Rewrites and rehearsals are the final steps of crafting a play. But how does a playwright interest a theater company in the first place? In this program, Richard Wherret, Alana Valentine, Will Dunne, Ros Horin, and other theater professionals examine the process of rewriting and the role of the playwright in rehearsals-as well as how to sell a play in the drama marketplace. Common pitfalls of writing for the stage are also addressed, along with the...

On this episode of Camera Three, Sam Shepard, Jerome Max, Herb Gardner, Justin Mamis, and Rosalyn Drexler discuss aspects of their craft. Topics include: becoming a playwright, improving their writing, the audience's role, and helping emerging playwrights.

An adaptation of the popular Michael Frayn stage-play based around a strange trip the German physicist Werner Heisenberg made to Copenhagen in 1941 to see his Danish counterpart Niels Bohr. Old friends and close colleagues, they had revolutionized atomic physics in the 1920s with their work together. But now the world had changed and the two men were on opposite sides in a world war. The meeting was fraught with danger and embarrassment and ended...

Explore the life and legacy of August Wilson, the playwright some call America's Shakespeare, who chronicled the 20th-century black experience. Features James Earl Jones, Phylicia Rashad, Laurence Fishburne, Viola Davis, new dramatic readings and rare footage.

Not long after the start of the 20th century, playwrights, influenced by the horrors of two world wars, began to experiment with theater in a way which depicted many long-held historical, social, and cultural beliefs and practices as being meaningless and chaotic. Incorporating interviews with influential directors Bijan Sheibani, Steven Berkoff, and others, this program traces the evolution of modern theater from its existentialist roots through...

A contemporary interpretation of Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece, this beautifully crafted program scrutinizes what is colloquially referred to as the battle of the sexes. Production values convincingly re-create the world of the Bronze Age, but commentary from modern scholars evokes themes easily recognizable in the 21st century: Who holds the real power in male/female relationships? Why are women so often objects of male fear as well as desire?...

After Miss Julie is an adaptation of August Strindberg's 1888 play Miss Julie. Director Patrick Marber updated the classic to England, 1945, on the night of Churchill's election defeat to the socialists. Miss Julie, the daughter of a labor politician, seduces her father's chauffeur, despite his engagement to the maid. She panics the next morning and when confronted by Christine, seems suicidal.

David Hugh Jones directs the adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's 1897 play. The American Revolutionary war is in its second year, affecting even the smallest communities. In a New Hampshire village, Dick Dudgeon, the "black sheep" of his family, believes in the right to happiness and proclaims himself a rebel against the British. Despite Dick's self-proclaimed apostasy, the local minister Anthony Anderson treats him with courtesy. When soldiers mistake...

They gave their names to some of the most memorable plays in Western history, and, thousands of years later, they are still very much a presence in contemporary culture. Who were the women of classical Greek drama? In this program, the presentation of powerful women in Medea, Antigone, and Lysistrata is contrasted with the circumscribed role of women in Athenian society by Princeton University's Froma Zeitlin; Helene Foley, of Barnard College; Jeffrey...

David Henry Hwang has experienced stereotyping firsthand. Today, he dedicates his work as a successful dramatist to dispelling those hackneyed portrayals of Asian-Americans that he encountered in his youth. In this program, ABC News correspondent John Yang interviews the Tony Award-winning playwright who brought M. Butterfly to Broadway and whose latest effort, a contemporary version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Flower Drum Song, renovates and reshapes...