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Playwriting in Process: Thinking and Working Theatrically, Second Edition. By Michael Wright. Newburyport, MA: Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Co., 2010; pp. ix + 217. $18.95 paper.
Michael Wright begins the second edition of his playwriting primer by explaining how Playwriting in Process is really not a primer at all: his intention, as he states in the introduction, is to provide students and playwrights with "more of a workshop sensibility" (xiii) through a series of exercises that will enable them to create what is essentially a hand-selected playwriting curriculum tailored to their particular place in the writing process, rather than by providing another playwriting text that presumes to have all the answers. Wright teaches screenwriting and playwriting at the University of Tulsa, where he is the director of the Interdisciplinary Program in Creative Writing. He has also written four books on playwriting and has seen his prose, poems, and plays published and performed around the country. These credentials have given rise to the highly accessible tone and distinctive voice Wright employs that makes this book so valuable.
Wright divides the book into nine chapters and an appendix. He spends the first two chapters defining terms, primarily what he means by "theatricality" and his suggestions for methods that will help individuals to think in a theatrical way. He immediately makes clear his position on the teaching of playwriting in the first chapter while discussing whether playwrights should direct their own work, concluding that "I leave...