The Musical Engine: Why Your Script Needs a "Song" (Even if No One is Singing)
Here's a thought that might be controversial: we think every writer: whether you're crafting a gritty TV pilot, an indie film, or a three-character chamber play: should study musical theater structure. Not because you need to write musicals. But because musical theater has solved problems that the rest of us are still fumbling around in […]
Looking Them in the Eye: The Art of the Direct Address Opening
There's a moment in theater that nothing else in storytelling quite replicates. The lights come up. An actor steps forward. And instead of pretending you're not there, they look right at you. That's it. That's the whole trick. And it changes everything. The direct address opening is one of the oldest tools in the playwright's […]
From the Attention Economy to the Story Economy
Last weekend, right before the snowstorm that hit much of America, my wife and I joined a Robert Burns’ Night gathering in our neighborhood. Celebrating the national bard of Scotland, the evening ended with friends and strangers reciting Burns’s poetry and offering up poems, songs, and literary reflections of their own. Each small performance felt […]
Episodic Engines: TV Structure Tools for Theater Writers (and Anyone Building a Series)
You've got a world. Characters you love. Maybe a sprawling story that refuses to fit into a tidy two-hour play. Or maybe you're a TV writer staring at a pilot that feels… thin. Like it's missing something you can't name. Here's a secret that crosses disciplines: the structural tools of episodic television and musical theater […]