Playwriting with Purpose: A Guide and Workbook for New Playwrights

Playwriting with Purpose: A Guide and Workbook for New Playwrights provides a holistic approach to playwriting from an award-winning playwright and instructor.

This book incorporates craft lessons by contemporary playwrights and provides concrete guidance for new and emerging playwrights. The author takes readers through the entire creative process, from creating characters and writing dialogue and silent moments to analyzing elements of well-made plays and creating an atmospheric environment. Each chapter is followed by writing prompts and pro tips that address unique facets of the conversation about the art and craft of playwriting. The book also includes information on the business of playwriting and a recommended reading list of published classic and contemporary plays, providing all the tools to successfully transform an idea into a script, and a script into a performance.

Playwriting with Purpose gives writers and students of playwriting hands-on lessons, artistic concepts, and business savvy to succeed in today's theater industry.

Jacqueline Goldfinger is an award-winning playwright, dramaturg, and librettist who seeks out unique collaborations, working across disciplines to create singular works of theater and opera. Her awards include the Yale Prize, the Opera America Discovery Grant, the Smith Prize, the Sloan Grant, the Independence Foundation Fellowship in the Arts, the Tennessee Williams Fellowship, and the Generations Award. She teaches workshops and seminars at college and university theater programs across the U.S., including at the University of California, Davis and San Diego, the University of Pennsylvania, and Temple University. For more information, visit www.jacquelinegoldfinger.com.