriting
- Screenwriting Software: A quick guide to what's essential nowadays when you write for film and television -- and sometimes helpful for playwrights.
Structure: The -wright of The Playwright's Craft
Working: Writing Techniques, Rewriting & Editing
Format: For Manuscripts & More Interesting Things
Business: Submitting Scripts, Copyright, Royalties, & Resources
- DRAMATISTS SOURCEBOOK: The essential guide to competitions, submission deadlines, workshops, and theatres looking for new plays.

What's Here: Table of Contents for the Site

Plays to Read: Examples in the Seminars come from these. And it's the best thing to do when you're not writing.
100 Quotes on Craft: For Insight & Motivation
Running New Play Competitions: Planing Competitions, Training Readers & Evaluating Submitted Scripts
Your Comments: Question & Suggestions for Richard Toscan
ENGL 668: Syllabus for Students is VCU's graduate MFA Creative Writing program
Reviews: Of The Playwriting Seminars Web site. And more Awards for the site.

And for a summary of the basics of the craft if you're . . .

Starting from Scratch

The playwrights -- whose Quotes on Craft begin nearly every page of the site -- don't cover everything that's possible in this business, but they're most of what's interesting right now . . .

Playwrights Quoted in The Seminars

If you can't find a good local bookstore with a large selection of theatre and film titles, you can order recommended scripts, screenplays, videos, and books through the Web without having to do title searches. Look for linked book covers [as Tina Howe's above left] or the amazon.com logo throughout The Playwriting Seminars. And the world's leading Internet bookstore can get them to you in a few days.

If you're interested in what else these playwrights and screenwriters have done, click on the linked book covers and then click on their names. You'll get a listing of most of what they've written that's in print or available on the used book market.

RETURN TO: | Seminar Introduction |