A Short Guide To Writing About Theatre

Intended to illuminate the importance of theatre and performance in daily life by engaging students with dramatic material, A Short Guide to Writing about Theatre is a succinct introduction to the skills required to write knowledgeably and critically about the theatre. A succinct introduction to the skills required to write knowledgeably and critically about the theatre. KEY TOPICS: Illuminates the importance of theatre and performance in daily life with dramatic material, Addresses the practical elements of review, analysis, criticism, and research, Incorporates a blend of professional and student essays as models of successful writing, Thorough writing instruction, Comprehensive glossary, Covers criticism and genre writing. MARKET: Intro to Theatre, Writing across the disciplines.

To write for the theatre you need to know about theatre. Ideas are easy to come by. Examine your background, interest, and beliefs. Examine the world around you. Exercises can help you come up with ideas. Choose the audience you want to reach and write to that audience. To learn to write dialogue listen to and record everyday conversations. Dialogue should sound like ordinary conversations but has more direction. Know as much as you can about your central characters. Do a character analysis. Choose the character traits to emphasize. A character should come across as both typical and individual. Most plays have a plot, which involves conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist. The parts of a plot are: inciting incident, rising action, turning point, climax, and falling action. Other types of organization for a play are circular and thematic. Before starting to write, you need to develop a central idea. Plays exist for a number of reasons—entertainment, to bring attention to something, and to teach. You need to decide what you want to accomplish. It’s easier to gain an audience’s interest if you start with a theme they agree with. A play needs a sense of universality. A play should be unified, but it also needs contrast. Since theatre is a collaborative art, the director, actor, and designers may see the different facets differently than you do. It’s not difficult to have a well-written produced. Possible markets are schools, organizations, and professional theatre. Finished plays have to follow a particular format. About the Expert Marsh Cassady has had thirty-eight plays published and/or produced—including Off-Broadway. A former theatre professor with a Ph.D. degree, he started a playwriting program at Montclair State in New Jersey that included beginning and advanced classes, workshops, and individual projects. He also taught creative writing, including playwriting, at UCSD. Marsh is the author of sixty published books in a variety of genres from theatre textbooks to novels to true crime, and hundreds of shorter pieces. For about thirty-five years he led all-genre writing workshops in San Diego and in Rosarito, BC, Mexico, where he has lived since 1997. HowExpert publishes quick 'how to' guides on all topics from A to Z by everyday experts.

This book is intended for art courses where there is a writing component. Would you like your students to have the tools to write confidently about art? This best-selling text has guided tens of thousands of art students through the writing process. Students are shown how to analyze pictures (drawings, paintings, photographs), sculptures and architecture, and are prepared with the tools they need to present their ideas through effective writing. This text includes: Coverage of essential writing assignments includes formal analysis, comparison, research paper, review of an exhibition, essay examination; Clear step-by-step writing instructions guide students though the research and writing processes, showing students how to use the terminology of art history, and how to cite sources, solve issues of style, and use proper manuscript form; Sample essays, with analytic comments by the author, demonstrate the strengths of effective writing [Publisher description]

New features of this edition include: chapters on critical approaches and evaluation of literature expanded checklists for writing and reading a new sample research paper the most current MLA guidelines

What makes tragedy tragic? What makes comedy comic? What does Much Ado About Nothing have in common with When Harry Met Sally? Seneca with Desperate Housewives? Goldoni with Frasier? In Genre: A Guide to Writing for Stage and Screen Andrew Tidmarsh explores these questions and more. Investigating how the relationship between form and content brings endless discoveries and illuminations about how narrative works, this entertaining and accessible book looks at how storytelling in film and theatre has evolved and how an appreciation of form can bring the writer, director or actor a solid foundation and a sense of security, which ultimately assists the creative process. Including genre-specific exercises in every chapter helping the reader to write and devise, Genre: A Guide to Writing for Stage and Screen is for all those with an interest in story and can be used by writers, actors and directors alike – whether students or experienced professionals – to make the blank page appear less terrifying.

Designed for English literature survey courses at the university level. A Short Guide to Writing About Literature, provides useful guidance and a comprehensive introduction to writing about stories, plays, poems, essays, and films from a Canadian perspective, using Canadian examples.

What do you do if you find yourself weeping in the stalls? How should you react to Jude Law's trousers or David Tennant's hair? Are you prepared to receive toilet paper in the post? What if the show you just damned turns out to be a classic? If you gave it a five-star rave will anyone believe you? Drawing on his long years of experience as a national newspaper critic, Mark Fisher answers such questions with candour, wit and insight. Learning lessons from history's leading critics and taking examples from around the world, he gives practical advice about how to celebrate, analyse and discuss this most ephemeral of art forms - and how to make your writing come alive as you do so. Today, more people than ever are writing about theatre, but whether you're blogging, tweeting or writing an academic essay, your challenges as a critic remain the same: how to capture a performance in words, how to express your opinions and how to keep the reader entertained. This inspirational book shows you the way to do it. Foreword by Chris Jones, Chief theater critic, Chicago Tribune

One of the world's leading children's dramatists provides a practical handbook of the skills involved in entertaining and involving audiences of children. A marvelous contribution to the world of Youth Theater...a must. —Robyn Flatt, Dallas Children's Theater. He has often been called the National Playwright for Children and he deserves it. —Cameron Mackintosh