ABSTRACT
When the Department of Playwriting at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts was founded, it was called simply the Dramatic Writing Program. Often, I called it the Dramatic Rewriting Program. Its hard to accept the fact that we are only beginning our journey with a play when we finish the first draft. In order to face the series of rewrites a play requires, I think it best to approach the task in a formulaic way, so that you have a predetermined set of steps to go through and dont feel overwhelmed. In rewriting a play, I make a list of problems I want to tackle and attack one task at a time. For example, if I have to deepen one character s voice, I work on that throughout the script from beginning to end. Then, if I have some plot difficulties, I reshuffle the plot so that it all flows together. Dont attack all your problems at the same time. List them, and vanquish them one at a time.
