PUTTING ON A PLAY: A Guide to Writing and Producing Neighborhood Drama

A start-to-finish handbook, with more attention to the start than the finish. Thus we open with relaxing exercises and imaginings that ""involve all your body"" (pretend you're a stack of brush on fire), and proceed to pantomiming simple actions (eating an apple) and then miming situations and simple stories. The chapter on ""Creating Your Own Plays"" consists of prods for finding ideas (your own experiences, twists on TV stories, scenes that illustrate maxims) and some elementary advice on creating characters, writing dialogue, and handling stage directions. There are a few words also on the visual writing of radio plays, different kinds of TV performances (commercials, talk shows), and home movie-making (be sure to start with a storyboard); at the close comes a rundown on the backstage aspects of play production from publicity to makeup. It could serve young drama groups who don't know where to start, but it's a pedestrian performance itself and offers no new ideas or special wisdom.