Kirjahaku

Originally published in 2005, To Be A Playwright is an insightful and detailed guide to the craft of playwriting. Part memoir and part how-to guide, this useful book outlines the tools and techniques necessary to the aspiring playwright. Comprised of a collection of memoirs and lectures which blend seamlessly to deliver a practical hands-on guide to playwriting, this book illuminates the elusive challenges confronting creators of dynamic expression and offers a roadmap to craft of playwrighting.

Originally published in 2005, To Be A Playwright is an insightful and detailed guide to the craft of playwriting. Part memoir and part how-to guide, this useful book outlines the tools and techniques necessary to the aspiring playwright. Comprised of a collection of memoirs and lectures which blend seamlessly to deliver a practical hands-on guide to playwriting, this book illuminates the elusive challenges confronting creators of dynamic expression and offers a roadmap to craft of playwrighting.

This collection includes three full-length plays: A SMALL DELEGATION, ALMOST IN VEGAS, and THE AGREEMENT. A SMALL DELEGATION: Three American professors come to teach in China the summer before Tiananmen Square. ALMOST IN VEGAS: When Margie decides she wants a child, her affair with Louis, a married man, gets complicated. THE AGREEMENT: A husband and wife, cheered on by their respective lawyers, hastily and hilariously divide the spoils of their marriage.A SMALL DELEGATION: "This compelling play, set in China in 1988, just one year prior to the Tiananmen Square massacre, is a serious study of the political atmosphere of the country during that year. The drama also examines the enormous barriers which hinder understanding between east and west."Gemini Williams, Summer Pennsylvanian "Neipris's method is one of accretion, piecing together a complex mosaic. We come to see each individual in the drama attempting to cope with a political system that seems almost random in its changeability. Neipris's even-handedness in dealing with her characters is such that even as we blame the system for Sun's fate, we also blame Remy-and ourselves by extension, since her instincts are our own. Written from a western perspective, this feels like an inside job in its merging of illusion and reality."Clifford Ridley, The Inquirer (Philadelphia)ALMOST IN VEGAS: "A wonderfully moving and touching play."Patrick O'Connor, Backstage "Neipris is trying to touch something deeper than the funny bone. The play becomes a study of decent people trying to understand their own needs and the lovers who cannot fulfill them."Walter Goodman, The New York TimesTHE AGREEMENT: "This is a funny and wise play. Neipris has a wonderful ear for the way people talk when they are trying to say the right thing in an unfamiliar and unnerving situation."D J R Bruckner, The New York Times "Funny and sad at the same time, and that is always a tall order."Nels Nelson, Daily News (Philadelphia)

A Masterclass in Dramatic Writing addresses all three genres of dramatic writing - for theatre, film and TV - in a comprehensive, one-semester, 14-week masterclass for the dramatic writer.This book is tightly focused on the practical outcome of completing a first draft and first rewrite of a dramatic work, drawing on Professor Janet Neipris’ many years of experience as the head of Dramatic Writing at NYU Tisch. The fourteen chapters, organized like a semester, take the reader week-by-week and step-by-step through writing a first draft of an original play, screenplay, or TV pilot, while also teaching the core principles of dramatic writing. Chapters include Beginnings, Creating Complex Characters, Dialogue, Escalating Conflicts, Endings, Checkpoints, Comedy, and Adaptation, and there are Weekly Exercises and progressive Assignments.This book is perfect for professional writers, teachers, and students of dramatic writing, as well as anyone who wants to complete their first dramatic work.An award-winning playwright and Professor of Dramatic Writing at NYU, Janet Neipris has written for Screen and Television. She has also taught dramatic writers at UCLA and in China, Australia, Indonesia, South Africa, Italy, and in the UK at Oxford, CSSD, University of Birmingham, and the University of East Anglia. Previous publications include To Be A Playwright (Routledge 2006). Janet Neipris’s plays and letters are in the Theatre Collection of Harvard University’s Houghton Library. For more, see www.janetneipris.com.

A Masterclass in Dramatic Writing addresses all three genres of dramatic writing - for theatre, film and TV - in a comprehensive, one-semester, 14-week masterclass for the dramatic writer.This book is tightly focused on the practical outcome of completing a first draft and first rewrite of a dramatic work, drawing on Professor Janet Neipris’ many years of experience as the head of Dramatic Writing at NYU Tisch. The fourteen chapters, organized like a semester, take the reader week-by-week and step-by-step through writing a first draft of an original play, screenplay, or TV pilot, while also teaching the core principles of dramatic writing. Chapters include Beginnings, Creating Complex Characters, Dialogue, Escalating Conflicts, Endings, Checkpoints, Comedy, and Adaptation, and there are Weekly Exercises and progressive Assignments.This book is perfect for professional writers, teachers, and students of dramatic writing, as well as anyone who wants to complete their first dramatic work.An award-winning playwright and Professor of Dramatic Writing at NYU, Janet Neipris has written for Screen and Television. She has also taught dramatic writers at UCLA and in China, Australia, Indonesia, South Africa, Italy, and in the UK at Oxford, CSSD, University of Birmingham, and the University of East Anglia. Previous publications include To Be A Playwright (Routledge 2006). Janet Neipris’s plays and letters are in the Theatre Collection of Harvard University’s Houghton Library. For more, see www.janetneipris.com.