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.

1. Creating Compelling Characters 2. Writing Electric Dialogue and Silent Moments 3. Environment and Idea 4. The "Well-Made Play" (Short and Long Form) 5. Scene Structure 6. Monologue Structure 7. Thoughts on Aristotle’s Poetics 8. Other Structures 9. Writing in 3D for the Living Stage 10. The Limitless Room 11. The Revision Process 12. The Business of Playwriting

Jacqueline Goldfinger (she/they) is a writer and teaching artist. Her plays have been produced by The Kennedy Center, Contemporary American Theatre Festival, Court Theatre (New Zealand), École nationale de théâtre (Canada), Unicorn Theatre, Capital Stage, Urbanite Theatre, Theatre Exile, Perseverance Theatre, Azuka Theatre, among others. Their opera, choral and art song libretti have been performed at Opera Columbus, Resonance Works, BBC Radio 3 (UK), Voces8 (UK), Oberlin Opera, Chor Leoni (Canada), Chiesa di Ognissanti (Italy), San Diego Opera, Mendelssohn Choruses around the U.S., and others. The filmed version of their short opera, Letter to Our Children, with Composer Justine F. Chen has been screened at film festivals around the world. She’s written for composers including Melissa Dunphy, Justine F. Chen, and Dominick DiOrio.

Her work has been developed at Maryland Opera Studio, The National Theater (UK), New Georges, La Mama, Disquiet (Portugal), PlayPenn, Drama League, the Lark, among others. Her work has been supported by organizations including Yaddo, National Endowment for the Arts, Millay Colony, Sloan Foundation, and the Orchard Project. Her plays have won the Yale Prize, Glaspell Prize, Generations Award, Smith Prize, Barrymore Award, among others. Their opera Alice Tierney with Composer Melissa Dunphy won the Opera America Discovery Award. Their short opera film Letter to Our Children with Composer Justine F. Chen won Best Music Video at the Paris Short Film Awards. Their plays and libretti have been published by Yale Press, TRW Plays, Concord Theatricals, and others. Her poetry has been published by literary magazines including La Piccioletta Barca and the Beyond Queer Words Poetry Anthology (Germany).

As a dramaturg, she has worked with La Jolla Playhouse, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Arden Theatre, and others. As an educator, she has taught at University of California, Davis (graduate), Univ