Dramatists Toolkit,The Craft Of The Working Playwright Download Free (EPUB, PDF)
In The Dramatist's Toolkit, playwright and Backstage columnist Jeff Sweet offers an intensive and practical guide to being a working playwright. In this informative guide, Sweet discusses such matters as: The building blocks of playwriting How characters relate to one another The differences and similarities between musicals and plays Screenwriting vs. playwriting and much more! Jeff Sweet offers guidance for the beginning playwright and advice for the seasoned professional.
Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: Heinemann Drama; Later Printing edition (November 1, 1993)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0435086294
ISBN-13: 978-0435086299
Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.4 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
Best Sellers Rank: #138,918 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #28 in Books > Arts & Photography > Performing Arts > Theater > Playwriting #161 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > Performing Arts > Theater #599 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > Literature > Creative Writing & Composition
I had a divided reaction to this book. On the positive side (and most of my reaction was positive), Sweet offers some wonderful insights into the profession of the dramatist, as well as some very welcome discussions on how to avoid common traps and pitfalls. He also offers some excellent and often shrewdly humorous analyses of the mistakes made even by greats like Shakespeare, Miller, and Simon (And know what? He's right). In addition, in the face of today's too-common dismissal of musical theatre as inconsequential, it's refreshing to hear Sweet's enthusiastic defense of such Sondheim gems as "Sweeney Todd" and "Forum." The book is well-written in a light, conversational manner that makes it a lot of fun to read.On the down side, I was really, really disappointed in Sweet's opening chapter, which still casts a pall over "Dramatist's Toolkit" for me as a whole. It's unfortunate that such an otherwise helpful book nevertheless opens with a blunt, narrow, and chapter-long definition of who should attempt the life of a playwright (the journalist) -- and who shouldn't (the prose writer). As this is supposed to be a general "toolkit" to assist any attempting the art of the dramatist, Sweet's dismissal of a huge number of writers who do not meet his criteria for success is doubly disappointing.I'm not knocking journalists (I am one), but Sweet's starting-gate assumption that a versatile writer can't straddle more than one genre surprised and disappointed me, especially in the face of such obvious successful exceptions as William Goldman, Larry McMurtry, W.B. Yeats, John Steinbeck, and many more.
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