Playwriting

For an American playwright today, where is Mecca? Where does it all come together: actors of high quality who give maximum effort to a new script; directors with a sense of humor to match their ability to move bodies in space and make moments that signify on stage; audiences who not only love going to theater but do so a lot and make it part of their daily lives; and great bars before and after the show? Mecca (for me anyway) is Chicago. And my most recent hajj was to Teatro Vista.

Srila Nayak shares an overview of Pulitzer prize-winning dramatist Ayad Akhtar's career. 

I think, rather, that playwrights readily turn over the fate of their work to these committees and power-players, simply because that is the way it’s been done for so long that anything else feels strange. A playwright wants to get produced, after all— and other writers traditionally aren’t the ones assigning production budgets. But this can change.

Does my play choose the title, or does that first title inform my play? At fourteen pages in, who knows what will happen to these characters? Who knows what will happen in this world? How do you title your plays?

This week's conversation topic is Writing & Producing New Plays for the Indie, High School, College, and Community Theater Markets and will be moderated by Amy Rose Marsh @AmyRoseMarsh, literary manager @MrSamuelFrench—who like all of our moderators, authors, and content producers—self-selected to peer-produce on this commons-based platform! This hour-long Howl will take place on Thursday, May 1 on hashtag #newplay at 11am PDT (San Francisco) / 1pm CDT (Austin) / 2pm EDT (Toronto) / 18:00 GMT / 7pm BST (London). On Thursday, get heard in the conversation by searching for #newplay in Twitter (sort by “all”) and by putting “#newplay” somewhere in your messages. Spread the word!

The neglect of playwriting as a genre in what I’ll lovingly call the creative writing industrial machine—poetry, fiction, and non-fiction/memoir are the ruling three—hasn’t escaped conference organizers. They actively encourage pitches for playwriting panels, which are typically in short supply. This year, this poet and part-time playwriting instructor made a point of attending as many theater-related panels as possible. It was an incredibly heartening experience, mainly due to the emphasis placed on the benefits of incorporating playwriting into creative writing and literature classrooms.

Isn’t boxing just like writing a play? First, you have to train (the muscles in the gym if a boxer, the mind facing the screen if a writer). Then you have to fight! (What we in the Arts call “advocate”). You go out into the world/ring and advocate for your play, and hopefully find other advocates who will advocate your “advocation.” Next, whether you win (get a production) or lose (a reading, and another reading, and another reading), you must nurse your wounds and finally, learn from the experience in hopes that you will come out next time a stronger, smarter, more creative. . .fighter.

HowlRound is working with playwright residency sites around the country to track the impact of what it means to have a playwright on staff. At each of the fourteen theaters we have a Commons Producer—a theater practitioner from the local community working with the theater and the playwright to tell the story of each residency and make the learning from this experiment accessible as it's happening. Periodically we will post these residency updates on HowlRound in the hopes that it will be useful to field-wide learning on the question of what it means to employ playwrights inside of theaters.

 Jennifer Lane shares her thoughts on how to remain optimistic among the dismal realities of theatre-making. 

Michael Rau and Will Davis share different approaches to make collaboration work in theatre-making.

Stage combat is the art of creating the illusion of violence for the sake of storytelling. Some illusions are easier and/or less expensive than others. One thing I’ve found myself saying many times is that the difference between one character pulling a knife on another versus breaking a bottle and threatening to attack them with the broken base is hundreds of dollars.

This week's conversation topic is "The Playwright and The Panel: Improving Theatrical Discourse" and will be moderated by Doug Howe @NITEcorp—who like all of our moderators, authors, and content producers—self-selected to peer-produce on this commons-based platform! This hour-long Howl will take place on Thursday, March 13 on hashtag #newplay at 11am PDT (Vancouver) / 1pm CDT (Austin) / 2pm EDT (New York) / 18:00 GMT (London) / 7pm CET (Berlin). On Thursday, get heard in the conversation by searching for #newplay in Twitter (sort by “all”) and by putting “#newplay” somewhere in your messages. Spread the word!

This week's conversation topic is "How Universal is Your Writing?" and will be moderated by Ross Howard @rhplaywright and Samuel French, Inc. @mrsamuelfrench—who like all of our moderators, authors, and content producers—self-select to peer-produce on this commons-based platform! This hour-long Howl will take place on Thursday, February 27 on hashtag #newplay at 11am PST (Vancouver) / 1pm CST (Austin) / 2pm EST (New York) / 7:00pm GMT (London) / 8pm CET (Berlin). On Thursday, get heard in the conversation by searching for #newplay in Twitter (sort by “all”) and by putting “#newplay” somewhere in your messages. Spread the word!