• 92 questions
  • Checked October 2026

Questions to Ask a Playwright

Twelve questions for a playwright about writing for the stage, with space under each for the reply.

Questions to Ask a Playwright

PlaywrightAsked byDate

  1. Write the playwright's name and the date at the top.
  2. Ask each question aloud and write the answer down as it is said.
  3. Skip any question. A playwright may pass on any line.
  4. In a drama class, give each student one question to ask.
Show all 18
  1. How many people have to say yes before a play reaches a stage?
  2. What goes into your stage directions, and what stays out?
  3. Which scene did you fight to keep, and were you right?
  4. How small can a play be: how few actors, how little set?
  5. What happens to a play after its first run ends?
  6. Which voice in the play on your desk turned up first?
  7. What is it like to hear actors speak your words for the first time?
  8. What do you hope an audience catches on a second viewing?
  9. How do you know how long a scene will run before anyone performs it?
  10. How much of the play do you leave to the director and the actors?
  11. What can a stage do that a page or a screen cannot?
  12. What do you know about a play before you write its first line?

Next step Questions for an actor

All 92 questions

Good ones to start with 18

  • How do you know how long a scene will run before anyone performs it? I read it aloud with a watch on the table.
  • How is writing a play different from writing a story to be read? Everything has to be said or done. Nobody can just think.
  • How many people have to say yes before a play reaches a stage? More than I can count, starting with one theater.
  • How much of the play do you leave to the director and the actors? How it moves. I only decide what is said.
  • How small can a play be: how few actors, how little set? Two chairs and two people is plenty.
  • What can a stage do that a page or a screen cannot? Put a living person in the same room as the audience.
  • What did you see or hear that made you want to write for the stage? A school play where the whole room gasped at once.
  • What do you hope an audience catches on a second viewing? What a character does not say.
  • What do you know about a play before you write its first line? Who is in the room and what they want from each other.
  • What does sitting among an audience teach you that a desk cannot? Where they cough. A cough means I lost them.
  • What goes into your stage directions, and what stays out? Entrances and exits. Never how to feel.
  • What happens to a play after its first run ends? It waits for another theater to pick it up.
  • What is it like to hear actors speak your words for the first time? Like hearing my own voice on a recording, but better dressed.
  • What is the first thing you write: a line, a place or an ending? A line someone says when they do not mean it.
  • Where do you sit in the theater when your play is on? The back row, by the aisle, so I can pace.
  • Which play of yours was the hardest to get right, and what was wrong with it? The second act began too late. I cut twelve pages.
  • Which scene did you fight to keep, and were you right? A two-minute silence. It is the part people mention.
  • Which voice in the play on your desk turned up first? A grandmother who refuses to sell her piano.

Deep ones 14

  • How do you write an ending that is honest and not just tidy? I ask what these people would really do next.
  • What can silence do on a stage that words cannot? Make three hundred people hold their breath together.
  • What changes in you between the first draft and closing night? I stop needing it to be liked.
  • What do you hope two strangers say to each other on the way out? "Was she right?" I want an argument on the stairs.
  • What do you owe a character you disagree with? Their best argument.
  • What does it mean to you that no two performances are the same? That the play is alive, and that I do not own it.
  • What is lost when a play is only read and never staged? Half of it. The other half is breath.
  • What question does your play ask and refuse to answer? Whether forgiving someone means letting them back in.
  • When has a play of yours said something you did not know you believed? In a mother's last speech. I wrote it and then agreed.
  • Where is the line between a character's voice and your own? When they surprise me, it is theirs.
  • Which scene cost you the most to write? A goodbye I never got to say myself.
  • Which truth is easier to say through a character than as yourself? That I am not always kind.
  • Why do people still gather in the dark to watch others pretend? To practice feeling things safely.
  • Why does this story need to be told aloud, to people in one room? Because it is about being overheard.

The idea and the first draft 14

  • How do you choose where and when the play is set? Wherever the characters cannot easily leave.
  • How do you decide where a scene ends? The moment someone gets what they want, or knows they will not.
  • How do you know where the intermission belongs? Right after a door slams.
  • How do you test whether an idea belongs on a stage and not in a novel? If it can happen in one room, it is a play.
  • How many characters can an idea hold before the stage gets crowded? Five. After that someone is just carrying a tray.
  • How many days does a first draft take you, and may anyone read it? Few, and nobody may. It is terrible on purpose.
  • What do you call a play before it has a title? The kitchen one.
  • What do you do with an idea before you write any dialogue? Draw the room and decide where the door is.
  • What do you put at the very start so the audience leans in? Someone doing something they should not.
  • What does your outline look like, if you make one? Index cards on the floor, one for each scene.
  • When do you first show a draft to anyone, and to whom? After the second pass, to one actor I trust.
  • Where does a play begin for you: an argument, a room or an image? Two people who both want the same chair.
  • Which idea fit a stage badly, and what did trying it teach you? A car chase. I learned to let people describe things.
  • Which part of a first draft almost always survives? The first image and the last line.

