Playwriting is a great way for novelists to branch out into more collaborative work. 

Working with directors, actors, and live audiences gives you not just immediate feedback about your work, but it also gives you a team of people who want to advance your project just as much as you do. 

But depending on where you live, playwriting with a team can feel like a way harder task than sitting at home and writing a novel on your laptop. If you live in a major city, your main point of reference might be star-studded productions of major classics. If you live in a more rural or suburban area, the only live theater you see near you might be thealocal school play. And if you have really big goals for your career, you might only be interested in writing screenplays and TV pilots. 

But playwriting is more accessible than you might think, and for some writers, it can open more doors than other formats. 

Teamwork

There is a lot of playwriting work that doesn’t even happen anywhere near a stage. 

Podcasts, with a pretty low barrier to entry and an ever-growing audience, present an incredible opportunity for writers. Audio plays are a great idea for a podcast, especially if you’re the kind of writer who only wants to commit to a limited series rather than an ongoing show. 

But being your own film and/or sound crew is a lot of work, and some writers would rather focus on writing and leave the rest to the experts. Luckily there are experts all around you, in your own community.

If playwriting is your first foray into more collaborative work than, say, writing novels, it might feel intimidating to find people around you who can do specialized work like, say, program a light board for a stage show. But just like you (probably) have a day job that pays your rent while you work on your writing, your friends and neighbors have skill sets that may surprise you! Former theater geeks, tech enthusiasts, and parents who have dealt with years of mending costumes and running rehearsals full of tiny ballerinas have skill sets on par with any professional. 

DIY Broadway

Most writers who focus primarily on playwriting, even successful ones, don’t even think about Broadway or celebrity casting in their career goals. Or at least they’ll only factor it in as much as you might factor winning the lottery into your financial goals. The same goes for everyone else who makes a theater run, from actors and singers to set builders and lighting designers. 

It’s a lot easier, and often a lot more fun, to stay close to home. Suburban and rural areas often have vibrant amateur theater communities with talented people who may have professional experience or prefer to keep their artistic work separate from the work that pays their bills. Unlike fancier theaters in bigger cities, local theaters are often actively looking for local writers. 

Local theater is also a great place to start if you’re still learning how to translate your novel-writing skills into playwriting skills. Local theater groups will likely be open not just to fully staged productions but also informal readings, workshops, and scene studies where you can try things out with real actors and see how it works in practice. 

Exposure

Compared to writing novels and short stories, playwriting might feel too niche. Even if you get a full production staged, how are you going to get people to come see it? Aren’t you limiting yourself to those few performances and then your play goes dormant? 

Seeing a play takes a couple of hours while reading a full-length novel could take ten, twelve, or even more hours to finish. You’ll find it’s pretty easy to get people to agree to spend a night out trying something new compared to a week or longer of their free time reading a book they aren’t sure they’ll like. Again, this is where working locally will give you a boost; areas with vibrant art communities love to support their own! 

And while a performance run will end, live theater creates a deep impact on not just audiences but on the people who are helping you put on your play. Actors, directors, stage managers, set designers, stagehands, costume designers, anyone who lends a hand in your show will form deeper ties to your career than someone who just skims your book. That’s a big group of people who will talk about your work to their friends, who will help you with future shows, who will share opportunities with you as their own careers grow. 

Community

Theater people make very special communities. Creative types of all sorts—from sewers to carpenters to expert light and sound technicians—all come together to create something special. And while it’s great to benefit from all of that energy, you’ll find that the best part is sharing your passion with others: the kid who did their first performance in one of your plays and years later gets into a prestigious university as an actor; the shy woman with stage fright who blossoms when she tries stage management, expertly keeping the show running from top to bottom; the grizzled older man who feels out of place in costume but builds ingenious sets. 

All of them found fulfillment and growth because of words you put on the page. So who needs Broadway anyway?

Chelsea Ennen is a writer living in Brooklyn with her husband and her dog. When not writing or reading, she is a fiber and textile artist who sews, knits, crochets, weaves, and spins.