Playwright

A playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person

who writes dramatic literature or drama. These works
may be written specically to be performed by actors, or
they may be closet dramas - simple literary works - written using dramatic forms, but not meant for performance.

(melodia), and Spectacle (lusis). The ends of drama were

plot, character, and thought, the means of drama were
language and music, and the manner of presentation a
spectacle. Since the myths, upon which Greek tragedy
were based, were widely known, plot had to do with the
arrangement and selection of existing material. Character was equated with choice as rather than psychology,
so that character was determined by action. In tragedy,
the notion of ethical choice determined the character of
the individual. Thought had more to do with arguments
and rhetorical strategies rather than theme as it would today. Language and music were the material means of
drama, much like paint and brushes are the means of
the painter. Aristotles methodology was inductive and
based on reading the great tragedians of his day. In other
words, he developed his theories from the plays themselves, rather than beginning with a theoretical approach.
As such, it was not intended as dogma (as it would later
become), but written as a guide describing best practices.
His denition of tragedy as the imitation of an action
that is serious, and so forth, brought with it the concept
of mimesis (from real life). Thus, he developed his notion of hamartia, or tragic aw, an error in judgment by
the main character or protagonist. It provides the basis
for the conict-driven play, a term still held as the sine
qua non of dramaturgy. The Poetics, while very brief and
highly condensed, are still studied today.

Etymology

The term is not a variant spelling of playwrite, but

something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder (as in a
wheelwright or cartwright). Hence the prex and the
sux combine to indicate someone who has wrought
words, themes, and other elements into a dramatic form someone who crafts plays. The homophone with write
is in this case entirely coincidental.
The term playwright appears to have been coined by Ben
Jonson in his Epigram 49, To Playwright,[1] as an insult, to suggest a mere tradesman fashioning works for the
theatre. Jonson described himself as a poet, not a playwright, since plays during that time were written in meter
and so were regarded as the province of poets. This view
was held as late as the early 19th century. The term playwright later lost this negative connotation.

Perhaps the most Aristotelian of contemporary playwrights is David Mamet, who embraces the idea of character as agent of the action, and emphasizes causality
in the structure of his plays. His recently revived, SpeedThe earliest playwrights in Western literature with sur- the-Plow, is quintessentially Aristotelian, in that it both
viving works are the Ancient Greeks. These early observes the unities (with exception of Act Is change in
plays were written for annual Athenian competitions place) and builds its plot through a causal stream of disamong playwrights[2] held around the 5th century BC. coveries and reversals.
Such notables as Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and
Aristophanes established forms still relied on by their
modern counterparts. For the ancient Greeks, playwrit- 2.2 Neoclassical theory
ing involved poesis, the act of making. This is the
The Italian Renaissance brought about a stricter interpresource of our word poet.
tation of Aristotle, as this long-lost work came to light
in the late 15th century. The neoclassical ideal, which
was to reach its apogee in France during the 17th century,
2.1 Aristotles Poetics
dwelled upon the unities, of action, place, and time. This
In the 4th Century BC, Aristotle wrote his Poetics, the meant that the playwright had to construct the play so that
rst play-writing manual. In this famous text, Aristotle its virtual time would not exceed 24 hours, that it would
established the principle of action or praxis as the ba- be restricted to a single setting, and that there would be no
sis for all drama. He then included a hierarchy of ele- subplots. Other terms, such as verisimilitude and decoments for the drama beginning with plot (mythos), Char- rum, circumscribed the subject matter signicantly. For
acter (ethos), Thought (dianoia), Diction (lexis), Music example, verisimilitude dened that characters were to

Early playwrights and playwriting theory

4 CONTEMPORARY PLAYWRIGHTS IN AMERICA

the most schematic of all formats, the "well-made play"
relies on a series of coincidences (for better or worse) that
determined the action. This plot driven format is often reliant on a prop device, such as a glass of water,[4] or letter
that reveals some secret information. In most cases, the
character receiving the secret information misinterprets
its contents, thus setting o a chain of events. Well-made
plays are thus motivated by various plot devices which
lead to discoveries and reversals of action, rather than
being character motivated. Henrik Ibsen's A Dolls House
is an example of a well-made structure (built around the
discovery of Krogstads letter) that began to integrate a
more realistic approach to character. Ironically, the character Noras leaving is as much motivated by the letter
and disclosure of a past secret as it is by her own determination to strike out on her own. The well-made play
inltrated other forms of writing and is still seen in popular formats such as the mystery, or whodunit.

