The Playwright's Workout: Exercises for the Dramatic Imagination from Professional Playwrights

by Michael Bigelow Dixon (Editor), Liz Engelman (Editor)

This collection of exercises is designed to build creative muscle in students of playwriting and will prove useful as well to working dramatists who want to build their skills while stretching their imaginative powers. Contributed by some of America's foremost playwrights and playwriting teachers, these varied and inventive exercises offer new sources for dramatic inspiration, provide ways to embolden dramatic action, and encourage experimentation with the basic elements of playwriting.


Christopher Durang, Romulus Linney, and Theresa Rebeck are among the 30 playwrights offering playwriting advice in The Playwright's Workout.


Also giving guidance and inspiration

Janet Allard
Lee Blessing
Constance Congdon
Kia Corthron
Lisa D'Amour
Dan Dietz
Jordan Harrison
Jeffrey Hatcher
Naomi Iizuka
Jon Jory
Arthur Kopit
Sherry Kramer
Carson Kreitzer
Carter Lewis
Craig Lucas
Eduardo Machado
Emily Mann
Melanie Marnich
Ellen McLaughlin
Kira Obolensky
Jose Rivera
Sarah Ruhl
Caridad Svich
C. Denby Swanson
Kathleen Tolan
Alice Tuan
Elizabeth Wong
Marsha Norman
Mac Wellman


While most playwriting guides introduce students to basic concepts and practices, The Playwright's Workout offers a range of imaginative prompts to the creative act of playwriting.

166 pages, Paperback

First published November 14, 2008

About the author

Michael Bigelow Dixon was Literary Manager and, in his last year, Associate Artistic Director at Actors Theatre of Louisville from 1985 to 2001. He then worked for six years as Literary Director and Director of Studio Programming at the Guthrie Theater and after that was Resident Director at The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis for two years. He has directed numerous world premiere productions of plays by Julie Marie Myatt, Lee Blessing, Steven Dietz, Jessica Goldberg, Melanie Marnich, Kelly Stuart and Naomi Wallace. Mr. Dixon has written more than 20 published and produced plays, most with Val Smith, and has edited 35 volumes of plays and criticism with Amy Wegener, Tanya Palmer, Liz Engelman, and Michele Volansky. He launched a creative retreat, Tofte Lake Center, in the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota, and he is currently Assistant Professor in the Theatre Department at Goucher College.