Scriptwork: A Director's Approach to New Play Development

By David Kahn, Donna Breed, David Kahn

Book Overview

Despite the popular myth that plays arrive at the theater fully formed and ready for production, the truth is that for centuries, most scripts have been developed through a collaborative process in rehearsal and in concert with other theater artists. David Kahn and Donna Breed provide the first codified approach to this time-honored method of play development, with a flexible methodology that takes into account differing environments and various stages of formation.

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 theater. Most importantly, they delineate the parameters of the relationship between the director and the playwright, offering proven methods to help the playwright and help facilitate the healthy development of the script.

Breed and Kahn 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.

In short, Kahn and Breed demystify a common, though often convoluted, theater process, providing a unique codification of ways to work on new plays.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0809317591
• ISBN13: 9780809317592
• Release Date: July 1995
• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Attention Playwirghts

As a playwright I found this book to be illuminating, easy to read and full of ideas. Heartening to read all the directors that give prominence to the palywrights. sometime s you feel they are the forgotten component. Qorth reading for anyone in theatre, whether its elementary schoo, high schoo, university, community or profesisonal

A great book for Theatre

I know David Kahn and when he gave me this book to read for my script analysis class, it opened my eyes one how a play writen and why the writer made the choices he made. This book helps you take new scripts and break them down so they can be produced for stage or film. This book is great for actors when they first pick up a script to their rehearsals. It helps for directors when they discover the event chain of the play and character chain of the play. For set desginers when they discover the world of the play of the character. Also it helps for writing because you can see examples of these things in the workings of a completed play. This great book because it's easy reading. Another great tool for those in theatre.