In plays, social context is the network of social forces that surround and shape the characters and the action—the norms, power structures, institutions, and collective pressures that exist beyond any single character’s psychology. Put simply: social context answers the question, “What world is pressing in on these people?” [more]

A tragedy asks a moral or human question that cannot be answered cleanly. Examples: What does it cost to be right? What must be destroyed for love to survive? When is faith indistinguishable from delusion? If the question has an easy answer, it won’t sustain tragedy. [more]

In plays, character arcs are less about accumulation and more about pressure.  A play traps a character in time and space and asks: what breaks, what bends, what is revealed? A character arc is the journey from one governing belief to another — or the failure to make that journey. [more]

In playwriting, “the rules of the game” are the internal laws that govern how reality operates inside that specific play. They’re not moral rules or plot beats — they’re the physics of the world you’ve built.  Once established, they must be obeyed, or the audience feels cheated. [more]

Story Theatre sits somewhere between oral storytelling, ensemble theatre and playwriting. You’re not “writing scenes” in the traditional way so much as composing an event where narration and enactment constantly trade places. [more]

The architecture of story is the invisible structure that holds meaning, tension and transformation in place.  Like a building, it determines how an audience moves through space — emotionally, intellectually and morally — without necessarily noticing the beams. (more)

Starting in the fast lane means: the central tension already exists when the lights come up; the audience enters mid-motion, not at rest; relationships may be established, but the problem is alive, not pending. (more)

In a play, the inciting incident is the moment — often small, sometimes explosive — that disrupts the existing order of the world onstage and makes the central conflict unavoidable. It’s the event that forces the play to begin rather than merely exist. (more)

In playwriting, the backstory of a play is everything that happened before the curtain rises that still exerts pressure on what we’re watching now. It is not exposition. It is not biography for its own sake. It is the past in collision with the present. (more)

In a play, plot is the sequence of actions that occur onstage — what happens, in what order and why it happens. But unlike a novel or film, plot in a play is shaped by live time, physical space and audience attention. (more)

Starting a play isn’t about introductions.  It’s about immediate pressure. “Lights up” should only happen after something is already wrong.  A decision has just been made.  A secret is about to surface.  Someone wants something they shouldn’t.  The audience will catch up.  They always do. (more)

Stage directions exist to clarify action that cannot live in dialogue; anchor the audience in time, place and physical reality; guide the production without strangling it. They are not there to direct emotions (“angrily,” “sadly”) unless unavoidable; choreograph every move; provide “line readings.” Think of stage directions as invisible architecture. (more)

History is the circumstance, not the subject.  A strong historical play isn’t about an era.  It’s about the people trapped inside it.  The past supplies constraints: laws, beliefs, class, danger and the drama comes from characters pushing against those limits.  If the story still works when summarized without dates, you’re on the right track. (more)

The script specifies structure, not experience. Like a blueprint, it defines walls, doors, load-bearing elements — plot, characters, language, rhythm — but it does not contain the lived space. The performance is the building people walk through. (more)

Understanding enables ethical and accurate imagination. Especially when writing characters unlike yourself — different eras, classes, beliefs — you’re responsible for grasping their inner logic, not projecting yours onto them. (more)