New Play Development

"This is a book for dramaturgs of new work, but it is also a particularly effective book for anyone working on new plays: playwrights, directors, producers, even actors. Lenora skillfully dissects the process of workshopping new writing, and clearly defines the roles for all involved. I learned not only how to make a new play workshop more effective, but how to approach my writing and my directing, and how to meaningfully collaborate with others in this unique process. This is a necessary handbook for anyone working on new plays today." --Anne Marie Cammarato, Director

"This is a book for dramaturgs of new work, but it is also a particularly effective book for anyone working on new plays: playwrights, directors, producers, even actors. Lenora skillfully dissects the process of workshopping new writing, and clearly defines the roles for all involved. I learned not only how to make a new play workshop more effective, but how to approach my writing and my directing, and how to meaningfully collaborate with others in this unique process. This is a necessary handbook for anyone working on new plays today." --Anne Marie Cammarato, Director

Many theatres host post-show discussions, or talkbacks, as part of their season. This book is a critical examination of what has/has not worked with post-show discussions utilized in new play development, providing a framework for understanding discussions, steps for building the foundation of them, and various strategies for structuring them.

Play is an important part of our development. In playing, we learn to move, think, speak and imagine, as well as cope with other people. This second edition of The Development of Play addresses these key functions that play serves. David Cohen examines how children play with objects, with language, and most importantly, with each other and their parents. He goes on to ask why we stop playing, and looks at adult games. The Development of Play argues that psychology has accepted too uncritically the Victorian opposition of work and play, and argues that adults can learn to play more. With its extensive account of recent work in this area, this book is the most up-to-date work on the importance of play and will be of interest to child psychologists, developmental psychologists, and a wide number of professionals involved with children.

(Limelight). " The invaluable Working on a New Play ...arrived, to my overwhelming delight and mental profit; I began and finished it in one long, insatiable, and educational night. Everything in it is new, illuminating and informative, lively and clarifying." Cynthia Ozick

Directors can use this unique guidebook for new play development from the beginning to the end of the process. Kahn and Breed explore ways of choosing new projects, talk about where to find new scripts, and explore the legal aspects of script development. They present a detailed system for theatrical analysis of the new script and show how to continue exploration and development of the script within the laboratory of the theatre. Most importantly, they delineate the parameters of the relationship between the director and the playwright, offering proven methods to help the playwright and to facilitate the healthy development of the script. Kahn and Breed offer suggestions on casting, incorporating rewrites, and script handling plus how and when to use audience response and how to decide what step to take next. They also include extended interviews with developmental directors, dramaturgs, and playwrights, who give credence to the new script development process.

“Tyler Evans was a beloved best friend, grandson, mentor, and (almost) husband.” “Tyler Evans was a young Black man killed by a police officer.” Goodnight, Tyler is the ghost-love story of Tyler Evans, a dead Black man who wants to be remembered for who he was rather than how he died. Only able to speak with his childhood best friend, Davis, Tyler demands his “legacy” be protected. He wants to make peace before he leaves behind Chelsea, his fiancée; Drew, his college buddy; and his grandmother, Fannie (all of whom consider themselves Tyler’s “favorite”). When Shana, a local college student, shows up at the house with an old jacket of his, Tyler quickly loses control over the narrative of his life. His loved ones fight over his affection, his best friend spirals into deep denial, his student doesn’t understand why he hangs around so many white people. Now left behind, these five people struggle to learn how to love each other. In a story about loss, intimacy, fear, and white supremacy, Tyler comes face-to-face with the reality of whose grief matters and whose lives matter most.

This book provides new theoretical insights to our understanding of play as a cultural activity. All chapters address play and playful activities from a cultural-historical theoretical approach by re-addressing central claims and concepts in the theory and providing new models and understandings of the phenomenon of play within the framework of cultural historical theory. Empirical studies cover a wide range of institutional settings: preschool, school, home, leisure time, and in various social relations (with peers, professionals and parents) in different parts of the world (Europe, Australia, South America and North America). Common to all chapters is a goal of throwing new light on the phenomenon of playing within a theoretical framework of cultural-historical theory. Play as a cultural, collective, social, personal, pedagogical and contextual activity is addressed with reference to central concepts in relation to development and learning. Concepts and phenomena related to ZPD, the imaginary situation, rules, language play, collective imagining, spheres of realities of play, virtual realities, social identity and pedagogical environments are presented and discussed in order to bring the cultural-historical theoretical approach into play with contemporary historical issues. Essential as a must read to any scholar and student engaged with understanding play in relation to human development, cultural historical theory and early childhood education.