How to Write Better Plays
Make it Sparkle Video with Jonathan Dorf
Playwright and Teaching Artist
12:59 (runtime)
Director’s Notes
Playwright and Teaching Artist Jonathan Dorf says that professional presentation of your work matters; a well-formatted play can make a positive impression.
Jonathan says to focus on telling a good story and creating characters that need something and strive hard to get it.
He shares to make sure your play answers "why now?" i.e., why the events are happening at this particular time, indicating a significant shift.
Jonathan says it’s important to understand the question your play poses—what the audience needs answered before they can leave.
He believes writers should broadly interpret 'conflict' in your play—it can be a holistic struggle or problem, not just inter-character strife.
Jonathan says to conduct thorough research if your play involves unfamiliar experiences; inaccuracies can pull audiences out of the story.
More About Jonathan
Playwright and screenwriter Jonathan Dorf has had more than 2000 play productions, including productions in every US state, as well as in Canada, Europe, Africa, Asia, Central and South America, Australia and New Zealand. He has been a finalist for the Actors Theatre of Louisville Heideman Award, the Hyperion One Act Award, the Weinberger Playwright Residency and the Interact and Charlotte Rep New Play festivals, and he has worked with such companies as the Walnut Street Theatre, Playwrights Theatre of New Jersey, Ensemble Studio Theatre – LA, Moving Arts and the Pittsburgh New Works Festival. He is co-founder and managing partner of YouthPLAYS, a publisher of plays and musicals for young actors and audiences at which over two dozen of his plays reside, with more than 25 other works published by such companies as Playscripts, Brooklyn Publishers, Heuer and Original Works, and monologues published in collections published by Meriwether, Playscripts and Smith & Kraus. He has been instrumental in the development of ProduceaPlay.com, the internet’s top “how to produce a play” resource site for prospective producers of theatre at all levels – schools, colleges, community and professional theatres.
He is chair emeritus of the Alliance of Los Angeles Playwrights, the former managing director of the Philadelphia Dramatists Center and was a longtime playwriting advisor to Final Draft (for whom he created the playwriting “Ask the Expert”) and The Writers Store (creator of Playwriting101.com, for many years Google’s top-ranked playwriting website, and a former playwriting instructor at Script University, where they still use his course). He is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America’s Education Committee, as well as a longtime Guild member. For screen, he has written a trio of produced shorts, two of which he also directed. He is the author of Young Playwrights 101, a book for young playwrights and those who teach them, and conducts workshops at schools and festivals across the US and as far away as Japan, Malaysia and Singapore. He served as Visiting Associate Professor in the M.F.A. playwriting and children’s literature programs at Hollins University, and as United States Cultural Envoy to Barbados. He holds a B.A. in Dramatic Writing and Literature from Harvard University and an M.F.A. in Playwriting from UCLA.