3 Play formats
William Shakespeare

be based upon the ideal of a type versus what might be

considered realistic. It also prohibited actions that might
not be considered possible within the limits of the unities. Decorum tted proper protocols for behavior and
language on stage. In France, Jean Racine in tragedy, and
Molire, comedy, were purveyors of the unities and other
strictures. Corneille on the other hand was condemned by
the French Academy when his play Le Cid contained too
many events and actions, thus, violating the 24-hour restriction of the unity of time. Neoclassicism never had
as much traction in England, and Shakespeare's plays are
directly opposed to these models, while in Italy, improvised and bawdy commedia dell'arte and opera were more
popular forms. In England, after the Interregnum, and
restoration of the monarchy in 1660, there was a move
toward neoclassical tragedy, but this was never popular.
A notable example is John Dryden's All for Love, based
on Shakespeares Antony and Cleopatra, which attempts
to compress the sprawl of action and multiple settings,
including both Egypt and Rome, to a single place and 24hour time frame.

Full-length play: Generally, two or three acts with an act

break (intermission or interval) that marks some kind of
scene change or time shift. Usually these acts are divided
into scenes, which are also dened by shifts in time and
place. This type of structure is called episodic. Episodic
plays often contain scene changes and require careful attention to transitions, so as to maintain ow and continuity. Classical structure entails a more causal relationship
between units and is often dened by the unity of time,
place, and/or action.
Short play: A more popular format recently, the short
play does not have an intermission and generally runs over
an hour, but less than an hour-and-a-half. One-act play:
A useful form for experimental work (the absurdists made
the form popular) with less reliance on character development and arc. Generally, these remain under an hour
in length.

in the US the 10-minute play has been popularized over

the past 20 years, and is now a staple at most play festivals
and play contests. These take on a number of approaches
from the traditional conict-driven to the very experimental. Useful in play-writing workshops, and with beginning playwrights since the format requires rigor, such
a format can be processed or produced without onerous
One structural unit that is still useful to playwrights today, technical requirements.
is the "French scene", which is a scene in a play where the
beginning and end are marked by a change in the makeup
of the group of characters onstage, rather than by the 4 Contemporary playwrights in
lights going up or down or the set being changed.[3]

America

2.3

Well-made play

Contemporary playwrights in the United States often do

not reach the same level of fame or cultural importance
Popularized in the nineteenth-century by the French play- as others did in the past. No longer the only outlet for sewrights Eugene Scribe and Victorien Sardou, and perhaps rious drama or entertaining comedies, theatrical produc-

3
tions must compete for an audience with lms, television,
and the Internet. In addition, the perilous state of funding
for the arts in the United States and a growing reliance
by non-prot theatres with ticket sales as a source of income, has caused many of them to reduce the number
of new works being produced. For example, Playwrights
Horizons produced only six plays in the 2002-03 seasons,
compared with thirty-one in 1973-74.[5] As revivals and
large-scale production musicals become the de rigueur of
Broadway (and even O-Broadway) productions, playwrights nd it dicult to earn a living in the business,
let alone achieve major successes.

sult of an increasingly dicult economy. Nevertheless,

most new plays that are produced in New York go through
some kind of assiduous development process, and rare
is the play that shows up on a producers desk that gains
any traction. On Broadway, this has happened in the past
year with Martin McDonagh's A Behanding in Spokane
and Mamet's Race although these shows were packaged
with stars (Christopher Walken in the former) and with
playwrights who are well established in the profession.

6 See also
List of playwrights

New play development in America

In an eort to develop new American voices in playwriting, a phenomenon known as new play development began to emerge in the early-to-mid-1980s, and continues
through today. Many regional theatres have hired dramaturges and literary managers in an eort to showcase
various festivals for new work, or bring in playwrights
for residencies. Funding through national organizations,
such as the National Endowment for the Arts and the
Theatre Communications Group, encouraged the partnerships of professional theatre companies and emerging
playwrights. Play development as a term has a variety
of applications. It usually denes the period after an initial draft has been written, when the play is workshopped
with a group of actors and director, and then prepared
for a reading. The latter is called a staged reading, which
suggests the play has been rehearsed several times prior to
the reading; although there is no hard and fast rule about
this.
New Dramatists and The Lark in New York, for example, will often have a cold reading of a script in an informal sitdown setting. A cold reading means that the
actors haven't rehearsed the work, or may be seeing it
for the rst time. Festivals of 10-minute plays, popularized by the Humana Festival in Louisville, KY, have
become a staple of many play contests. Many plays can
be rehearsed in a brief amount of time, and usually, the
technical requirements are minimal. Shenandoah and the
O'Neill Festival oer summer retreats for playwrights to
develop their work with directors and actors in a totally
devoted setting.
There has been a backlash over the past ten years with
the formation of Playwriting Collectives like 13P and
Clubbed Thumb who have gathered members together to
produce, rather than develop, new works. This has been
a reaction to the developed to death notion in which
the play never gets produced, but goes through endless
readings and critiques that after a certain point become
counter-productive. In this decade, many literary departments have been eliminated in regional theatres as the re-

