So You Want to be a Playwright?: How to write a play and get it produced by Fountain, Tim (2008) Paperback

by Tim Fountain

Playwright and former literary manager Tim Fountain guides the budding playwright over the many hurdles involved in getting a play on stage-from finding a story that only you know, through the detailed construction of the play, and on to the strategies you can use to get it on stage.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction, Plays, Theatre

Paperback

First published April 1, 2007

About the author

Tim Fountain is an author, playwright and occasional performer. His books include the number 1 best selling ibook Rude Britannia (Weidenfeld and Nicholson), Quentin Crisp: a biography (Absolute Press) and So you want to be a playwright? (Nick Hern Books). He is currently working on his first novel.

His plays include Queen of the Nile (Hull Truck) Dandy in the Underworld (Soho Theatre) Sex Addict (Royal Court and Schaubuehne, Berlin) Resident Alien (Bush and New York Theatre Workshop, also broadcast on BBC Radio 3), Julie Burchill Is Away, Hotboi and How To Lose Friends and Alienate People (Soho Theatre) featuring such actors as Jack Davenport, Bette Bourne, Jackie Clune, and Con O Neil. He has also written for television and radio and was a principal writer on Bob and Margaret (Channel Four/Comedy Central, USA).

Tim has also written journalism for amongst others the Guardian, Daily Mail, Sunday Times, Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday, New Statesman and Attitude magazine.

An regular broadcaster Tim has appeared on Newsnight, Women’s Hour, Saturday Review and Loose Ends on BBC Radio Four and Weekender on BBC Radio 2. He has also presented a documentary about the death of Quentin Crisp for Channel Four and featured in the BBC 2 documentaries Circumcise Me and Am I Normal?

Tim is also a teacher of playwriting and has tutored for numerous organizations including The Central School of Speech and Drama, The Arvon Foundation and MIT in the USA. He was Literary Manager of the Bush Theatre from 1997 - 2001 and a lecturer in creative writing at Strathclyde University from 2006-2009.

Reviews

[Levent Mollamustafaoglu · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that goes into a lot of the practical aspects of writing and staging plays. It spends less time on the techniques for writing plays but more on producing several drafts of the play, the right time to send it for review or inclusion in a repertoire, the business aspect of staging plays, amateur vs. professional groups, rehearsals and other details of production. Certainly a complementary text on any books you may read about writing plays. Tim Fountain is a British playwright who has a lot of experience in these matters and narrates these in an easy-to-read, practical style.

[Jonah Reilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Helpful towards the beginning, but it eventually just kind of starts repeating the same ideas over and over. If that's the way you learn, I'd recommend this book, but after a while, it began to feel a bit tedious.