Dialogue and characters 14

  • Do you say the lines aloud while you write them? Constantly. My neighbors think I argue a lot.
  • How do you give a small part one moment worth playing? A line nobody else in the play could say.
  • How do you make two characters sound different from each other? One never finishes a sentence. The other never starts one.
  • How do you write a pause, and how do you know it is earned? The word "pause" on its own line. If I can cut it, I do.
  • How do you write an interruption so it reads the way it sounds? A dash, and the next line starts mid-thought.
  • How does a character's way of speaking change from first scene to last? She stops apologizing.
  • How does the audience learn a secret without anyone announcing it? Someone lies, badly.
  • How long can one character talk before someone must answer? Until the listener would really cut in.
  • In one scene of yours, who wants something and who is in the way? She wants to leave. Her brother is standing by the door.
  • What can a character say only once in a play? "I am sorry." The second time it weighs less.
  • What do you do when a joke works on the page and dies in the room? Cut a word. It is usually one word too long.
  • What makes a line easy for an actor to say, and what makes it a trap? Short breaths are easy. Three s-sounds in a row are a trap.
  • Where do you go to listen to the way strangers talk? Buses and waiting rooms.
  • Which character was the hardest to hear clearly? The quiet one. I gave him a habit of humming.

Rehearsal, rewrites and opening night 18

  • How do you read a review, or do you? Once, standing up, a week late.
  • How do you rewrite a scene overnight? Tea, the old pages on the floor and a ten o'clock deadline.
  • How do you tell a problem in the script from a problem in the staging? If three different actors trip on it, it is mine.
  • How does a play change when a different company stages it? Same words, different play. I like that.
  • How late can you still change the script? Until the director locks it. Then I sit on my hands.
  • How often are you in the rehearsal room, and what do you do there? The first week and the last. I take notes and stay quiet.
  • What changes when the set, the lights and the costumes arrive? Lines that described the room can go.
  • What did a director see in your play that you had missed? That it was funny. I thought I had written a tragedy.
  • What did an actor ask about a line that made you change it? "Why would she say this now?" She would not.
  • What did the first preview audience laugh at that you did not expect? A line about soup. I still do not know why.
  • What do you do in the hour before the first performance? Walk around the block twice and count the lobby.
  • What do you do when a scene works on paper and not on its feet? Watch where the actors want to move, and write toward it.
  • What do you listen for at the first read-through around a table? The places where the actors speed up. Those are too long.
  • What do you say to the cast before opening night? Thank you, and it is yours now.
  • What has a cold reading shown you that your desk never could? A scene I loved ran twice as long as I thought.
  • What is it like to watch the play on its last night? Like seeing a house I built taken down, gently.
  • Which line did you cut in rehearsal that the play does not miss? A long joke about a ferry.
  • Who gets your notes: the actors or the director? The director, always. One voice in the room.

For a drama class 14

  • Did you write plays when you were our age? One, about a dog detective. It ran for one lunchtime.
  • How do we give everyone in the class a part? Write a town meeting. Everybody gets one line.
  • How do we lay out a script page so actors can read it? Name on the left, line beside it, directions in brackets.
  • How do we make the audience laugh? Give a serious person a silly problem.
  • How do we start a script when we only have an idea? Put two people in a room who want different things.
  • How do we write a play for a stage with no scenery? Let the characters tell us where they are.
  • How do we write lines that sound like real talking? Read them aloud and cross out what you would never say.
  • How long should our first play be? Ten minutes. Short enough to finish.
  • What if our play has no ending yet? Write the scene before the ending. It will tell you.
  • What is the best way to practice writing plays? Write down a real conversation, then change who wins.
  • What makes a good first line for a play? A question, or a fib.
  • What should our stage directions say? Who comes in, who goes out and what they carry.
  • What should we do when our actors change our lines? Listen first. Sometimes theirs are better.
  • When is a script ready to hand to the actors? When you can read it aloud without stopping to explain.

How it works

These questions to ask a playwright stay with the stage: what a play needs before its first line, where the writer sits on the night. Five more groups cover deep ones, the idea, dialogue, rehearsal and a drama class.

Read the full guide

Good questions to ask playwrights

The opening set is Good ones to start with, eighteen for a talk after a show or a visit to a class: how long a scene will run before anyone performs it, what goes into stage directions, what happens to a play when its first run ends. None names a play or a person.

Deep questions to ask playwrights

Deep ones holds fourteen for a longer conversation: what a writer owes a character they disagree with, how an ending can be honest and not just tidy. They are in the box under Print this list. The example answers are invented, and on paper they come last, on their own page.

Questions and answers

What is a playwright?

A person who writes scripts for plays, which are mostly dialogue between characters and are meant to be performed, not only read. Wright is an old word for a craftsperson or builder, as in wheelwright; that it sounds like write is a coincidence.

What should a drama class ask a playwright?

How to begin: how to start a script from only an idea, how long a first play should be, how to lay out a page so actors can read it. For a drama class holds fourteen in a student's words.

What do you ask a playwright after a show?

Ask about the night you just watched: which line was cut in rehearsal, what the first preview audience laughed at, how late the script could still change. Rehearsal, rewrites and opening night holds eighteen like these.

What is a cold reading of a play?

Actors read the script aloud without having rehearsed it, sometimes seeing it for the first time, in an informal seated setting. It lets a playwright judge the play by ear. One question asks what a cold reading has shown the writer.

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