Playwriting Book Review

Playwriting: Brief & Brilliant by Julie Jensen

Jensen’s authority on the subject comes from previous experience in the field of playwriting and largely takes the form of awards, residencies, and production in the United States and abroad. She is currently the resident playwright at the Salt Lake Acting Company. A list of her plays, productions, commissions, awards, and prizes can be found here:

http://www.saltlakeactingcompany.org/rpjensen.html

The author operates from the viewpoint that playwriting books are mired in details and requirements to a detriment. Jensen's solution to this is to write an extremely concise book about playwriting which simply touches on concepts (sometimes in less than a page). The book takes on the six elements defined by Aristotle as well as re-writing, play development, writer's block, and marketing.

Being organized by topic which is then briefly defined makes the book valuable for someone interested in actually writing rather than actively understanding. The book can be thought of as an inspirational energy drink. The book provides an extremely quick dose of positivity and succinct advice in the middle of writing. This is also a downside of the book as its relative simplicity leaves much to be desired. This limits the overall usefulness of the book to Spark Notes status rather than Bible status. This is not, in other words, the Holy Grail of playwriting texts.