Breaking Up With Aristotle: Alternate Plot Structures
To Aristotle With Love: We’re Done So many contemporary playwrights claim to have “broken up” with Aristotle. As in, “Ari, we love you and all, but you’re so old school. We’re done.” The energy of the “action plot,” where a protagonist has a goal...
Story vs. Plot
Where in the Story Does Your Plot Start? A discussion about the difference between plot vs. story is anything but an academic question. Instead, like most talks about structure, how a plot is designed defines how the audience experiences the story. An early...
Writing Active Dialogue
Let's Get Some Action Going Have you ever been reading a script when the action suddenly felt clunky, heavy-handed or, even worse, stopped mid-scene? Probably it was the result of poor dialogue. Like everything else on stage, dialogue must push the story...
Top 5 Reasons to Put a Dramaturg on the Creative Team
What if I told you there was a way to jumpstart your NPD process at a fraction of the cost of a staged reading? There is a way – a standard protocol that’s used by almost every serious producer and significant regional theater out there, including NYMF, Disney...
![How to Get to Broadway in 3 [Not So Easy] Steps](https://createtheater.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/How-to-Get-to-Broadway-400x250.jpg)
How to Get to Broadway in 3 [Not So Easy] Steps
Still Flying After the TONYs? How many of you are still flying high after the 2019 TONY Awards ceremony? The encouragement to all performers to continue the work, to celebrate our diversity, and the overall pure celebration of this art form in general and our...
The Need for Creative Producers
Why I'm a Creative Producer On May 13, 2013, in a speech at the Theater Communications Group (TCG) Gala, Emily Mann, longtime Artistic Director of the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, NJ, stated that the nonprofit movement was started because the commercial...
Planning For Success Part II
Winter Doldrums? Do you find winter to be your most creative season? It always has been for me. There’s something about being more at home and quiet that ramps up my creative energy to flow into more artistic pursuits. Maybe because I’m more still I listen...
Create More Time
How are you doing so far on your 2019 goals? "Some people regard discipline as a chore. To me, it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly." - Julie Andrews January set me back. There’s nothing like life happening to you to keep you humble. Between the excitement,...
It’s a New Year, So Let Go
What do you need to leave behind this year? As 2018 draws towards its close, like most of us, I'm doing some reflection on the past year. For many years - almost a decade in fact - I’ve spent the last week of the year as a personal retreat space to heal, to...