Playwriting: An Overview

Everyone has a story to tell. Our stories make up our lives. We live them first hand, then recount them throughout our lives at numerous parties or other social gatherings, tell them privately to family or friends and even embellish and change them over time. Telling a story is the basis for playwriting. All playwriting is is telling a story. It can be a true story. It can be a fictional story. It can even be a little bit of both. But, in the end, playwriting is just telling a story on the stage.

That doesn't sound too hard, now does it? The following video tells a story. Look at how the story is formed. Who are the characters? Where are they? Where do they start? What happens or changes? Where do they end? How do the change? These are all things we can begin think about when approaching playwriting.


(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eHr-9_6hCg)

Now let's think about how this story is put together. Aristotle, a famous Greek philospher, wrote a book about theatre entitled "The Poetics". In his book he discusses the things that must occur during a play in order to tell a story properly. These are those points:

EXPOSTION: A play must tell us the setting, time period and those involved in the story so we know who is who. (ex Bambi and his mother eating grass in the winter time outside the forest)

INCITING INCIDENT: This is something that happens in the play that get's the story going. (ex. Bambi's mother hears the hunters coming and tells Bambi to run)

RISING ACTION: The main action of the story, what happens. (ex. Bambi and his mother run towards the thicket and they become separated)

CLIMAX: The highest point in the story where we find out whether or not the protagonist will succeed (ex We hear the gunshot and know Bambi's mother is dead)

FALLING ACTION or DENOUMENT: Where the loose ends of the story are tied up to give closure. (ex The stag telling Bambi his mother is gone and inviting him to follow)

Here is an image that demonstrates the Aristotelian Plot Structure:

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d0/Freytags_pyramid.png)


Now think of a story in your own life and imagine you were going to tell the story to the class. What exposition would you give? What would the inciting incident be? What occurs during the rising action? The climax? Was there a falling action or denoument?

It's easy to see that all these elements are already present in our lives, in each story that we live out. Doesn't this make playwriting seem a lot less daunting? It's simple if you follow the basic plot structure and remember, it's nothing more than telling a story.

For this class you are required to write a 10-minute original play. The topic can be anything of your choosing. Please click here to see more information on the assignment.