Table Of ContentHow to Read a Play
How to Read a Play provides a broad range of tools and methods for
reading a play text, exploring a series of possible approaches for those
who hope to bring it to life on the stage.
The work done before the first rehearsal, preliminary reading,
or even before the cast has met can be crucial to the success of a
production. How to Read a Play provides essential guidance on how
to analyze, understand, and interpret a play for performance.
The book is divided into four sections:
• lessons from the past, detailing approaches from Aristotle
through to Stanislavski and Brecht and establishing the models
and methods that underpin much of directors’ work today;
• a survey of current practices, including interviews and
observation of practical work; this section is divided according
to the director’s tasks: digging into the script, preparing for
design and casting, and gearing up to rehearse;
• reading a play without a script, considering the analysis of non-
traditional plays and texts, and offering guidance on devising
work; and
• a workbook of play analysis, outlining exercises based on the
survey of current practices and designed as a practical guide to
analyzing a chosen text.
The goal of How to Read a Play is to get students to dig deeply into the
text for meaning and author intent and for what will work on stage.
Having come to understand and experiment with a range of models,
readers will be equipped to create their own brand of analysis.
Damon Kiely is a professional director and writer and professor of
directing and acting for DePaul University’s Theatre School.
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How to Read a Play
Script Analysis for Directors
Damon Kiely
First published 2016
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2016 Damon Kiely
The right of Damon Kiely to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or
other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying
and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Kiely, Damon.
How to read a play : script analysis for directors / Damon Kiely.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Drama – Explication. 2. Theater – Production and direction. I. Title.
PN1707.K53 2016
792.02´33–dc23 2015031448
ISBN: 978-0-415-74822-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-415-74823-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-64264-2 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by HWA Text and Data Management, London
To my mother, who always told me I could do
anything, even when I probably couldn’t.
To my father, who inspires me every day to be a
better teacher, writer, artist, dad, and human being.
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Contents
List of Figures viii
Foreword ix
Acknowledgments xii
1 Introduction 1
2 Lessons from the Past 3
3 Survey of Current Practices 32
4 Reading a Play without a Script 107
5 Workbook Chapter 137
Appendices 163
List of Interviews 182
Biographies of Interviewees 185
Bibliography 199
Index 201
Figures
Our Town by Thornton Wilder 13
Medea by Euripides 17
Oklahoma! by Rodgers and Hammerstein 21
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams 38
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams 39
Freytag Models for Star Wars and A Streetcar Named Desire 47
Our Town by Thornton Wilder 55
Our Town by Thornton Wilder 56
Our Town by Thornton Wilder 64
Goldfish by John Kolvenbach 67
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams 86
Stop Hitting Yourself by Rude Mechs 119
500 Clown Frankenstein by 500 Clown 126
Architecting by the TEAM 129
Foreword
Anne Bogart
I love reading, and yet I am usually anxious at the prospect of
reading a play. I tend to put off opening a script for as long as I
can because it requires from me such different tools than reading a
novel, a poem, an essay, or a biography. Plays are not intended to
be read in solitude, and plays ask for an inordinate investment of
my patience and imagination. Essentially, a novel, a poem, an essay,
or a biography embodies the words contained within its covers
and is brought to life by the reader’s imagination, but a play, also
within its covers, ultimately exists to point at something else and it
requires a team of diverse talents to animate it successfully. A novel
exists for its own sake. A play needs a creative team to animate it
in time and space. In plays, the exposition and actions are mostly
expressed through dialogue, and I must translate the dialogue
while reading into mental images that include physical actions that
reflect character and relationships, atmosphere, gestures, groupings,
shadows, light, color, shapes, movement, facial expressions, noise
and silences, sound effects, and much more. I must imagine the
voices including timbre, tone, timing, and inflections. I am required
to imagine a four dimensionality that is only alluded to on the page.
Consequently, I find plays exceedingly difficult to read alone.
And yet, as a theater director, I must regularly sit in a quiet place
and read new and old plays. I read because I love the work of a
particular playwright and I am eager to have access to new worlds
they have imagined. I read because I love the theater and believe
in its transformative power, and this is often how I find my next
project. I regularly depend upon others to point me in the direction
of new plays to read. I depend upon my colleagues and upon the
field at large to keep me in touch with fresh innovations and ideas.
