The Art of Writing Drama.
- 1st ed.
- 1 online resource (196 pages)
- Professional Media Practice Series .
- Professional Media Practice Series .
Cover -- Contents -- Introduction -- Learning to write drama -- Creative writing and drama -- Backgrounds -- After censorship -- Positioning dramatic writing -- From imagination to page and stage -- Writing drama per se - the complete text -- The Death of the Author and the birth of the dramatist -- Drama - the 'complete' text -- Received clichés -- Chapter One: Drama - the apparently incomplete text -- Drama as collaborative art -- Writing drama as an imaginative mode of thought -- Drama as a visual medium -- Drama as the novel manqué -- Conclusions -- The compleat dramatist -- Chapter Two: The emergence of the dramatist and drama in education -- Drama and education -- Teaching drama after World War Two -- After censorship, new dramatists and new drama -- Chapter Three: The performance text -- Theory -- Anthropology -- Performance and meaning -- Audience as political and social entity -- Theatre and semiotics -- Competence and performance -- The performance triumvirate -- Performance theory and the Death of the Author -- The Death of the Author and the fourth wall -- Audience as active -- Conclusions -- Chapter Four: The text from the other side: director and performer -- The director -- The performer, acting and the text -- The fourth wall -- After Stanislavsky - new objectivism -- Conclusions: performance and immediacy -- Chapter Five: The novel and the drama -- Size matters -- Narrative voice, point of view, character and subjectivity -- Poly-vocality and the dialogic -- Narrative, structure and causality -- Chapter Six: Methods of teaching - the workshop -- Early workshop history -- The tutorial precedent -- Workshop pedagogy -- Authority -- Workshop practice and power-relations -- Criticism and value judgement -- Training professional writers versus self-expression -- The workshop as a House of Correction -- The workshop as therapy group. Theatre workshops -- Conclusions -- Chapter Seven: The concepts in how-to books on dramatic writing -- Action or character? -- Action, conflict and crisis (actions speak louder than words) -- Character -- Premise, idea, vision, theme -- Scenario -- Dialogue -- Narrative and causality -- Drama and creative writing -- Conclusions - dialogue - the absent centre -- Chapter Eight: Stage directions -- Main or subsidiary -- From directions to performance -- Extradialogic stage directions -- Extra- and intra-dialogic stage directions -- Conclusions -- Chapter Nine: The compleat dramatist - preparing to write -- Copyright -- The story so far -- From prose to dialogue -- Narrative through dialogue -- Monologue and character -- Monologue and prose -- Chapter Ten: The text - dialogue and relationships -- Dialogue, action and speech acts -- Dialogue and voicing -- Dialogue - turn-taking, exchange -- Reaction and interaction: dialogue and relationships -- Response as the condition of dialogue -- Relationships and character -- Chapter Eleven: Teaching and learning the art of writing drama -- Aims and boundaries -- Chapter Twelve: The pedagogic process -- Overheard conversations -- Languages and individual resources -- Words on the page, in the air and on the floor -- Scenes on the air and behind the fourth wall -- Analysis and possibility -- Plan, event, conflict and subtext -- Time and place -- Structural imperatives - beginning, middle and end -- Immediacy, pivot and exposition -- Example: narrative and causality -- Structure -- Pivot -- Chapter Thirteen: Subject matter, character and follow-up -- Subject matter, theme and message -- Character -- Rewriting and further writing -- After class -- Chapter Fourteen: Culture and representation -- Gender as a case study -- Women dramatists -- Chapter Fifteen: Conclusions -- Bibliography.
The Art of Writing Drama by acclaimed dramatist Michelene Wandor is both a scholarly and immensely practical guide to writing for the stage that couples theory with practical guidance and exercises.