It just occured to me. On a place like this - or anywhere for that matter...I rarely ever see writers for theatre - peeps who write stage plays. I see lots of novelists, or hopeful screenwriters, but where are all the playwrights? Are they dying out? Considering theatre is a more respected means to get across one's message I put this topic in this section as it is kinda trite.
I've known a couple of playwrites, but they've been pretty into drama and spent most of their time running about doing shows, being exhausted, and having Epic Life Drama. I think they are definitely out there and writing, but they're so dramatic in personality too that they don't have time to sign up to writing forums, which is why they're so under represented online. Mind you, I'm in Chichester, and attending a university with creative writing, drama and musical theatre on offer, so between my Festival Theatre working friends, my friends on those courses, etc, I just know a lot of people who spend a lot of their time on the stage and often *have* to write pieces for it. I guess there might not be so many in other places where theatre and writing aren't quite so common.
I don't think I've met any playwrites on here, but a couple IRL. Maybe it's because of the rise of musicals that students and the like don't consider writing for the stage so much. Let's face it, serious dramas and works like Shakespeare have their dedicated fans, but musicals are what seems to have taken all generations by storm. I could imagine writing a musical is kinda hard; not necessarily harder than a drama, but there's alot more to consider, like songs, costumes, stage designs and the like. Even if the writer isn't expected to create these things, they still have to be considered to make the script work. Maybe theatre is just too difficult nowerdays, and harder to access.
I write plays, but the forum doesn't lend itself very well to critiquing them, and unlike my fiction I plan on going commercial with my work so I don't post it. I don't know about other places, but here theatre is pretty well-supported, especially for young playwrights, so there are probably 4 or 5 theatre venues within a 15 minute walk in the CBD, which is pretty good considering the size of our little city...and they put on work by young and unproduced authors quite often.
I have been writing one but it is hardwork in comparison lot easier to hammer out a short story or a novel lol It was meant to be a TV script but it has changed to a stage play probably because that is what I am more familiar with.
I don't actually know anyone really who writes plays, apart from my 'writing for theatre' tutor at uni and the people doing that module too, and the manager of where I volunteered sometimes wrote scripts for a theatre. It's kind of sad that we don't hear more about playwrights. I love the theatre, it's great. Saw a theatre play tonight (by my tutor) which was so moving, so amazing. I wish I could go to the theatre more. I'm always in a fairly good location for theatres - both at uni and at home - which is lucky. It's just that theatre plays are pretty expensive so that puts people off I think. I guess some characteristics of playwrights means they wouldn't be sitting around on their computer all day browsing writing forums.
i have written plays, helped/mentored some aspiring playwrights [not 'playwrites'] and seen some posting here from time to time... so, though it's not as popular as wanting to write movie/tv scripts or novels, the art hasn't died out totally, yet...
I think the BBC in the UK have a lot to offer Plaaaaaywrights given that they put on a lot of writing competitions, in search of fresh work. They're also always on the look out for radio plays, which lends itself well, I think, to ameteurs. You gotta start small, and be glad of it. But I agree - plays take so much work, I think it'd be kinda hopeless posting them on a forum. By the time you've perfected it, it probably won't be publishable because of all the exposure it's already had. Tbh, that's why I haven't posted work up here for critique in over a year.
^ Yeah, the BBC are actually really good for script writers. It's the best place probably to send radio scripts, and if the radio script goes well it can always be transformed into a theatre play.
I think it all comes down to experience. With novels or scripts you can have the characters go off to a million different locations. Where as with a thetre script you have one set and one location and it's probably a hell of a lot harder to write your characters into one location then it is to be able to add in multiple locations. I would like to do a theatre play in the future, but I think I'll try to do a sitcom first with only a few locations before I attempt a theatre play.
You can have as many locations as you want in a play, you just can't have them all look like they do in movies, which isn't really the point anyway. Often, plays use just one or two objects to represent a location (bed=bedroom, tree=park, etc), the rest is the audience doing the work. Which I think is one of the great things about theatre, as opposed to Hollywood cinema, and even some fiction. The audience is expected to work, to really engage with the piece, rather than sitting there passively while it happens to them.
Of course, theatre is arguably more easier to produce. It has a much longer lifetime than film, as a theatre script can be reproduced, over and over again. (Is produce the right term for theatre?) And of course, in theatre the writer is revered, in TV they are respected professionally, while in film they'r treated like monkeypoo.
