In this commentary, summarized from a recent interview, the author shares insights and memories from a career devoted to drama and performance studies. He enthusiastically recounts events, initiatives, and collaborations that have helped sustain his lifelong passion for performance.

Inner-city public school classrooms, group homes, juvenile detention centers and facilities will be with Americans forever. Their populations can deflate, challenge, or improve any artist's skills and expertise. The author thinks of teaching artists who work these strenuous communities as soldiers of service, dedicated individuals who fight with…

Playmaking for Girls, founded by Rachel May and directed by Susie Spear Purcell, assembles a diverse ensemble of teaching artists committed to using playwriting and performance to help with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated teen girls to help them "think and thus act for themselves" (Freden, 2001, p. 70). These teaching artists, with the…

Argues that the leading professional children's theaters should commit themselves to a group of proven professional playwrights as the surest way to nurture the feasibility and aesthetic sensibility of children's theater. (SR)

Suggests that many drama teachers feel that "doing plays" runs counter to their purposes in drama. Shows that the writing of plays and the presentation of dramatic experience may be activities of the same kind, both relying on attention to context and demanding an appreciation of the ordered nature of life. (MG)

Presents an interview with children's playwright Aurand Harris, who shares thoughts about his work, advises playwrights, and offers a cautionary note on the future of children's theater. (SR)

An independent television screenwriter gives practical suggestions on writing and becoming a professional screenwriter. (PD)

Reports on the first Young Playwrights Festival presented by the Dramatists Guild and the Circle Repertory Company. The seven plays--directed, acted, and staged by professionals--were written by young people between the ages of 8 and 18 and were selected for production from more than 700 submissions. (PD)

Discusses the value of teaching playwriting. (PRA)

Asks the question of what stories playwrights may use. States that dramatists have a deep commitment to explore the truth about life. Discusses questions regarding stories in the public domain, and issues of exclusive intellectual property. Concludes that the decision to use a story is a political one more than an ethical one. (PA)

For over ten years, London's National Theatre, under the banner of "Connections", has been commissioning ten professional playwrights per year, each to write a play for young people. The plays are workshopped and performed by secondary schools, colleges and youth theatres across the United Kingdom and Ireland, and are presented in a…

Defines "adaptation" as the transformational process of taking a narrative work and dramatizing it. Stresses the importance of knowing what to leave out and knowing what to leave in. Suggests thinking of "adopting" rather than "adapting." States that artistic freedom is the playwright's right. Emphasizes the…

Explores the distance all dramatists travel to one extent or another and in their own ways to arrive at a play for children--the questions asked, the ideas sparked, the progression followed. (SR)

A priori criteria are pressing playwrights to be conservative, to unify their total experience so that everything is regimented and predictable, consciously or subconsciously. The danger, joy, and mystery of life is under the aesthetic gun. Do playwrights, and theater practitioners in general, repress and thus betray their inner voices, or do they…

Celebrates the growing body of children's and young people's plays and touches on various aspects of producing plays with child actors. (GT)