Overview

A Masterclass in Dramatic Writing addresses all three genres of dramatic writing - for theatre, film and TV - in a comprehensive, one-semester, 14-week masterclass for the dramatic writer. This book is tightly focused on the practical outcome of completing a first draft and first rewrite of a dramatic work, drawing on Professor Janet Neipris’ many years of experience as the head of Dramatic Writing at NYU Tisch. The fourteen chapters, organized like a semester, take the reader week-by-week and step-by-step through writing a first draft of an original play, screenplay, or TV pilot, while also teaching the core principles of dramatic writing. Chapters include Beginnings, Creating Complex Characters, Dialogue, Escalating Conflicts, Endings, Checkpoints, Comedy, and Adaptation, and there are Weekly Exercises and progressive Assignments. This book is perfect for professional writers, teachers, and students of dramatic writing, as well as anyone who wants to complete their first dramatic work. An award-winning playwright and Professor of Dramatic Writing at NYU, Janet Neipris has written for Screen and Television. She has also taught dramatic writers at UCLA and in China, Australia, Indonesia, South Africa, Italy, and in the UK at Oxford, CSSD, University of Birmingham, and the University of East Anglia. Previous publications include To Be A Playwright (Routledge 2006). Janet Neipris’s plays and letters are in the Theatre Collection of Harvard University’s Houghton Library. For more, see www.janetneipris.com.

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9781138918542

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Reviews

An award-winning playwright, Neipris adds five new chapters to the earlier edition along with concrete examples from classic works and from her own writing. The book's organization parallels a one-semester, 14-week course, providing exercises and assignments that leave readers with a first draft or rewrite. Neipris demonstrates her vulnerability, sharing the experience she has gained writing and teaching. In contrast to other playwriting texts-for example, NoeÌ l Greig's Playwriting: A Practical Guide (2005), which is less personal, and Playwriting Master Class: The Personality of Process and the Art of Rewriting, ed. by Michael Wright (2000), which collects essays from various playwrights-Neipris's Masterclass brings readers right into her writing room. - C. Cox, University of Northern Iowa in CHOICE

Author Information

Janet Neipris

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