Welcome, everyone! Here's a place to sit down relax, have a cup of coffee, talk about your life as a playwright, anything. I'll start off with saying this will be my second full length play I've written, and my third play that I've written (the other was a one-act). So, what are oyu're plans for your shows?

My only plan right now is to make sure it stays a play. I've never written a play, but I sold my soul to theater a few months ago and I haven't got it back yet. So here I am. Adding more theater to my April.

I did Script Frenzy last year and completed a very rough draft of a screenplay. But having been back in New York this February and seen two great Broadway shows, I am just itching to try a stage play. I don't even have an idea for it yet, but I do think this is the direction I want to be going come April. Good luck to all!

Proud H.A.C.K.

This will be my first full-length, although I've had some success with short plays and a one-hour I wrote for a youth theatre company. I'm all nervous and everything. NaNoWriMo was hugely fun, but it sure took it out of me....

I did Script Frenzy last year but thanks to problems in my personal life and computer issues, I only got just above 1000 words. Since then I thought of a whole new angle to my stageplay and I'm going to start from scratch.

I've never written a script of any kind, either stage play or screenplay. I've decided to do a stage play, but now I'm wondering if a screenplay might be easier . . . has anyone done both?

NaNo 2005: Can't Go Back (won!)
NaNo 2006: In Between (won!)
NaNo 2007: The Missing Pieces (let's not talk about NaNo 2007 . . . )

I Frenzied last year, but my life totally fell apart, and I didn't finish. Since then I've been stalking the Sydney theatre scene, and I'm back with a whole host of new ideas!

I do have one finished stage play under my belt, but it's a tiny thing (one act - about 20 minutes long) that I wrote for a class last year. I'm looking forward to the challenge of sinking my teeth into something longer.

*****
Jean M Kowalik
ML for Sydney, Australia

I don't know if I'll write for stage or screen... it sometimes depends on the vibes I'm getting from the project. I've also written two stage plays in the past year, and am not sure if I want to do another one just yet. It might be fun to experiment with the freedom & different forms that go with screenwriting, but if push comes to shove I might just write something crazy for stage.

"The art of Illusion is the art of Love, and the art of Love is the blood-red heart of the World."
- Tony Kushner, The Illusion

I've never written a script longer than a page before. I love movies and filmmaking, but I recently decided that I love theatre even more. So as long as I'm writing a script, why not make it a stage play, right? I'm toying with the idea of pushing the fourth wall out to like the back of the auditorium and having actors sitting in the seats at certain points. Now to just figure out the plot...

windy
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Haikus are easy.
But sometimes they don't make sense.
Refrigerator.

2008 Script: Untitled
2007 Nano: The Higher, The Fewer (winner!)
2006 Nano: we don't talk about that...

Screnzy should(hopefully) be my fourth completed full length play, so I'm not quite as scared as I was by NaNo last year (I'll obviously come to regret that statement in the middle of week two when I'm ready to burn my script).

As for whether a screenplay/ stage play is easier as was asked a few posts ago - I think the answer is more to do with what suits you. Writing a screenplay would terrify me (I go to the theatre every week [and, erm, work in one], I go to the cinema about three times a year, so my level of comfort - and knowledge - is massively skewed). Which do you feel more comfortable with? There is, as a rule, more dialogue in plays than in films, more characters in films than in plays, more scenes and visual content in films (though, you can of course break all of those rules). I know from writing prose/ play that I usually sense very early on in the process whether the material should be a play or not. What's your gut feeling? Or if you're not sure, I'd have a look at some screenplays/ play scripts and see which seems to channel how you want to write.

Windral -
I've always loved the idea of a theatre that involves the audience, not necessarily "audience participation", but where the audience is present and active as the story unfolds. I try to include as much of this as possible when I direct plays (I'm actually directing one now where the villian, who doesn't enter until act 2, spends the entirity of act 1 in the audience; I hope it will be a huge shock when he stands up and joins in on the action)

Best of luck, everyone.

"The art of Illusion is the art of Love, and the art of Love is the blood-red heart of the World."
- Tony Kushner, The Illusion