In the world of theatre, there is a lot of work that goes into the preparation and execution of a play/production. There are several tasks that must be done in order to provide an audience with top notch entertainment. Among these tasks, there are the producer, the actor, and the director just to name a few. But none of these people would have anything to act, produce, or direct if it were not for the most important job of them all: the playwright. The playwright is the “the man with the plan”. The play starts with the ideas and the imagination of this man or woman. These all ultimately morph into the script. The job of the playwright is not just as simple as coming up with the first thing that pops into his or her head. No, play writing is …show more content…
For example Tyler Perry has held his title as a playwright from 1992- to present. Perry is still active in his job as a playwright, as well as, a director and actor. As described above, a person in the field of playwright, must obtain a bachelor’s degree in English or some type of writing program. Another factor that focuses on a playwright’s job is his or her skills; they have to be dedicated to writing on a daily basis, he or she must also be very skilled at telling a good story, and of course, they have to have a creative mind. Furthermore, when a playwright constructs a script, he or she should keep in mind that their writing will not always make the stage the first time. Therefore, the individual should keep molding their work until it’s a masterpiece. Take Mr. Tyler Perry for example, his first attempt to execute a stage play was unsuccessful. Now he is a modern-day playwright that arose from being deep in poverty to fame. This brilliant person writes and performs in his own plays and movies. Perry is most famously known for his role as Madea, who was born to entertain and inspire the audiences. But Perry did not achieve success over night; he started out very poor. Living in poverty, Perry’s first step toward fame all started by embracing inspiration from the television host, Orpah Winfrey. Perry started keeping a journal and writing down personal experiences in his life. What he did not realize was that these experiences would soon become the starting point of his career. Perry’s career began in 1992, with the premier of his first stage play I Know I’ve Been Changed. His other works, which included Madea, soon
When Mary Zimmerman adapts a play from an ancient text her directing process and the way she engages with text are woven together, both dependent on the other. She writes these adaptations from nondramatic text, writing each evening while working through the pre-production rehearsals and improvisations during the day with the cast. The rehearsal process influences the text, and the text enriches the rehearsal process, so that one cannot exist without the other. Every rehearsal is structured the same but each production is unique because as Zimmerman states in “The Archaeology of Performance”, she is always “open to the possibilities”. The piece is open to everything happening in the world and to the people involved, so the possibilities are honest and endless.
Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is a comedy that has been interpreted in different ways, enabling one to receive multiple experiences of the same story. Due to the content and themes of the play, it can be creatively challenging to producers and their casting strategies. Instead of being a hindrance, I find the ability for one to experiment exciting as people try to discover strategies that best represent entertainment for the audience, as well as the best ways to interpret Shakespeare’s work.
The Stage Manager is a man of many roles. Usually a stage manager is part of the non-acting staff and in complete charge of the bodily aspects of the production. In Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, the Stage Manager goes well beyond his usual function in a play and undertakes a large role as a performer. In Our Town the Stage Manager is a narrator, moderator, philosopher, and an actor. Through these roles the Stage Manager is able to communicate the theme of universality in the play. The main role of the Stage Manager is that of narrator and moderator. He keeps the play moving by capsule summations and subtle hints about the future. "I’ve married over two-hundred couples in my day. Do I believe in it? I don’t know? M….marries N….millions of them. The cottage, the go-cart, the Sunday-afternoon drives in the Ford, the first rheumatism, the grandchildren, the second rheumatism, the deathbed, the reading of the will-once in a thousand times it’s interesting"(699). Here the Stage Manager is giving insight about George and Emily’s future. He is hinting about their life and fate to come. "Goin’ to be a great engineer, Joe was. But the war broke out and he died in France. All that education for nothing" (673). The incidents discussed about are great events in George, Emily, and Joe’s lives. The Stage Manage emphasizes that the short things in these people’s lives are overlooked. There isn’t realization that it is the small parts of their lives that make a difference. His role as narrator differs from most narration. The Stage Manager’s narration shows casualness. The casualness connects the Stage Manager to the audience. "Presently the STAGE MANAGER, hat on and pipe in mouth…he has finished setting the stage and leaning against the right proscenium pillar watches the late arrivals in the audience."(671) The informality is evident since he smokes a pipe, wears a hat, and leans formally against the proscenium pillar. He also greets and dismisses the audience at the beginning and end of each act. The stage manager interrupts daily conversation on the street. The Stage Manager enters and leaves the dialog at will. He is also giving the foresight of death in the play. His informality in dress, manners, and speech, connects the theme, universality, of the production to the audience.
Playwrights and directors during this time would have needed a vehicle to accurately represent their intentions. Because of this, they would need to
playwright of the past half century and has secured a well earned place in the history of
As one of North America’s leading playwrights, Neil Simon has definitely been instrumental to the world of theater. He has experienced a somewhat shaky personal life, but he has found that this only adds to the texture of his work. He began his career working on radio and television, and found that writing for stage was significantly different than his previous experiences writing. His first attempts at theater were rough, but it didn’t take him long to achieve excellence. He has also achieved great success with his work in the film industry. He is very fastidious when writing his work, and also quite critical of both the final written product, as well as its resulting production. However, no matter how uncertain he is of his work, it is apparent that audiences worldwide appreciate his writings, and he has been awarded numerous times to prove it. It is quite clear Neil Simon holds a place of importance in the world of dramatic arts.
