Playwriting: A Backstage Guide

＂Drawing heavily on contemporary practice--where the conventional rules of playmaking are regularly turned inside-out--the book considers moments from a range of plays, with a focus on those from the National Theatre’s 50-year repertoire. Crucially, it embraces the range of different dramaturgical structures and styles popular today and reflects the current openness of dramatic form. It celebrates the increasingly blurred boundaries between playwriting and devised work, focusing not just on individual dramaturgical choices, but also on collective collaborative processes. Therefore, much of the book’s lessons about dramatic form are valuable for a devising company as much as for the solo author＂--

Dan Rebellato is an experienced, internationally performed playwright for theatre and radio. He has taught playwriting for 25 years for various universities, writers’ groups, Arvon and elsewhere. He has also written widely and influentially on contemporary British theatre, with a focus on the theory and practice of new writing. He is Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Royal Holloway, University of London.