Collaborative play writing
Plans for play writing projects
[edit | edit source]Briefly describe plans for play writing projects in sections below. Active projects should each have their own subpage.
An alternative Internet site involving play writing on a public wiki is found at link. Read Collaborative Playwriting: Polyvocal Plays from the EU Collective Plays Project the largest new play project in theatre history and discover 5 models for collaboration plus the plays themselves. (Routledge 2019).
From monologue to dialogue
[edit | edit source]The idea behind this project is to write a play, starting with a monologue and gradually re-writing it into a dialogue. One new character will be added with each re-write and, in this manner the script will eventually be fleshed out into a full play. So the key would be to start with a really good monologue.
Monologue from plays
[edit | edit source]Among renowned playwrights, http://method.vtheatre.net/doc/tobacco.html
The Human Voice (1930), a monologue for one woman speaking on the telephone.
http://www.archive.org/details/threeplayscounte00striuoft
Happy Days (play) (1961), a play with one woman and one man, with only the woman speaking. In two other Beckett plays, Landscape (play) (1968) with one man and one woman, but since they do not interact, this amounts to two monologues for the price of one. Kicking a Dead Horse (2007) with one man, almost a monologue, except for one woman arriving late in the play, and a dead horse.
Among lesser known more modern plays, I, Claudia (2001), a one-woman play.
Monologue from short stories
[edit | edit source]A second possibility is to adapt a short story in monologue form into a play. Renowned examples of this kind include Diary of a Madman (1835), Death in Venice (1912), Louis-Ferdinand Céline's "Cannon-fodder" (1949).
The text of "The Last Day of a Condemned Man" can be read at http://www.archive.org/details/worksofvictorhug05hugoiala
"Diary of a Madman" at http://www.archive.org/details/mantleotherstori00gogorich
"Notes from Underground" at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Notes_from_Underground
Monologue from diaries or confessions
[edit | edit source]The diary format may be particularly conducive to such adaptations. Famous memoirs comprise Samuel Pepys's diary (1669), Histoire de ma vie (Story of my Life, 1794) by Thomas de Quincey, Leo Tolstoy, and Helen Fielding.
Augustine's confessions are found at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Confessions_of_Saint_Augustine
Pepys' diary at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Diary_of_Samuel_Pepys
Evelyn's diary at http://www.archive.org/details/diaryjohnevelyn00braygoog
Rousseau's confessions at http://www.archive.org/details/confessions01rousgoog
Gozzi's confessions at http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/33225
The memoirs of Casanova at http://www.archive.org/details/jccld10
The memoirs of de Quincey at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_English_Opium-Eater
The memoirs of Chateaubriand at http://wikilivres.info/wiki/Chateaubriand%27s_memoirs
Tolstoy's confessions at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Confession
Monologues in play forms adapted from confessions have already been written, such as I Am My own Wife (2003) by Doug Wright, consisting one one female transvestite.
There is one ongoing project in this section: "French chronicles of the 1590s".
French chronicles of the 1590s
[edit | edit source]"French chronicles of the 1590s" is based on "Chronicles of the reign of Henry III and Henry IV of France" (1621) by Pierre de L'Estoile.
The initial version of this play written by Robert Lalonde is based on a free e-book version available at [1].
See
French chronicles of the 1590s
Making a Renaissance play Shakespeare-like
[edit | edit source]
Reflections on collaborative playwriting in the http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=3061952
A second source of information is a more recent book by Heather Anne Hirschfeld: Joint enterprises: collaborative drama and the institutionalization of the English Renaissance Theater. Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004, presented in part at
http://books.google.fr/books?id=tT_lXKFK1roC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Joint+Enterprises:
a book reviewed by Brain Walsh in Renaissance Quarterly-Volume 58, Number 1, Spring 2005, pp. 345-347.
at http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/renaissance_quarterly/v058/58.1walsh.html
One idea is to start with an entire public domain play and rewrite it, each writer being responsible for specific scenes, often done in Elizabethan days. The best choices might be plays with strong scenes but with important flaws liable to be improved.
There are 3 ongoing projects of this kind.
Cardenio
[edit | edit source]John Fletcher (playwright) and Stephen Greenblatt and Charles L. Mee adapted it in modern style.
Only a small part of the original version of the Theobald play, perhaps 1%, sounded like either of the 17th century authors. The purpose of the project is to make the Theobald play more Shakespeare-like, or at least more Fletcher-like. At the present moment, the text has almost entirely been reshaped and sounds much more like an 17th century work. The names of most of the characters have been changed back to the original version of the story, namely the Cardenio episodes contained in chapters 24, 27, 28, 29, and 36 of Don Quixote (1605 and 1615).
