Playwriting 101: A link with tons of information

http://www.playwriting101.com

Follow this link to learn more about considerations of playwriting. If you find other worthwhile links, please add them here.

Theatre is always about pushing the envelope. Doing things in new and creative ways is always what “theatre people” are looking for, so the playwriting form is not set in stone. However, learning from reading other plays is important for those who are serious about pursuing this form.

Andrea

Re: Playwriting 101: A link with tons of information

I have been circling around maybe rather writing a play then a screenplay for quite a while. When I was young, there was one very famous German writing author (he's Swiss) I used to read. He's one of our greatest (old school) play writers I know about, Friedrich Duerrenmatt.

He is a play writer who didn't only write for the stage, his plays are a joy to read as well (actually, I never saw any of his plays, those I know of him I know through reading).

I used to do a nonsense magazine with friends many years ago, and we did some completely hilarious playwriting together for that. I've always loved the format. I think, when I got interested in doing screenplay, I never realized all you needed to include, the scenes I see before my eyes are much simpler. It's only a little step from there to start thinking about doing it on a stage instead. Ah, freedom!  :) 

I'll sit on this a bit longer, I don't want anything to interfere with my BIG project I'll talk about soon in the tree house, but I think I might need some play time too, and experiment with different forms and writing in English to not loose touch here, so I'm diving into finding out some basic stuff about playwriting and will share what I come up with here. And whatever scenes occur, of course, should I give it a shot.

Some basics I found on one of the links:  Story Structure and Write to be Read

Chapter 3

Story Structure

Scenes or Acts?

Should you divide your play into acts, or just into scenes? It's really a matter of personal taste, as long as you recognize a few basic principles of play construction and why we have these divisions in the first place.

Virtually all plays, as much as we rail against the way some screenwriters have turned this into a cookie-cutter, divide into what has come to be called three-act structure. Here's where you get to impress your friends with your fancy verbiage:

• The first act is the Protasis, or exposition.
• The second act is the Epitasis, or complication.
• The final act is the Catastrophe, or resolution.

Just as in screenwriting format, the middle act is the longest. Aristotle (384-322 BCE.), whose Poetics represented his collected observations on dramatic structure and playwriting based on the practice of Greek dramatists, is largely credited for three-act structure and has had long-lasting influence on playwriting. Want to really, really impress your friends? Tell them Aristotle didn't say anything about three Unities.

Exposition

The first act of a dramatic structure, in which the main conflict and characters are “exposed” or revealed. Also, any information about the characters, conflict or world of the play.

Complication

The second act of a three-act dramatic structure, in which “the plot thickens,” peaking at its end.

Resolution

The third act of a dramatic structure, in which the conflict comes to some kind of conclusion: the protagonist either gets it or doesn't.