My privileged opportunity to work with renowned Drama theorist, Dorothy Heathcote, in Melbourne in the 1970s, set a foundation for what I now call Theatre as Education research. Formerly a teacher of Secondary Drama, I became very experienced at creating plays with my students, based on their own ideas, or inspired by the stories of the community.…

Role-playing is considered a valuable pedagogical strategy in a variety of fields. However, the use of this strategy in teacher education is underdeveloped. In this study we employ script-writing for a play (which we consider imagined role-playing) as a variation on a role-playing method. We invited teachers participating in a Master of Education…

In conventional drama, circularity is a positive thing, a return to the beginning, a symbol of the cyclical, generative nature of life. Part of John Guare's intent in his post-Absurdist play, "The House of Blue Leaves," is to help establish a new theatrical aesthetic by violating theatrical convention. For Guare, circularity is not a…

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…

Increasing interest of college students in scriptwriting suggests a need for more professional writing programs. Such programs should be directed by faculty members with experience in both writing and teaching. Writing format and techniques are two major emphases. Students can learn the proper format from accessible scripts, techniques from…

In spite of the importance of the one-act play as an art form and as a tool for teaching playwriting, authors of playwriting texts have devoted little space to the study of the form. Because of this neglect, there is no definition of the form that is simple and specific enough to undergrid efforts to teach or write it. In the absence of a solid…

Clara Tree Major, the first producer to provide professional touring plays exclusively for children's audiences (from 1925 until 1954), not only produced these plays but also wrote the scripts by adapting children's stories for the theatre. This paper investigates Major's playwriting principles and techniques, examines Major's philosophy in play…

An analysis of the works of black playwrights since 1821 (the date of the earliest recorded play) reflects the Afro-American's concern with social revolution and his commitment to revolt. Early forms of protest in black drama revealed the desire to become active members of American society. Following a void in black playwrighting during the…

An interpersonal perception mode of analysis can provide insight into a playscript, eliminating the protagonist-oriented view of drama and creating a dramatic production with richer texture. Since drama represents its characters' inabilities to process information satisfactorily or to maintain successful interpersonal relationships, all the…

The ideas and techniques of post-modernist art and the imagist theatre represent an important preparatory stage in the revival of poetic drama. During the 1960s and early 1970s, a number of experimental companies rebelled against the realism of the American theatre and began to produce works that stressed emotional authenticity in acting, active…

To provide both an enriching theatre experience for students and faculty and new opportunities for women artists, the Department of Theatre Arts and Speech at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey at Newark held a competition for new plays by New Jersey women playwrights. The winning play, Leni Hamilton's "The Fortress," a story of…

The playwrights-directors workshop at the University of Wisconsin (Madison) allows students of directing and playwriting to meet jointly to explore and solve problems in the creation and production of original one-act scripts. At the heart of the program is the belief that both playwriting and directing students profit from producing their efforts…

Four books are discussed as being helpful in the teaching of playwriting at the college level: Kenneth Macgowan's "A Primer of Playwriting" (1951); Walter Kerr's "How Not to Write a Play" (1955); Bernard Grebanier's "Playwriting" (1961); and Sam Smiley's "Playwriting: The Structure of Action" (1971). The books are discussed individually and are…

This paper discusses generally Neil Simon's plays; specifically examines "God's Favorite,""Plaza Suite,""Barefoot in The Park,""Star Spangled Girl,""Come Blow Your Horn," and "Last of the Red Hot Lovers"; and quotes reviews of the plays. An examination of the composition of the plays…

This comment on Roger D. Gross's definition of "style" explores the ramifications of that definition for the theatre teacher. It is noted that Gross's definition may help with two common pedagogic difficulties: (1) convincing students that theatre and drama of the past were regarded by their audiences and practitioners as entirely…