Playwrights: Creative Natures and Changes Over Time
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One difference between the playwright in Shakespeare's time and the contemporary playwright is that
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the playwright no longer functions as a director, but is now considered an independent artist
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Playwrights by their creative natures, generally have vivid imaginations that can and often do lead to
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mania and paranoia
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The term "playwright" refers to
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a person who constructs and composes a play as a wheelwright makes a wheel
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The core element of a play is
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action
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The playwright works with two fundamental tools
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dialogue and physical action
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A play in which events are connected to each other in strict, chronological, cause-effect continuity, and in which dramatic experience attempts to convey a lifelike progression of experience through time, is classified as
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continuous in structure and linear in chronology
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Which of the following is the most accurate statement of the audience's response to the drama?
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Intrigue draws us in to the world of the play; credibility keeps us there
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Playwrights that have been quoted as serving as the initial director of their work are
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beckett, brecht, mamet, shaw, shepard, shakespeare
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A play in which every character possesses an independence of intention and expression, and whose motivation appears sensible in the light of our general knowledge of psychology and human behavior, posseses
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depth of characterization
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all of the following are signs of good characterization EXCEPT
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the character appears as a pawn in the playwright's grand design and exists only to symbolize something
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Which quality of character began in realism and grew to become the dominant aspect of the theatrical experience by the mid-twentieth century, most notably in the plays of Chekhov, Williams, and Miller?
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the psychological dimension of character
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A play that deals with an issue of serious and lasting significance in humanity's spiritual or intellectual life beyond the mere attempt to imitate profundity is said to possess
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gravity
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the playwright's skill at condensing a story that may pan many days or years of chronological time into a theatrical time frame
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compression
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Scenes of forced conflict are important because
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climactic scenes define a play's structure
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What aspects of the play do not need to be written at all?
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a character's improvisational behavior
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The play, Peter and the Starcatcher was very successful and proved that
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nonlinear structures can provide powerful and sustained dramatic impact
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There is a special hierarchy in which the director is interposed as the playwright's _____________ to the actors and designers.
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representative
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A linear plot proceeds by
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the point-by-point storytelling of events linked in chronological, cause-effect continuity
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Step 1 of a fundamental playwriting exercise is writing down
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overheard conversations
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One of theater's most powerful attributes that conveys to the audience an ineradicable feeling that a moment is unique and its revelations are profound is called
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intensity
