A
playwright, also known as a
dramatist, is a person who writes dramatic
literature or
drama. These works are usually
written to be performed in front of a live audience by actors. They
also may be
closet dramas or literary
works written using dramatic forms but not meant for
performance.
The term is not a variant spelling of
playwrite, but
something quite distinct: the word
wright is an archaic
English term for a craftsman or builder (as in a
wheelwright or
cartwright). Hence the prefix and
the suffix combine to indicate
someone who crafts plays.
The
homophone with
write is in
this case coincidental.
Early playwrights
The earliest playwrights in Western literature with surviving works
are the
Ancient Greeks. These early
plays were written for annual Athenian competitions between
playwrights held around the 5th century BC. Such notables as
Aeschylus,
Sophocles,
Euripides, and
Aristophanes established forms that are
still relied on by their modern counterparts.
The term
playwright appears to have been coined by
Ben Jonson in his Epigram 49,
To
Playwright, as an insult, to suggest a mere tradesman
fashioning works for the theatre. He always described himself as a
poet, since plays during that time were always written in meter and
so regarded as the provenance of poets. This view was held even as
late as the early 19th century. The term later lost this negative
connotation.
Contemporary playwrights
Contemporary playwrights often do not reach the same level of fame
or cultural importance that they have in the past, since the
theatre is no longer the only outlet for serious drama or
entertaining comedies, and must compete with films and television
for an audience. In addition, the perilous state of
funding for the arts in the U.S. and a growing
reliance on ticket sales as a source of income for
non-profit theatres has caused many of them to
reduce the number of new works they produce. For example,
Playwrights Horizons produced only six
plays in the 2002-03 seasons, compared with thirty-one in 1973-74.
As
revivals and large-scale production musicals become the de
rigueur Broadway
(and even
Off-Broadway) production, it has become
much more difficult for playwrights to make a living in the
business, let alone become major successes.
However,
the most successful playwrights are often high-status figures in
their industry, in stark contrast to the status of the screenwriter in Hollywood
. While this may be considered to be a result
of the more literary approach that has characterised the
theatre since its roots in
poetry, it is also because of the hard fact that
according to
Dramatists Guild , the
playwright has the final say on a production — a situation which
leaves less room for the
director
to be as much of an
auteur as the
film director, since the playwright’s
vision takes precedence.
See also
References
- Fraser, Neil. "Theatre History Explained," The Cowood
Press, 2004, page 11
- Jonson, Ben, The Works of Ben Jonson, Boston:
Phillips, Sampson, and Co., 1853. page 788
- Alexis Soloski, "The Plays What They Wrote: The
Best Scripts Not Yet Mounted on a New York Stage", The Village
Voice, May 21 - 27, 2003
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