Writing for Stage and Screen

Sherry Kramer is a playwright who has won numerous awards for her work and has written more than thirty plays, including David’s RedHaired Death, When Something Wonderful Ends and The Wall of Water. She teaches playwriting at Bennington College, USA, and taught regularly in the MFA programs of The Michener Center for Writers UT Austin, TX, and the Iowa Playwrights’ Workshop, where she was previously head of the workshop. She was the first national member of New Dramatists.

It's hard for me to think of anyone who has shaped the way I think about playwriting more than Sherry Kramer. While most of my education as a playwright was awash in silly rules surrounding plot mechanics, Sherry showed me how plays are organized in more meaningful and fundamental ways. While others taught me the structure of playwriting, she taught me the poetry of it.

• List of Illustrations1. Works of Art Teach Us How to Read ThemFirst We Must Find a Way to See The World in Front of Us There is an Old Saying in the Theatre: The First 20 Minutes Are FreeA Closer Look at The First 20 Minutes Some Advice About the First 20 Minutes ToneThere is Always a ClockEXERCISE: Spend Some Time With Structured TimeAttention2. The Perception ShiftInsight: The Eureka MomentAttention and InsightThe Power of a Moment’s Newness How Newness Drives InsightA Joke is a Small PlayThe Perception Shift in Three Plays: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, A Streetcar Named DesireEXERCISE: Experience a Small Perception Shift in the Comfort of Your Own Home Hiding in Plain Sight3. Theatre Is a Rhyme For Life Certainty, Meaning, and MaybeDramatic DoublenessThe Bone ViolinThe Bone Violin: A Fugue for Five Actors EXERCISE: Track Doubling in The Bone Violin Doubleness is Our Most Elegant ToolThe Three Surfaces of Doubleness in Three Plays : A Streetcar Named Desire, Betrayal, The Beauty Queen of Leenane SystemsEXERCISE: PleatsSystems and ThemeEXERCISE: Tracking Systems In A Streetcar Named Desire The Ends of Plays Tend to Mirror Their BeginningsEmpathy and Doubleness4. Story and PlotSequence = MeaningEXERCISE: Order Makes Meaning BreadcrumbsStory Is Another Word for Time How the Plot Organizes Itself Outside of StoryFuturityThe Double Track of Time (Non-linear plays)Plot and Story are Two Different ThingsAnti-ClimaxEXERCISE: How Your Plot Uses Story ConveniencesTo Sum Up Story and PlotSo Here We are, Ready to Talk About the Enchantment That Is Story Vertical and HorizontalVertical vs. HorizontalEXERCISE: Draw Two Sets5. Choice and ConsequenceWhy Choice Matters to the Audience The God Who Loves You - Carl DennisEXERCISE: Tracking Character DesireThe And Then, The So Then, and The What If EXERCISE: The And Then, The So ThenRepeatabilityWRITING EXERCISE: A Five Minute Scene About ChoiceChoice vs. RevealWRITING EXERCISE: Adapt A Family StoryAlternative HistoryWRITING EXERCISE: An Alternative History PlayChoice and TragedyA Tragedy is like Going Down a River There are Two Forks of the River The Sun has to ShineBreaking BadRight vs. RightTragedy is the Art Form of ChangeTragedy is Made Out of HopeHope as StrategyWRITING EXERCISE: The NodesTragedy is a Clash of ValuesWhat is it Worth? vs. What does it Mean? In-Itself Value and the Evolution of the Art Form Tragedy Is Not Simply SadWhy Do We Take Pleasure in TragedyCharacters Don’t Change No Matter How Much They Want To. No Matter How Much We Hope They Will. In Comedy, People ChangeIt’s a Form of Magic The Magic of Changing Without ChangingEXERCISE: Find Comedies Where People Change But it Feels Like Someone Changes in Plays That Aren’t Comedies. Are You Sure Someone Doesn’t Change? But If People Can’t Change How Do We Change?WRITING EXERCISE: Write Three Monologues About the Same Choice from Three Different Character’s Point of View6. In Retrospect, Inevitable In Retrospect Inevitable OutcomesNot In Retrospect Inevitable OutcomesEXERCISE: Write the Last Moment of Your Play As a SonnetPointers Pointers are Lies that Tell the TruthThe Attributes of Pointers: Systems and Pointers, Forwards and PointersHow Pointers Announce ThemselvesHow to Write Pointers On Purpose The Atomic Throw Is an Uncertain KitchenForeshadowing and MisdirectionTitlesEXERCISE: Finding Your Title Running GagsA Play Tells the Truth, But It Enjoys Using a Lie To Tell ItEXERCISE: LiesSpoilersEXERCISE: Identifying PointersEXERCISE: Identify Pointers In Your Own Play 7. Convergence It’s Never a Single MomentEXERCISE: The End and The BeginningIs Saying That Convergence is Everywhere in A Great Work of Timebound Art The Same Thing as Saying That a Great Work of Timebound Art is All Convergence?To Be Human Is To Confuse a Satisfying Story With a Meaningful OneEXERCISE: Noticing Perception ShiftsThe TurnThe PrestigeReveal and ChoiceEnlarging the Idea of Dramatic EventEXERCISE: The Dramatic FutureThe Difference Between What Happens on Stage and What Happens in the AudienceEXERCISE: The Last 45 Seconds Again. Endings as Different GenresWhy a Perception Shift Makes Things Weightless How Coincidence is a Form of RhymeOpen EndingsMysteries are Almost All Writers’ Favorite Genre for a ReasonA Small Play To Fill Us With Wonder Structure is Just What Happens in the EndEXERCISE: Adapt the Climax/Convergence of a Song Hope is at the Heart of Everything in the TheatreEXERCISE: Tracking Hope Once Again: The Duck RabbitIndex