Playwriting

Question 1

artistotle’s 6 key elements of a play

Answer 1

1. spectacle (visible part of play)
2. sound (audible part of play)
3. diction (language)
4. character (person in play)
5. reasoning (the way speech is used to present aspects/emotions of a play)
6. plot (action/events of a play)

Question 2

how to write for stage?

Answer 2

• theme
• genre
• structure and formatting
• characters
• language and dialogue

Question 3

theme (and the clothesline analogy for theme)

Answer 3

• question planted in audience’s mind at beginning of play (in set-up) and answered during climax
• ie. August Osage county, what goes around comes around, mortality, animal insticts, etc.
• clothesline: the themes of each scene (the clothes) must connect to the greater theme of the play (fit onto the clothesline)

Question 4

different playwriting genres

Answer 4

1. comedy and tragedy
2. farce
3. docu-drama
4. realism
5. naturalism
6. absurdism
7. collective creation

Question 5

genres -> comedy and tragedy

Answer 5

• comedy: protag attains objective

- tragedy: protag doesn’t attain objective

Question 6

genres -> farce

Answer 6

emphasizes plot over characters and ideas

Question 7

genres -> docu-drama

Answer 7

dramatizes actual events

Question 8

genres -> realism

Answer 8

characters are believable, employment of fourth wall

Question 9

genres -> naturalism

Answer 9

heightened form of realism, takes place in a single location in real time

Question 10

genres -> absurdism

Answer 10

characters in a hopeless situation, dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense

Question 11

genres -> collective creation

Answer 11

developing a play as a group, with or without a playwright

Question 12

2 types of playwriting structures

Answer 12

• traditional/linear: conventional plot diagram (Freytag’s pyramid)
• associative: all scenes connect to one central idea/theme

Question 13

stage directions

Answer 13

• helpful for blocking

- write what we see, what we hear that’s not dialogue, and what we need to understand the story

Question 14

characters

Answer 14

• must have ACTIVE wants and needs
• come to life through what they DO and SAY
• engaging ones TRANSFORM
• be specific (round characters)

Question 15

4 key functions of dialogue

Answer 15

• characterizations: speech patterns, habits, vocabulary
• communication: what characters say (when, how, and to whom) to propel the plot forward
• exposition: key info SHOWN, not spoken
• description: atmosphere, building the world of the play

Question 16

Lucinda Coxon on dialogue

Answer 16

• when characters speak with urgency, it translates into tension
• dialogue is CHARACTER, it is PLOT, but above all, it is ACTION
• the best exercise for writing dialogue is reading other people’s