Script Analysis specifically for Actors, Directors, and Designers; the only book on this subject that covers the growing area of unconventional plays.

First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

A comprehensive step-by-step guide to deconstructing screenplay fundamentals, this book will allow readers to understand the elements, functions, and anatomy of a screenplay. Not only will this book enable readers to accomplish a thorough analysis of a screenplay and understand the dramatic elements and their functions, but screenwriters will be able to apply these steps to their own writing. The book explores theme and premise, provides an in-depth study of character development, and breaks down the dramatic elements needed to construct a solid screenplay. It provides examples of the three-act structure, the hero’s journey, and the sequence method. Furthermore, it explores how the main plot and subplots are used in a storyline and discusses the importance of setting. Finally, it reveals screenwriting techniques and tools used by professional screenwriters, such as dramatic irony, reversal, and setup/payoff. To connect with a broad range of readers, the case studies used in this book are mainly from contemporary films, including Get Out (2017), Lady Bird (2017), The Dark Knight (2008), Toy Story (1995), Parasite (2019), and Whiplash (2014). Readers will understand how professional screenwriters use fundamental elements to construct, shape, develop, and tell a visual story. After reading this book, readers will comprehend the components critical to developing a screenplay. This book is ideal for students of screenwriting and filmmaking who want to better understand how to comprehensively analyze a screenplay, as well as screenwriters who want to utilize this method to develop their own scripts.

Script Analysis for Theatre: Tools for Interpretation, Collaboration and Production provides theatre students and emerging theatre artists with the tools, skills and a shared language to analyze play scripts, communicate about them, and collaborate with others on stage productions. Based largely on concepts derived from Stanislavski's system of acting and method acting, the book focuses on action - what characters do to each other in specific circumstances, times, and places - as the engine of every play. From this foundation, readers will learn to distinguish the big picture of a script, dissect and 'score' smaller units and moment-to-moment action, and create individualized blueprints from which to collaborate on shaping the action in production from their perspectives as actors, directors, and designers. Script Analysis for Theatre offers a practical approach to script analysis for theatre production and is grounded in case studies of a range of the most studied plays, including Sophocles' Oedipus the King, Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Henrik Ibsen's Hedda Gabler, Georg Büchner's Woyzeck, Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, and Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive, among others. Readers will develop the real-life skills professional theatre artists use to design, rehearse, and produce plays.

Burgoyne and Downey's text applies modern concepts of student learning to script analysis, an essential skill for theater majors. Critical and creative thinking skills are emphasized while focusing throughout on understanding the scripts being studied. Capstone Assignments for peer review allow students to explore and to practice the concepts presented in each chapter.

Page and Stage narrows the gulf between printed page and performance to make script analysis for production or academic study more effective, efficient, and insightful. This text discusses a method for script analysis based on the idea that plays consist of "organized tension" that involves the audience and organizes their response. It examines the many forms of tension in plays--between actor and character, between the stage and the world of the play, between the present and the past, and between characters--by looking at stage space and time and a wide range of plays from Greek times to the present. Page and Stage addresses the paradox that play scripts are not complete works of dramatic art, and yet contain implicitly, if not explicitly, the intended performance.

Written by one of the UK’s most respected working directors, this book is a practical guide to directing in theatre and includes specific advice on every aspect of working with actors, designers, and the text.