The original text of "Double falsehood" is available at http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013363894
See
A Yorkshire Tragedy
[edit | edit source]Plays of the A Yorkshire Tragedy (1608). As with Cardenio, the text has been almost entirely reshaped.
The original text of "A Yorkshire Tragedy" is found at http://www.archive.org/details/supplementplays00shakiala
See
Aglaura
[edit | edit source]Other playwrights listed in Sir John Suckling (poet). The text has almost entirely been reshaped to sound like a more important 17th century work.
The original text of "Aglaura" is seen at http://www.archive.org/details/poemsplaysandot06suckgoog
See
Making a Renaissance tale or pamphlet Shakespeare-like
[edit | edit source]The Murder of John Brewen
[edit | edit source]Works from playwrights listed in Thomas Kyd. This text has been reshaped into a 17th century-type play.
See
The Countess of Challand
[edit | edit source]Tales of the Italian Renaissance writer, Matteo Bandello, may be pilfered, as Shakespeare did, directly or indirectly via other authors, for a few of his plays. Among over 200 published tales (1554, 1573) is "The Countess of Cellant", available at the following site:
http://www.archive.org/details/novelsmatteoban01bandgoog
In the English translation, Cellant is a distortion of Challand, as in the town of Challand-Saint-Victor in the Aosta Valley region of north-western Italy, and so the collaborative play is renamed "The Countess of Challand".
See
Adapting an existing play into contemporary style
[edit | edit source]Plays in the public domain may be used, prior to the date of the current Copyright cut-off, and transformed into contemporary language. An example of this type is "Warnings" (1913), a one-act play by http://charlesmee.org/html/plays.html
One-act plays can be extended into full length plays. Every year, hundreds of plays are refused by theatre directors. Where do they go? Why not submit it here in the hope of improving it?
There are two ongoing projects for this subsection.
Warnings
[edit | edit source]The original text of "Warnings" is seen at http://www.eoneill.com/texts/warnings/contents.htm
See
Time To Burn
[edit | edit source]The original text of "Time To burn" is seen at http://charlesmee.org/html/timetoburn.html
See
Adapting a foreign play into English
[edit | edit source]Find a foreign language play in the public domain and adapt it into English.
For French and German dramatists, see List_of_playwrights_by_nationality_and_date_of_birth. Perhaps particularly appealing would be late 19th century social plays.
French theatre
[edit | edit source]French theatre with strong social themes include those of François, Vicomte de Curel.
Examples of the more popular theatre include Sacha Guitry, while playwrights in the more dramatic vein include Edouard Bourdet.
German theatre
[edit | edit source]A notable example of a German author with strong social themes is The Conflagration (1901), The Rats (play) (1911). Although social conditions have changed, these plays may be fruitfully adapted to new ends.
The first three Hauptmann plays can be found at http://www.archive.org/details/thedramaticworks09971gut
and the second threesome at http://www.archive.org/details/thedramaticworks09972gut
Adapting a novel or short story into a play
[edit | edit source]Plays based on a contemporary or older novel or short story may be used.
Moon Hammer
[edit | edit source]The goal of Moon Hammer project is to create a theatrical version of a science fiction ghost story H.G. Wells.
See
Moon Hammer play writing project
Other science fiction possibilities
[edit | edit source]"Frankenstein", a novel by Mary Shelley is overdue for collaborative dramatization (see novel at http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Articles/forry2.html)
"20,000 leagues under the sea", a novel by Jules Verne could also be dramatized http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2488
"Dracula", a novel by Bram Stoker is another possibility: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/345
"Mummy" A merged collaborative version of four titles on Gutenberg would be great.
Adapting historical events into a play
[edit | edit source]Plays based on historical events may be used.
Adapting a film-script into a play
[edit | edit source]A film-script in the public domain may be adapted into a play, or a Copyrighted film-script significantly changed, or else a script not yet made into a film. Every year, hundreds of film-scripts are refused. Where do they go? Why not submit it here in the hope of improving it?
Adapting a scientific dialogue into a play
[edit | edit source]A scientific exchange can be turned into a play.
Adapting a blog into a play
[edit | edit source]A blog between several persons can be turned into a play, for example this one on a scientific subject [2].
Considerations on copyright
[edit | edit source]Here is a point to ponder: if we use a pre-existing, copyrighted monologue as a starting point, will we be violating the copyright? Since the final product will be vastly different from the original text, this may be permissable, but on the other hand, the original text may still be there - word for word - but simply spread out throughout the script. Also, is the copyright on the actual text alone? Or does it include the idea behind the text as well (ie. would paraphrasing the original piece still be violating the copyright)?
Do you have some specific examples of "pre-existing, copyrighted monologue" that you might want to use? I see there are some texts available under free licenses such as the movie playscript Creative Commons. There is also GFDL text at the fiction wikia.
