essential techniques for conducting effective research in playwriting

If you’re doing research for writing plays, it helps to think of research not as fact-gathering but as pressure-building — material that sharpens conflict, behavior and theatrical choice.

Here’s a playwright-specific way to approach it.

1. Research for Action, Not Information

Plays run on what people do under pressure, not what is true in the abstract.

Instead of asking:

• What happened?

Ask:

• What did people want?

• What did they risk by wanting it?

• What couldn’t be said out loud?

Good research reveals:

• leverage

• contradictions

• social rules characters must obey or break

If it doesn’t suggest a choice onstage, it’s probably not useful yet.

2. Primary Sources Beat Secondary Ones

For plays, prioritize material that preserves voice and immediacy.

Best sources:

• letters, diaries, sermons, speeches

• transcripts (trials, hearings, interviews)

• newspaper accounts written at the time

• marginalia, pamphlets, propaganda

These give you:

• rhythm of thought

• moral blind spots

• language people used before history “cleaned it up”

Secondary sources are for structure and orientation — but primary sources generate dialogue.

3. Research the Social Contract of the World

Every play lives inside a set of unspoken rules.

Research:

• what behavior was rewarded

• what behavior was punished

• who could speak publicly and who couldn’t

• what counted as scandal vs. sin vs. crime

Drama happens when a character violates the contract before they understand the cost.

This is especially crucial for historical or political plays — but it applies just as much to contemporary ones.

4. Look for Systems, Not Heroes

Avoid researching “great figures” in isolation.

Instead, map:

• institutions (church, theater, courts, press, family)

• money flows

• gendered or racialized constraints

Plays get their engine from systems colliding with personal desire. Research should reveal the machinery your characters are caught in.

5. Stop Research Early

One of the most common playwright traps is over-researching.

A good rule:

Stop when you can argue both sides of every major conflict.

If research starts answering questions cleanly, you’ve gone too far. You want productive ambiguity, not certainty.

Write while the material still resists you.

6. Translate Research into Theatrical Forms

Ask how the research wants to appear onstage:

• conflicting eyewitness accounts → overlapping monologues

• propaganda vs. private truth → public speech / private scene

• institutional language → ritual, repetition, chorus

• gaps in the record → silence, offstage action, absence

Research isn’t content; it’s structure.

7. Keep a “Misuse” File

As you research, keep a separate document for:

• rumors

• exaggerations

• wrong assumptions

• biased accounts

These are often more dramatic than the “truth” and can belong to characters even if they don’t belong to history.

Plays thrive on believed lies.

For an example of a heavily researched play, see the sample preview pages from my play, One Damn Thing.