Women playwrights of the 1920s and 1930s

Gale, Maggie B.

doi:10.1017/ccol9780521594226.003

Cited by 7 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…According to Maggie Gale, pageants and processions, focused on examining women's history and identity, were the predominant form. 54 Platt's Practical Hints on Playwriting was published the year after some women (those over thirty who owned property or were married to a property-owning man) got the vote. Suffragette theatre is not what Platt writes about (although she did support the work of women writers), but it is important to recognize the work of the AFL, which cut a path for a significant number of women to emerge as playwrights in the 1920s.…”

Section: Setting the Scene: Commercial Theatre 1840-1925mentioning

confidence: 99%

Playwriting Manuals, 1888–1925: Jerome K. Jerome, Alfred Hennequin, Agnes Platt, and Moses Malevinsky

Morash¹

2022

New Theatre Quarterly

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Since the 1990s, there has been a large number of ‘how-to’ manuals published in English for aspiring playwrights. By and large, these texts treat the pedagogy of playwriting as a recent phenomenon. However, a series of relatively unknown books from the mid-nineteenth century were written with the purpose of teaching the craft of dramatic writing, emphasizing the importance of a hands-on understanding of the theatre and the individual roles within it. This article argues that, while these books are representative of the historical context in which they were written, they also contain advice which is still useful for playwrights, along with fascinating individual characteristics. Texts featured include one of the earliest manuals discovered, written by the anonymous ‘A Dramatist’; a text by the first (known) woman to write a how-to manual in English; and a book which uses a mathematical formula as a foundation for writing a script. Karen Morash is Lead Academic Tutor on the BA Theatre Studies at Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance. She is a playwright and poet, and works as a dramaturg with the theatre company Head for Heights.

show abstract

Section: Setting the Scene: Commercial Theatre 1840-1925mentioning

confidence: 99%