'A play is a heard thing. I learned, to my wonder, that there is an enormous difference in time between a comma, a semicolon and a period, for example. And that a playwright notates very much the way a composer notates a score.'
'A play is a heard thing. I learned, to my wonder, that there is an enormous difference in time between a comma, a semicolon and a period, for example. And that a playwright notates very much the way a composer notates a score.'-- Edward Albee
And it's not surprising that lots of Playwrights can write well for Film, while Screenwriters are hardly ever able to return the favor.
You can lay this off to money. But the fact is, most Screenwriters don't have the Voice for theatre. What they do have is a kind of visual Voice that makes them good at what they do. Steve Martin is about the only one who's managed to leap this great divide in the last decade with Woody Allen trailing behind him.
Film and Theatre seem like they should be similar, but the difference stands out when you put the manuscripts of a Screenplay and a Stage Play side by
Visual vs. Verbal Storytelling |
http://www.vcu.edu/arts/playwriting/