I.    Playwright is a storyteller

        A.    Actors, directors and designers can't do their work until playwright has written script

        B.    Performance is a collaboration of many, but it is the playwright's play

        C.    Few plays are developed from improvisation

II.    Playwright's process

        A.    Imagine a story and the characters

        B.    Decide what parts of the story to include in play

        C.    Plan the plot (sequence of scenes)

        D.    Write dialogue and stage directions

        E.    This process rarely happens

                1.    Playwrights think associatively, not sequentially

III.    Creative journey

        A.    Where do playwrights work?

                1.    In their heads

                2.    On paper

                3.    Whatever works

                4.    Noel Coward wrote Private Lives in 48 hours sitting in a hotel room in Shanghai

        B.    How are playwrights inspired?

                1.    An image appears

                        a.    Tennessee Williams saw a woman in slip under bare lightbulb before he wrote Streetcar

                2.    Begin with words

                        a.    Imagines a bit of dialogue and it expands associatively into a coherent pattern

        C.    The Plot

                1.    Aristotle said plot most important element

                2.    Glass Menagerie example

                3.    Plot Structure

                        a.    Linear

                                I.    Most common

                                       A.    Incidents arranged sequentially

                                       B.    First scene takes place near beginning of story

                                                1.    Trifles and Oedipus Rex follow this pattern

                                        C.    Two types

                                                1. Continuous linear plot (Oedipus)

                                                2. Episodic linear plot (Glass Menagerie) contains flashbacks and has gaps

                                         D.    Additional types

                                                1.    Simple plot (single story)

                                                2.    Complex plot (interweaves several stories)

                                II.    No type is better than another. But some plays lend themselves better to one type or another

                        b.    Cinematic

                                I.    Came about after the advent of film

                                       A.    Not in sequential order

                                        B.    Can be jumbled

                                        C.    Can contain various levels of reality (Death of a Salesman)

                        c.    Contextual

                                I.    Rare format

                                       A.    Series of different stories which can stand on their own but share a similar theme

                                        B.    Brecht's Private Life of the Master Race a good example

                                        C.    Similar to an album or CD having a theme with songs which could stand on their own

                                        D.    Reviews such as Side by Side by Sondheim or Jerry's Girls would fit in this category.

                                        E.    Also anthologies such as Spoon River Anthology

IV.    Technique

        A.    After choosing type of structure, playwright determines the plot sequence

                1.    Scenes are "bricks" playwright uses to build the story

        B.    Early scenes are called the introduction

                1.    Introduces characters

                2.    Provides exposition

                3.    Establishes status quo

                4.    Includes foreshadowing

        C.    Use actions

                1.    Anything that changes the status quo

                        a.    Door opens (physical action)

                        b.    Mind changes (mental action)

                        c.    Either just as important

                2.    A scene imitates a small action

                3.    Totality of scenes imitates a major action

                4.    Plot takes you on a journey from status quo to changed circumstances at end

        D.    Putting it together

                1.    At the end of introduction, ask the dramatic question (what is going to happen in this play?)

                        a.    What gives the play its forward motion

                        b.    Also called the inciting event

                        c.    Begins the rising action

                2.    Three-quarters of the way through most plays comes the crisis or turning point

                        a.    Event happens which changes course of story and leads to the answer of the dramatic question

                        b.    Frequently a decision made by the central character

                        c.    Marks beginning of the falling action

                3.    When, very late in the play, dramatic question is answered, the play reaches resolution

                4.    At the very end of the play, conclusion settles lesser questions which were raised and establishes new status quo

V.    Tools

        A.    Dialogue

                1.    Playwright's primary tool

                2.    Most of the words written in a play are dialogue

        B.    Stage directions

                1.    Sometimes implicit in dialgoue

                2.    Sometimes explicit

                        a.    G.B. Shaw famous for it

                3.    Some plays have no dialogue and consist only of stage directions

        C.    Characters

                1.    Aristotle defines character as "agent for the action"

                2.    Give body and coherence to dialogue and descriptions

        D.    Actions

                1.    What characters do to change status quo

VI.    Themes and Meaning

        A.    Theme is an abstract idea which exists outside the play as well as within it

                1.    An idea which can be talked or written about

         B.    Playwright's major concern is the idea expressed through plot of the play.  This is the play's meaning

                1.    Determine meaning by condensing plot to one sentence and making a generalization from that.

                        a.    Ex: Oeidipus Rexis the story of Oedipus, who tries to escape the fate that the oracle of Apollo tells him but who discovers to his horror that he has fulfilled it

                                by killing his father and marrying his mother.  Generalization: People are victims of their fate.