The road from first draft to full-fledged professional production can be an incredibly long and arduous one, but the feeling of seeing your work alive on stage will be worth all of the effort. What follows is a look at some of the steps of play development that you may want to consider before you begin shopping your play around for professional production.
Writing/Drafting
The first step(s) is, of course, to write a first draft of your play. Every writer is different, though, and many people begin revising their work before they complete a draft. If this is the case, you may technically be on draft three or four by the time you consider it somewhat “complete.” A complete draft, for the purposes of this article, is a draft that you would feel comfortable sharing with others.
Dramaturgy
Once you feel that you have written a complete script, you may want to find a dramaturge to work with you in developing your play. The dramaturge’s roles vary greatly from place to place, but in general, they will help you revise your script to increase the work’s focus, keep the characters consistent, make certain that the conflict is clear and goes through some significant development (if it is not resolved), and structure your play to your best advantage. (More on being a dramaturge here.)
Getting your play dramaturged may involve a couple of sessions, or it may become a relationship that lasts up until (and even possibly through) production; it all depends on what you as the playwright feel you need.
Workshopping/Play Readings
From here, it is a good idea to hear your script out loud – reading it to yourself doesn’t count, either, since by this point, you are probably able to recite some lines off by heart. Once you feel ready, you can gather of group of actors – they may be friends of yours, or you may have to seek them out – to do a reading of your play.
There is more than one way to go about a play reading. Depending on how comfortable you are feeling with your script at the time of your reading, you can decide whether you would like to have a public or private reading. The main difference between the two, of course, is that if you have a public reading, you have the opportunity to hear your audience’s thoughts. This way, you can go to your reading prepared with a list of questions you want answered by your audience and thusly find out if you were successful in achieving your intended effect.
Patience (and Openness) are Virtues
The workshopping process is one that can either happen once, or over and over again. You may feel completely satisfied after one workshop and the consequent revisions, or you may want to repeat the workshopping process after a year of revisions – in this regard, writing is entirely personal.
One thing that every writer should be open to is the possibilities and opportunities that can arise during things like public readings and workshops. You never know who may attend your reading and love your play, so make sure to be open to everyone’s feedback. After all, you may find a professional production
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