In 400-500 B.C. the initial motive for theatre and performing arts was not entertainment, but specifically for the people to see and hear stories about Greek heroes and gods. Oedipus Rex, is known for its horrific plot, but it was also one of the first performed plays. It was controversial and caused distress because the plot contended with their former believe about fate and one's control over their life. Theatre was used to influence the thinking of the audience and forced them to see things from a different perspective not only on stage, but in their life, long after the last scene was performed. This is where communication comes into play because if it is not carried out the way it was intended, one scene or line can change everything. For an actor, paternalism can take place the moment they audition and the script is in their hands. The process begins with reading the physical lines. Once they are read and understood, the creating of the character begins. Whether the character has 2 lines or 100 lines the character needs to be developed. Some of questions that need to be asked and answered are: who is this person, where are they going, who are they talking to, what emotions are they feeling and depending on the feelings, are they showing them through their words or body language? Their specific job is to have an understanding of what the piece is about and
To realize the vision of the play, the script, set-up, costumes, stagecraft, sound design, and acting have to communicate a unified message with which the audience will relate. The script will be tailored to ensure that the audience can understand the play as it proceeds. This is in terms of the language and terms used. Though the language will not be modern, it will be English that can be understood by the audience. This will be English of antique England as it will give the play a feeling of ancient times. The scriptwriter will carry out research on the level of understanding the local people will have of ancient English so as to ascertain that the script matches this level. Although many plays of that era were sung and accompanied by dance, this play will be acted out with spoken word rather than songs. This is because speaking will ensure the audience hears the conversations as they go on and that they understand. This is ...
“Devised theatre can start from anything. It is determined and defined by a group of people who set up an initial framework or structure to explore and experiment with ideas, images, concepts, themes, or specific stimuli that might include music, text, objects, paintings, or movement.” (Alison Oddey 1). Devised theatre, also called collaborative creation, is a form of theatre in which the script is created through a collaborative process with the actors and the playwright, rather than the traditional method of theatre with a premade script. Devised theatre is created through the process, collaboration, and multi-vision of the group. Similar to improvisational theatre, a devised theatre play is created in the rehearsal process from the performers interacting with each other. By the time the devised play is performed the work is a cohesive piece that is, for the most part, set in stone. This form of theatre is a modern form of theatre, that came about from the collaboration of many different type of artists, because of the need of the performers to have some input into what they are performing. The devised theatre form is most utilized in the USA, Great Britain, and Australia, but especially in our country. Devised theatre utilizes physical movements, rather than focusing on only the language.
This is the biography of how Tyler Perry became famous.This biography tells you about Tyler's struggles and accomplishments.Now lets here about Tyler’s path to fame.
Horowitz, Mark Eden. "The Craft Of Making Art: The Creative Processes Of Eight Musical Theatre Songwriters." Studies In Musical Theatre 7.2 (2013): 261-283.Humanities Full Text (H.W. Wilson). Web. 23 Mar. 2014.
Novels and plays are essentially the same in the sense that they assemble the means necessary to showcase a variety of stories ranging in diversity. The quintessential underlying difference between the two is the format in which the stories are displayed. Plays, like Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun use literary techniques such as dialogue, acts and scenes, and stage directions contrary to novels to guide the audience’s response and interpretation of the characters and actions in the
Filmmaking and cinematography are art forms completely open to interpretation in a myriad ways: frame composition, lighting, casting, camera angles, shot length, etc. The truly talented filmmaker employs every tool available to make a film communicate to the viewer on different levels, including social and emotional. When a filmmaker chooses to undertake an adaptation of a literary classic, the choices become somewhat more limited. In order to be true to the integrity of the piece of literature, the artistic team making the adaptation must be careful to communicate what is believed was intended by the writer. When the literature being adapted is a play originally intended for the stage, the task is perhaps simplified. Playwrights, unlike novelists, include some stage direction and other instructions regarding the visual aspect of the story. In this sense, the filmmaker has a strong basis for adapting a play to the big screen.
...ements demonstrate that the truth of drama lies in the fact that every playwright creates his play in a subconsciously self-reflexive manner while he is one of us as human beings. Thus drama is, in a wider sense, a true reflection of man. A play, the write adds, is multidimensional and many of its events occur simultaneously exactly like life itself. Drama is like life also because the onus is on the audience to find the meaning while in other genres the writer might interfere, technically or otherwise, to impose his point of view.
Many playwrights drew from outside influences to compose their works. They would look the era they were living in, their personal lives, childhood experiences, and even ancient texts to acquire inspiration for their works and famous playwright, Eugene O’Neill, is no exception. Writing through two world wars, a great depression, and boom of the motion-picture industry, O’Neill certainly had much inspiration to choose from. Although not becoming nationally recognized until after his father’s death in 1920, O’Neill still managed to produce fifty completed works. Using influences from the 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, Eugene O’Neill demonstrated how he used the era he was living in to help compose his works.