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)

Plays are events, exist only in the moment of performance and each night is a new version; Films are objects, fixed once completed and are the same every time they're watched. Plays happen in shared physical space, actors and audience breathe the same air, and risk is visible; Films are mediated by camera and edit, the audience is removed from the act of making, and risk is erased through repetition and polish. (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)

In a play, intermission isn’t just a break — it’s a referendum.  The audience has enough information to decide whether the contract still holds.  Staying means: I’m willing to see this through, even if it changes. Leaving means: The pressure hasn’t earned my time. (more)

Playwriting: The script is a blueprint for live interpretation. It assumes variation, imperfection, and presence. The text is activated by bodies in a shared space. Screenwriting: The script is a set of instructions for a fixed artifact. The final meaning is locked in the edit. The audience encounters a completed object, not an event. (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)

Yes — and in theatre, this is less an aesthetic failure than a material one. In plays, the second act is never better than the first because theatre is an event, not a recording. (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)