Play (theatre)
Screenwriter

7 References
[1] Jonson, Ben, ''The Works of Ben Jonson'', Boston:
Phillips, Sampson, and Co., 1853. page 788. Luminarium.org. 2003-08-10. Retrieved 2012-04-23.
[2] Fraser, Neil. Theatre History Explained, The Cowood
Press, 2004, page 11
[3] George, Kathleen (1994) Playwriting: The First Workshop, Focal Press, ISBN 978-0-240-80190-2, p. 154.
[4] See Eugene Scribe's play A Glass of Water.
[5] Alexis Soloski (2003-05-20). Alexis Soloski, The Plays
What They Wrote: The Best Scripts Not Yet Mounted on
a New York Stage, ''The Village Voice'', May 21 - 27,
2003. Villagevoice.com. Retrieved 2012-04-23.

8 External links
Play Submissions Helper, The Play Submissions
Helper Blog

9 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

9.1

Text

Playwright Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playwright?oldid=639142130 Contributors: SimonP, Heron, KF, Ahoerstemeier, Angela, Rossami, Pladask, Furrykef, Paul-L, Robbot, DHN, Michael Snow, Tom harrison, Zigger, Everyking, Yekrats, Hob, Fishal, Utcursch,
CryptoDerk, Antandrus, Tothebarricades.tk, Ganymead, PFHLai, Yossarian, Oknazevad, Moverton, Rich Farmbrough, Qutezuce, Aranel,
El C, Rimshot, Bobo192, Shenme, Cmdrjameson, Stephen Bain, Alison9, Msh210, Arthena, Lmviterbo, EKMichigan, Prattora, Velho,
Blair P. Houghton, Before My Ken, Magister Mathematicae, Sj, Jake Wartenberg, Zozza, MarnetteD, RexNL, Ewlyahoocom, Wars,
BMF81, Hall Monitor, YurikBot, Wavelength, H005, Aaron Walden, Gaius Cornelius, NawlinWiki, Brace, Brian Olsen, Yoninah, Slarson, Mholland, Ejmeza, StuRat, Paul D. Anderson, SmackBot, BiT, Sebesta, Gilliam, Kurykh, Geneb1955, Rmt2m, Atacama, Viva-Verdi,
Earbox, Bardsandwarriors, Jiddisch, GuillaumeTell, Gennaro Prota, Xaserax, Joseph Solis in Australia, Courcelles, Travisl, Neelix, Cydebot, Fnlayson, Aristophanes68, 5300abc, Thijs!bot, Volodymir k, AntiVandalBot, Modernist, JAnDbot, Robert Guiscard, Dutton.42,
Raps307, ToKnow, A4, Khaled Khalil, Lelkesa, Killogwil, Shinnin, MartinBot, CliC, Anaxial, Numbo3, Aleksandr Grigoryev, VAcharon,
Szygny, JazzyGroove, Ryan032, Clarince63, GlobeGores, Abdullais4u, ^demonBot2, SieBot, Coee, Paul 1953, RJaguar3, Lycaone,
Lightmouse, Paulthain, Wahrmund, Nighthawk205, ClueBot, The Thing That Should Not Be, DionysosProteus, Drmies, Parkwells, Arunsingh16, TheMathemagician, Jaldsjk, JasonAQuest, Thingg, Aitias, 7, Pcastagn, Capotalina, Dthomsen8, SilvonenBot, Catgirl, HexaChord,
Kalahakana, Addbot, Captain-tucker, CBHA, NjardarBot, Cst17, Eivindbot, Tassedethe, Jojocool117, Legobot, Grebaldar, IW.HG, Ignitetheatre, Kookyunii, Jim1138, Galoubet, Materialscientist, Sketchmoose, , H falcon, Neojacob, Tobby72, Thayts, JellyBagelPS, RandomGuy666, Pinkcat2, Pinethicket, Nanda16, Weekeepeer, Louisep39, Lotje, Fletcher Tomalty, Satdeep gill, Andrea105,
Rwood128, EmausBot, Orphan Wiki, Moswento, Wikipelli, K6ka, Cnnrules, DelianDiver, Neechalkaran, Solus ipse Inc., Orange Suede
Sofa, AndyTheGrump, Tia.SASHA, ClueBot NG, Widr, MerlIwBot, Gothiclm, MusikAnimal, Lord Bromblemore, GoShow, Khazar2,
Adamantadam, 069952497a, Berlin44, WillJonassen, BethNaught and Anonymous: 201

9.2

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