How to Become a Play Writer

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Laura Turner, and today I'm going to talk to you about how to become a play writer. A lot of times people do make the mistake of calling a play write a play writer. But play write actually how it's spelled is playwright, which actually has a lot of significance, and means that the playwright is someone who crafts plays, much like a wheelwright or a wainwright would do. So you actually have a reason for spelling it that way. How to become a play write is sort of a complicated process, first of all, you have to get into the theater. You have to start going to the theater. You have to start deciding what kind of plays you like and what kind of plays you don't like, so that you actually know what you want to write and actually sit down to write, next you actually have to read plays, to sit down and see how plays are formatted because plays are very different from novels and stories and things that we might generally read for pleasure on a larger scale. So read many plays. Next, you're going to want to actually get involved in the theater and the backstage aspects of how a theater runs, how a play is put on. Get involved in your theater and volunteer to work backstage. Do some acting. Actually get out there on stage and be on stage and see what it feels like and feel what it feels like to be an actor and to be reading dialog. And then finally try your hand at writing some dialog. Obviously of course you can write before you've done any of this stuff, but really to be a good play write you're going to have to sit down and actually write your own dialog after you have sort of taken in the whole world of the theater and really know what's going on. Also you can read books on playwriting. I recommend, "Playwriting: The Structure of Action" by Sam Smiley, which actually teaches from "The Six Elements of Drama and Aristotle". And you know, you can also get sort of text books like this one, "Playwriting: The First Workshop". It has some fun little exercises and published plays actually in here to show you examples. We here have an example from a play called "Leave Taking" that you can actually read examples from plays and then give yourself lessons, you know, on how to write them. There are many books like this. You may not be able to find this exact book, but you'll find something like it. If you are uncomfortable doing it all by yourself, you might want to join a playwriting workshop, have your work read aloud and commented on or take a playwriting class. And finally once you've written your play, you want to actually have actors read it for you so that you can see and feel what your play is doing and how it needs to be better and how it can communicate better and then you can actually of course go back and revise the play over and over and over again and really get introduced to the life of a play write."