Structure of Plays

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'as a poet in the American Theater/ i find most activity that takes place on our stages overwhelmingly shallow/ stilted & imitative. that is probably one of the reasons i insist on calling myself a poet or writer/ rather than a playwright/ i am interested solely in the poetry of a moment/ the emotional & aesthetic impact of a character or a line. for too long now afro-americans in theater have been duped by the same artificial aesthetics that plague our white counterparts/ 'the perfect play,' as we know it to be/ a truly european framework for european psychology/ cannot function efficiently for those of us from this hemisphere.'

-- Ntozake Shange

She's got a point. And Joan Holden would second her -- with drums -- on the kind of subjects that still stick to the fingers of a lot of American playwrights. But while Family Problems in America may still be the beginning of a ton of new plays, a growing number don't ride to the end on that single note.

But a basic Rule: The more experimental you want to be in Structure, the more you'll need to take on full responsibility for the first production of your play. That's what Ntozake Shange did. And the rest, as they say, is history.

You can push the envelope on Subjects, but audiences and Literary Mangers alike are usually less willing to be adventuresome with Structure.

Primary Areas of The Structure Unit

Characters: How many & the economics of overcrowding
Length: How long, or really how short a play can be
Monologues: They're mini-plays within plays
Shape: Building the structure that holds your story
Style: & Theatrical devices - Getting audiences to ride with you
Time: Using it to tell your story
What's Here: A Detailed Guide to This Unit

If you can't find a good local bookstore with a large selection of film and theatre titles, you can order recommended plays, screenplays, videos, and books through the Web without having to do title searches. Look for linked book covers [as 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.

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