11.1: Classroom Lecture and Activity By Ukaisha Al-Amin

PLAYS

Just like all other forms of creative writing, this genre has different types. Plays are often defined by their length. This is important because they are performed live and the timing is everything. There are 10-minute plays, One act plays and full length plays. Usually if a play is longer than one act, it is considered full length. There are also musicals, one person shows, and interactive plays. Plays are written for the stage. So while they can be read, this is one form of writing that relies on another medium to complete it.

Plays, just like fiction we learned about in previous chapters has many different types and styles. People write plays for all sorts of reasons, but the biggest difference between plays and prose is that it is meant to be performed. This aspect alone will help you decide what you want to write.

What to write? Many playwrights like other writers like to share the experiences they’ve had or learned about closely. This is definitely the case for the famous playwright, August Wilson.

In an interview for the Paris Review in 2017 he said the following to the question about what drew him to theater.

“WILSON

I think it was the ability of the theater to communicate ideas and extol virtues that drew me to it. And also I was, and remain, fascinated by the idea of an audience as a community of people who gather willingly to bear witness. A novelist writes a novel and people read it. But reading is a solitary act. While it may elicit a varied and personal response, the communal nature of the audience is like having five hundred people read your novel and respond to it at the same time. I find that thrilling.

INTERVIEWER

When did you first become involved?

WILSON

In 1968, during the Black Power movement, when black Americans were, as one sociologist put it, “seeking ways to alter their relationship to the society and the shared expectations of themselves as a community of people.” As a twenty-three year old poet concerned about the world and struggling to find a place in it, I felt it a duty and an honor to participate in that search. With my good friend Rob Penny, I founded the Black Horizons Theater in Pittsburgh with the idea of using the theater to politicize the community or, as we said in those days, to raise the consciousness of the people.

INTERVIEWER

Does that mean you were looking for plays that dealt with those issues? What kind of plays did you produce?

WILSON

We did everything we could get our hands on. Scripts were rather scarce in 1968. We did a lot of Amiri Baraka’s plays, the agitprop stuff he was writing. It was at a time when black student organizations were active on the campuses so we were invited to the colleges around Pittsburgh and Ohio, and even as far away as Jackson, Mississippi.”

With this in mind, you might want to journal about moments if your life or the lives of people you know where a conflict got resolved.

Elements:

CHARACTER, DIALOGUE, PLOT, AND STORY

When the curtain goes up in the theater, this is when the suspension of disbelief should start for the audience. Suspension of disbelief is the extent to which the audience will believe what is happening on the stage in front of them. This element of creative writing is extremely important in plays because they are performed lived. The slightest thing can take the audience out of the moment. While we are studying the writing of the play, imagining what your play will look like live is important to keep in front of you. Your vision for your play is often the framework that you will use as you write the play. True, as a playwright, you might not direct your own play, but oftentimes, the director will work closely with the playwright in decisions on the page to stage process.

Character

You should develop your character for your play the same way you developed the character for your short story. In other words, there are going to be more plans and details about your character that you know than what is revealed. This means that as the writer, you should know everything about your character so that you can make the character come to life. On the stage, this happens mostly through dialogue and gestures for the writer. The rest of the emotion and the complexity is portrayed by the actor/actress and from the director's interpretation of the play. While this may seem that you don't have control, a lot can come through in the dialogue that readers will be able to see.

Dialogue

Dialogue is the main part of a script. What your character says and how they say it is very important. This means, more so than in poetry, each word should be chosen carefully. The dialogue is also directly linked to the setting and the personality of the character. You should keep this in mind as you write. The dialogue for each character should be distinct and when the dialogue is similar it should be intentional. For instance, if you have two best friends that grew up together, they may have similar dialogue, but if they have completely different personalities, this needs to be portrayed in the way they speak and as well as their gestures. This is one of the reasons why people that don't watch a lot of plays feel that actors in plays 'over due' it, but when you are on a small stage and are trying to reach an audience member at the back of a large theater -it matters. Likewise, characters that are too similar and don't stand out from each other are hard to cast and seemingly may have no purpose. August Wilson, was known to observe the people around him to help him capture authentic speech. This method helps with the research of dialogue. Since plays are meant to be performed, it might also be useful to become an observer of the situations around you. For instance, think about the conversations you’ve heard at a bus stop or in the store. If you wrote these out as lines in a script, what would it look like?

Plot

What happens in the play is revealed in scenes. The plot is the action of the play. This needs to happen through the character, the person on the stage that the audience is watching. In a play, you have no where to hide. You can't hide behind chunks of paragraphs that seemingly move the story forward. During each and every moment of the play, the characters need to act and make decisions out loud.

Story

This is overall what the play is about. It is different than the plot, but it does come from the plot. You can think of story as being similar to themes.

Classroom Activity \(\PageIndex{1}\)

Going to see a play is an experience. In a short journal entry, write about the last the play you went to see or the most memorable. How was it different from watching a movie? If you have never seen a play, find one on YouTube. This won’t be the same as seeing it live, but it will give you an idea about what the a stage play looks like. How is it different from watching a movie?

Next, think about a few stories that you know well. Which story do you think would be good for the stage? Why?

Do not delete this text first.