The link above will take you to an article on Movieline.com that quotes, in full, a memo that Pulitzer winner David Mamet wrote to the writing staff of CBS’ The Unit, the show that Mamet executive produces. The memo is a mini-master class in the art of dramatic storytelling, with basically all that one would need to know in order to write a great piece of drama, for film, television, or the stage.
* This article does contain a mild amount of language that some might consider offensive.
Some of you may or may not be aware of how the legality and royalty situation works in the theatre, but in recent years, it’s become more and more of an issue where producing organizations are asking for a percentage of future royalties on a play, in order to capitalize on the success of a play after they’ve produced it. The two producing companies mentioned in this article, The Public Theater and the Roundabout Theatre are two significant stages in new work development, and this is a good step forward to relieve the burden placed on the potential for a playwright to actually see the financial benefit of the success of his or her own work.
An article in the New York Times about the experience of Maddie Corman, a 40 year old mother of 3 who is now appearing in the new show on Broadway, Geoffrey Naufft’s “Next Fall”.
Regular topics of conversation in our department include how to maintain a healthy lifestyle and potentially raise a family while pursuing a life in the theatre, and how just gaining life experience can and will influence an actor’s abilities on stage. This article touches both of those topics.
An article from the Boston Globe talking about the increasing amount of the use of video projection in theatre productions.
Here’s an article in the LA Times about “tropes” or elements of storytelling that repeatedly appear particularly in pop culture (film, television). It references a wiki site that lists these tropes and where they have previously appeared. Could be a helpful site to remind beginning writers of how these story elements have been used before…