Writing in Coffee Shops: Confessions of a Playwright

Description

What makes someone a playwright? How do their identities and ideas interweave and co-exist? What permanent truths can we discern from examining existing texts? How can we write theatre that encapsulates the contemporary moment? How do we develop an idea from the embryonic impulse to a full and robust piece of theatre? In this fresh, lively and often very funny book, playwright Ryan Craig makes a case for the vitality of playwriting in our contemporary world and offers a way into writing those plays. From the very first moment of the process, as you sit in a coffee shop, staring at your 'laptop yawning open like some big, gormless mouth, the screen a flickering blank', to seeing your play staged and reviewed, the author takes you through the complete journey. Drawing on his own experience of writing for theatres such as the National, Hampstead and Tricycle and Menier Chocolate Factory, TV drama scripts for BBC, ITV and Channel Four, radio plays and adaptation, as well as commercial theatre, the author explores what practical tools the dramatist can use to write plays that build bridges between us. Full of practical advice for the aspiring - and practising - playwright, this book is also an important call-to-arms for playwrights everywhere, arguing for its necessity in the context of an increasingly fractured, distracted, disconnected world.

Ryan Craig is a British playwright, screen, television and radio writer whose plays usually involve both ethical and social matters. He is best known for his plays What We Did To Weinstein (Menier Chocolate Factory, London, 2005) which earned him a Most Promising Playwright Nomination at the Evening Standard Awards; The Glass Room (Hampstead Theatre, 2006), which deals with Holocaust denial; the English version of Tadeusz Slobodzianek's Our Class (2009), The Holy Rosenbergs (2011), both at the National Theatre and the semi-autobiographical Filthy Business (2017, Hampstead Theatre, London).

This perfectly demystifies the inexplicable art of playwriting. Candid and immediate, a vital companion to playwrights and theatre makers. * Edward Hall, director * Writing in Coffee Shops is seismic, political and deeply personal. Fascinating about family, class, race and the strange process of writing itself; it's a beautiful, passionate and needed book. * Rebecca Lenkiewicz, Playwright, UK * This is an often hilarious memoir, an insightful playwriting handbook and a rousing call-to-arms in the face of our dark and tumultuous times. Anyone in the theatre-anyone in general-will find delight and wisdom in its pages. * JT Rogers, Playwright, USA * At times a book of philosophy, it is also an excellent overview of the theatre, citing examples from the Greeks to Shakespeare and contemporary writers to make points about the ways in which plays can be created. In addition, it contains a great deal of contemporary social and political commentary to add background to the story ... An excellent, slightly offbeat manual for those who are considering becoming playwrights or have taken the first steps in that direction. It is also a cracking read. * British Theatre Guide *