If you ask an aspiring playwright how to write a successful play, you'll hear a familiar list of rules. Show, don't tell. Build realistic characters. Never address the audience. Keep the action moving. Hide the machinery of the theatre. Then there's Thornton Wilder. He ignored nearly every one of those rules — and wrote some of the greatest plays in the American canon.

A show "doesn't work" when the audience understands what is happening but doesn't feel what is happening. The machinery of theatre is functioning, but the dramatic experience isn't. This can happen in many different ways. [more]

On August 14, 2003, one of the largest power failures in North American history plunged much of the northeastern United States and parts of Canada into darkness. More than 50 million people were affected. Cities stopped. Elevators froze. Traffic lights died. Subways stalled between stations. And then there was Broadway.

Every performance has two casts: the actors onstage and the audience in the seats. The script may be identical from night to night. The blocking may be fixed. The lighting cues may fire at precisely the same moment. Yet no two performances are ever the same because no two audiences are ever the same. [more]

There is an old saying in theatre that you had to be there. It sounds like an excuse for exaggeration, but anyone who has spent enough time in a theatre knows it's true. Some performances survive beautifully on film. Others become almost incomprehensible once they're separated from the electricity of a shared room. The difference isn't talent. It's the mysterious chemistry that exists only between actor and audience. [more]

The house lights have come up, the audience is stretching, and the conversations have already begun. Some people seem certain about what they've just seen. They know what they think, how they feel, and where the story is headed. I am not one of them. [more]

In theatre, the loud moments get remembered. The quiet moments get believed. A standing ovation usually arrives after the emotional explosion — the breakdown, the confession, the eleven-o’clock number. But what often lingers days later is something smaller: a pause before an answer, a character sitting in silence, two people avoiding eye contact at a kitchen table. [more]

A theatrical star isn’t just someone who performs well — they bend the space around them. The audience tracks them even in stillness. Directors build moments for them. And other actors, consciously or not, adjust their energy in response. [more]

I should start with a warning: this is not a hidden gem. It is not misunderstood in the way that invites easy redemption. Parts of it are messy, indulgent, even frustrating. There are stretches where the pacing drags, characters make choices that feel engineered rather than earned, and entire subplots seem to wander in from another, less disciplined play. If you asked me plainly, “Should I see it?” I would hesitate — and probably say no. And yet. [more]

There is a particular kind of damage that only happens in the second draft. Not the obvious kind — the dropped subplot, the overlong monologue, the character who quietly vanishes between scenes like a witness who knows too much. Those are visible injuries. They can be named, treated, even admired for their surgical neatness. No, the real damage is subtler. It is the slow evacuation of the play’s center. [more]

There’s a quiet absurdity to submitting a play: you’ve made something intimate, alive and unruly — and now you’re asked to flatten it into PDFs, bios and word counts. The trick isn’t to eliminate the friction. It’s to contain it. Start by accepting that submission is a different craft than writing. You’re no longer discovering the play — you’re packaging it. That shift alone saves a great deal of anguish. [more]

Some plays aren’t fully written until an audience is present. On the page — or even in rehearsal — they can feel thin, repetitive or oddly paced. But in a room with people, they “close the circuit.” What’s missing is not text; it’s response. [more]

There’s a particular kind of presence — one that theatre people recognize immediately, even if it’s hard to name cleanly. We sometimes call it stillness with authority, or simply stage presence at rest. It’s the actor who doesn’t need motion to generate attention; the room organizes itself around them anyway. Not because they’re inert, but because everything in them is alive and contained. [more]

Somewhere along the way, a peculiar habit crept into the theatre. Plays stopped trusting themselves. Instead of drama — messy, human, contradictory — we began getting lectures with lighting cues. Characters step forward not to pursue their desires, but to deliver tidy arguments. Scenes pause so someone can explain the moral of the evening. Conflict evaporates because everyone already knows the correct position. [more]

The relationship between a director and a playwright has always contained a certain tension. It is built into the nature of the work. One person authored the thing; the other must make it live in space, time, and bodies. When it works well, that tension sharpens the play. When it fails, it becomes a struggle over ownership. [more]

In theatre, laughter behaves less like a private emotion and more like a physical event moving through a room. Directors and comedians sometimes speak of it almost the way a musician speaks of acoustics: something with timing, momentum, and transmission. A few forces are at work. [more]

You just walked out of the theater. The lights are still too bright. You’re holding the program like it might explain what just happened. Okay. Let’s talk about that conversation. [more]

Not meaningless. But absolutely … inflated. Here’s what happened. Once upon a time, a standing ovation meant: the audience was stunned; something transcendent just happened; you physically could not remain seated. Now? [more]

Ahhh, discounted tickets — the thing every theatre company needs and secretly resents at the same time. Let’s talk about how to handle them without tanking your revenue or your audience’s perception of value. [more]

When people say a director is “invisible” in theatre, they usually mean this: You don’t see the director’s hand; you just experience the play. It’s the opposite of a production where you walk out saying, “Wow, what a bold directorial concept.” Instead, you walk out saying, “That play wrecked me.” [more]