Chapter 6
The Playwright and the
Script
The One Who Builds
Chris Bennion
The root word wright in playwright comes from
the Middle Ages and means “one who builds.”
A shipwright builds ships; a wheelwright builds
wheels. A playwright builds plays.
The Primary Artist
Theatre begins with the playwright, the artist
who conceives the theme, the characters,
the dialogue, and the story. Playwrights are
so important to the process that many
theatre professionals call them the “primary
artist.”
“The writer is the person who was there
when the paper was white.”
-- Moss Hart, playwright
The Playwright’s Life and Words
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Copyright
What are some of the basic differences
between playwrights and screenwriters?
Closed shop union
Open show union
If screenwriters can make so much more
money, why become a playwright?
Non-professional rights YF

FEE: $75 per performance. SPECIAL NOTE
ON SONG: An additional fee of $5.00 per
nonprofessional performance is required
for use of the song "Shall We Dance?"
SPECIAL NOTE ON MUSIC: A CD, "People
and Nature in Harmony: Dong Folk
Songs," containing music for this play is
required for production. The cost is
$20.00, plus shipping and handling. There
is no additional fee for the use of this
The Art of Playwriting
•Dialogue
•Stage directions
•Parentheticals
AP Photo/Kathy Willens
The Theme in a Play
AP Photo/Kathy Willens
Themes are statements about the central
ideas that generate the life of the play
The Theme in a Play
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Themes that are revealed through action
are theatrically more interesting than
those that are explicitly stated.
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Themes are often open to interpretation
by the directors, designers and actors and
by the audience as well.
Characters in Action

Characters come to
life not by what
they feel and think
but by what they
say and do.

Actions are the
characters’ deeds.
SARA KRULWICH/The New York Times/Redux Pictures
Four Sources of Character Info
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Dialogue
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Stage directions
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Parentheticals
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Action (what the character actually does)
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
Clues given by playwright, but the actor does the
action
Actions can be physical (external) or psychological
(internal)

Plays are about
people with needs
and desires and
obstacles preventing
them from what they
want.

Desire + obstacle x
lack of compromise =
conflict
Photostage
Conflict as Catalyst
The Art of Language
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
text
subtext
listening
imagery
music
a. rhythm
b. tempo
c. tone
Jennie Franks
Dialogue begins with the need to talk. How
is this realized by the playwright?
Genre
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A category of an artistic work that has a
particular form, style, or subject matter
The rules of the world of the play
Plotting the Story
Many plays and screenplays follow a
blueprint: Oedipus Rex, Romeo and Juliet, A
Raisin in the Sun, and Star Wars.
Scenes are the building blocks to
construct a plot

Introduction
 Status

quo
Inciting incident
 Dramatic
Question
Rising Action
 Crisis, Turning Point
Or Climax
Falling action
Resolution and Conclusion

Formula Plots
1. Beginning
A. Exposition or back story
B. Protagonist and antagonist
C. Event – unique moment
D. Status Quo and Disturbance or
Inciting Incident
E. Point of Attack – Protagonist makes
a decision that results in conflict
F. Major Dramatic Question
Formula Plots
A. Rising Action
B. Conflicts- Struggle of
opposing forces
C. Crisis – events that
make it necessary for
protagonist to take
action
D. Complications obstacles
E. Dark Moment – “make
it worse”
Joan Marcus
2. The Middle – path of most resistance
Formula Plots
3. The End
A. Enlightenment
B. Climax –
protagonist
can resolve
their conflict
C. Denouement
– resolution,
new status
quo
Exposition
Exposition
Status Quo
Event
Disturbance
Point of Attack – Luke decides
Complications
Conflict/Complications
Crisis – to take action
Dark Moment
Dark Moment
Enlightenment
Hans Solo comes back to rescue Luke
 Use the force Luke

Climax
Loose end, lack of conclusion
Denouement
Denouement
Plots Outside the Formula
Writers who abandon
formula often try to
look at life the way it
is, or as they perceive
it, rather than fit it into
a standard structure:
Joan Marcus
• Waiting for Godot
• ‘night Mother
• Pulp Fiction
What the Playwrights Say
“We’re one of the last handmade art forms. There’s no
fast way to make plays. It takes just as long and is just
as hard as it was a thousand years ago.”
Steven Dietz, playwright
“The very impulse to write, I think, springs from an inner
chaos crying for order, for meaning, and that meaning
must be discovered in the process of writing or the work
lies dead as it is finished.”
Arthur Miller, playwright
Curtain Call
In the theatre, the playwright is the Primary
Artist. Yet, unlike the actors, director, designers,
or producer, the playwright is the only member
of the theatrical ensemble that can be long
dead.
A playwright’s life may be difficult, but they
know the joy of sole authorship and find great
satisfaction in communicating their ideas without
alteration.