Playwrights on Writing

After snooping around the L.A. Times website for a bit, I ran across, "Playwrights on Writing." It is, as described by the L.A. Times, "An occasional series appearing in Sunday Arts & Music." In each article a different playwright says a little something about their writing process and/or the the function of plays in contemporary culture.

As of the writing of this post, there are 31 different articles. I've read about a third of them and found only a few of them interesting. It's not that I disagree with what the playwright is saying, I just don't find what they write to be particularly illuminating of thought provoking. More often than not the articles, which start out on a personal note, unravel into vague abstraction wherein the playwright discusses writing theory. There were a few pieces that, while tedious as a whole, made a few good points.

The first article I read, which discusses writing comedy, was written by Amy Freed. The second half of the piece focuses a lot on how written comedy may or may not come off well when performed. I will rate that section as, "meh." The real gold nugget I came across and am glad to see is promoted by writers is,

When you write comedy, you must surrender your grandiosity and your aspiration to be thought important and beautiful, even though every person on the face of the Earth wants to be exactly that.

It's refreshing to see that someone understands the inherent silliness and sometimes "unimportant" nature of comedy. Comedy's objective is laughter. Let's not try to infuse everything with messages and grand statements about humanity.


Personal idol Kurt Vonnegut had the chance to write an article and it was solid, through and through. He confesses that he is not terribly concerned about topical plays that address the issues of the day or fight for change among the masses. He simply writes something what interests him without worrying about infusing his plays/novels/stories with a moral. I will leave my love of his article/message at that and in a future post, explain why I am so against stories that try to teach lessons.


The last article that I felt was solid all the way through was written by "Doubt" playwright, John Patrick Shanley. It isn't so much his perspective on writing that I enjoyed, but his ability to create and extend a metaphor. His metaphor is relevant, easy to understand, and illucidates his point without making it feel like he was trying too hard. I don't want to ruin the whole thing for you, nor do it a disserservice by summarizing it, so I will just say that the article is well written and gives unique insight into Shanley's thoughts on human nature.

While, as stated earlier, I found many of the articles to be dry, there are some thoughtful points made, not just about playwrighting, but writing in general. The full list of articles can be found here.