Subjects of Plays

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'. . . let me just simplify it. Never an idea, never, never, never has an idea led to a play. Every inspiration, every seminal image for a play has been something I've seen on the streets, something I've read in a newspaper, a story that was told to me, always an event external to myself.'

-- Athol Fugard

When you venture into this business of playwriting, one of the first problems is that most of your experience with dramatic story-telling has probably come from Film and television. There's a simple reason for this: most people in America see many more films and watch far more television than the small number of hours they may rack up seeing plays.

The down-side is that subconsciously this volume of experience with film and television initially conditions and narrows our assumptions about playwriting. The best antidote is to begin reading lots of plays, especially contemporary plays, and better yet, listen to them in readings or productions.

Theatre sounds different from Film. And its approach to telling stories is different -- primarily because of the extreme difference in the treatment of . . . Consequences in Film & Theatre.

Playwrights have a much broader vision of dramatic content and technique than what seems possible in the world of American film and television. But while they may reflect the truth of life unfiltered by these media, they're a very selective lens . . .

Truth in Plays

And then there's always the question of . . .

Using Other Writers' Work

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