A
playwright, also known as a
dramatist, is a person who writes dramatic literature or
drama. These works are usually written to be performed in front of a live audience by actors. They also may be
closet dramas or literary works written using dramatic forms but not meant for performance.
The term is not a variant spelling of
playwrite, but something quite distinct: the word
wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder (as in a
wheelwright or
cartwright). Hence the prefix and the suffix combine to indicate
someone who crafts plays. The
homophone with
write is in this case coincidental.
Early playwrights
The earliest playwrights in Western literature with surviving works are the
Ancient Greeks. These early plays were written for annual Athenian competitions between playwrights held around the 5th century BC. Such notables as
Aeschylus,
Sophocles,
Euripides, and
Aristophanes established forms that are still relied on by their modern counterparts.
The term
playwright appears to have been coined by
Ben Jonson in his Epigram 49,
To Playwright, as an insult, to suggest a mere tradesman fashioning works for the theatre. He always described himself as a poet, since plays during that time were always written in meter and so regarded as the provenance of poets. This view was held even as late as the early 19th century. The term later lost this negative connotation.
Contemporary playwrights
Contemporary playwrights often do not reach the same level of fame or cultural importance that they have in the past, since the theatre is no longer the only outlet for serious drama or entertaining comedies, and must compete with films and television for an audience. In addition, the perilous state of
funding for the arts in the U.S. and a growing reliance on ticket sales as a source of income for
non-profit theatres has caused many of them to reduce the number of new works they produce. For example,
Playwrights Horizons produced only six plays in the 2002-03 seasons, compared with thirty-one in 1973-74. As revivals and large-scale production musicals become the
de rigueur Broadway (and even
Off-Broadway) production, it has become much more difficult for playwrights to make a living in the business, let alone become major successes.
However, the most successful playwrights are often high-status figures in their industry, in stark contrast to the status of the
screenwriter in
Hollywood. While this may be considered to be a result of the more literary approach that has characterised the
theatre since its roots in
poetry, it is also because of the hard fact that according to
Dramatists Guild , the playwright has the final say on a production — a situation which leaves less room for the
director to be as much of an
auteur as the
film director, since the playwright’s vision takes precedence.
See also
