Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied

Theatre and Performance

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Playwriting pedagogy and the myth of intrinsic

creativity

Paul Gardiner

To cite this article: Paul Gardiner (2016) Playwriting pedagogy and the myth of intrinsic
creativity, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance,
21:2, 247-262, DOI: 10.1080/13569783.2016.1157016

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13569783.2016.1157016

Published online: 28 Apr 2016.

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 RIDE: THE JOURNAL OF APPLIED THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE, 2016
VOL. 21, NO. 2, 247–262
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13569783.2016.1157016

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Playwriting pedagogy and the myth of intrinsic creativity

Paul Gardiner
Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Debates surrounding the teaching of playwriting are heavily Playwriting; creativity; drama
influenced by theories of creativity. This article reports on research education; teaching and
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in Australian secondary schools that explored the student and learning

teacher experiences of playwriting pedagogy. The findings of the
research revealed that teaching was based on a belief in intrinsic
creativity: that teaching and learning strategies were considered
corrupting rather than enabling. However, it also emerged that
the approach appeared to hinder the students’ ability to express
their theatrical vision, to reach their creative potential and
develop their proficiency as playwrights. This paper challenges the
assumptions of intrinsic creativity, arguing that they are based on
views on the relationship between knowledge and imagination
that are contested. I argue for a paradigm shift in this approach to
playwriting pedagogy and encourage re-engagement with theory
in practice, and suggest that adopting a systems view of creativity
(Csikszentmihalyi 2008) could have a significant positive impact
on the way playwriting is taught in the classroom. I conclude by
suggesting that refocusing pedagogical dynamic, from critic to
dramaturg, could create a more rewarding experience for both
teacher and student, resulting in increased student autonomy and
a more satisfying teaching experience.

Introduction: can playwriting be taught?

There is large and long-standing debate about the value of playwriting pedagogy. The
playwright Albee (2009) has expressed the conviction that playwriting really cannot be
taught. Other playwrights hold similar views: Jose Rivera argues that a teacher cannot
improve or generate talent and David Henry Hwang suggests you are either a playwright
or you are not (in Herrington and Brian 2006, viii). The playwrights in Nordern’s (2007)
research were reluctant for writing to be taught as they considered that ‘creative
writing courses damage a distinctive talent’ (646). Herrington and Brian (2006, vii) summar-
ise the position when they ask ‘Is there a danger that the very act of instruction can, in fact,
stifle the creative promise?’ However, this debate is complex and occasionally contradic-
tory. Ayckbourn, for instance, claims that playwriting is a ‘purely practical [activity] that
can never in the strict sense be taught’ (2002, ix). Despite the disclaimer that ‘some of it
is quite probably unique to me and contains procedures and practices that it would be

CONTACT Paul Gardiner paul.gardiner@sydney.edu.au

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 248 P. GARDINER

highly unwise for others to try and copy’ (ix), his The Crafty Art of Playmaking proceeds to
give us 39 ‘Obvious Rules’.
The tense relationship between ‘talent’ and pedagogy is at the heart of this discussion.
This tension seems to be related to the playwrights’ belief in the mystical nature of inspi-
ration and the irrelevance, and possible negative impact, of interventionist teaching on the
creative process and product. This mystifying of the creative process is shared by Albee
(2009) when he argues that creativity is not something he understands and he is ‘not
sure it can even be discussed’. As Waters suggests playwrights exhibit a ‘real fear that
thinking too much will harm one’s gift, that in naming the sources and secrets of the
craft, writers may simply scare them off’ (2013, 139). This position places playwriting, as
a creative activity, outside the realms of rational discussion and interrogation. Waters
(2013) argues this ambivalence toward pedagogy originates in a (false) ‘belief that the
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writers’ working process is unknowable … which at best can be apprehended in a visceral

rather than a cerebral manner’ (Waters 2013, 137).
This article interrogates these assumptions about creativity and creative processes and
explores the impact these ideas may have on playwriting pedagogy in schools.

Creativity and pedagogy

The belief that creative talent is intrinsic, unknowable and mysterious encourages the view
that it cannot be analysed, developed or taught. It reflects an idealist view that creativity is
individualistic and innate. As Boden (2004) argues, the Romantic view is that the ‘most we
can do to encourage creativity is to identify the people with this special talent and give
them room to work’ (15). Despite creativity scholarship providing evidence that this
popular view is a misconception, there is a pervasive fallacy that ‘creators are seen to
have the extraordinary ability to bring into being an idea or an object out of what
appears to be nothing’ (McIntyre 2012, 4). As Boden suggests (2004, 14) Romanticism
sees creativity’s ‘unintelligibility as its splendor’. In playwriting Waters (2012) calls this
fallacy the myth of the natural playwright who ‘doesn’t need to read or think much
about what they do because their plays ooze out of them effortlessly, like sweat from a
pore’ (6).
In contrast to the idealist view, creativity is defined as the ability to produce work that is
novel, appropriate and significant to a field. It is what Boden (2004, 1) calls the ability to
produce ‘ideas and artefacts that are new, surprising and valuable’. Creative ability is a
potential present in everyone and with the right training and knowledge can be devel-
oped. As Haseman (2012) suggests ‘creativity is … an innate human capacity, able to be
developed in all humans: creativity certainly isn’t possessed only by the gifted few’ (41).
Rather than being special or elite, creative ideas are the result of everyday thinking,
enriched by skills, motivation and knowledge (Weisberg 1993). Amabile (1996) argues
for the importance of both domain-relevant skills and creativity-relevant processes to
ensure motivation and task completion.
The view of creativity held by the teacher influences what they see as effective and
legitimate pedagogy for creative products. The central issue is the impact, positive or
negative, of knowledge and skill development. The belief in intrinsic creativity suggests
the creative impulse is innate and needs to be ‘released’. A pedagogical approach
based on this assumption would be non-interventionist, aiming to keep the student’s
 RESEARCH IN DRAMA EDUCATION 249

voice free from the corrupting influence of teacher input. Playwriting craft, in this view, is
innate – you either are a playwright or you are not. The systems approach challenges this
assumption and suggests a playwright cannot write a play on an impulse without struc-
tured knowledge of dramatic or playwriting language.

Playwriting literacy – limiting or enabling for creativity?

This fear that teaching playwriting skills and theoretical understanding would limit, rather
than develop, an emerging playwright ignores the research that explores the positive
impact of knowledge on creativity. From the perspective of a systems approach, an idea
needs to move a domain forward to be considered creative and an individual needs to
internalise domain knowledge in order to contribute ideas that will be accepted by the
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field (Csikszentmihalyi 1999). To contribute to the domain, to write a play, a playwright

needs to know how to speak the language of the stage, to manipulate the ‘verbal, …
visual and acoustic codes’ (Pfister 1988). As Burton (2001, 115) argues, drama is symbolic;
‘Every word that is spoken has been chosen for the message it conveys; the set and every
object on it is important to the play; and everything about the play is significant’ (115). This
knowledge is not innate, but it is not unteachable. Aesthetic understanding (Anderson
2012), exposure to and knowledge of the unique qualities of the play text, is necessary
to achieve aesthetic control.
As Anderson suggests, our job as drama educators is to ‘make the mysterious know-
able, but more than knowable: it is to create a structured understanding of … aesthetics
and to allow students to use that aesthetic to create their own work’ (2012, 53). To create
this structured understanding, the playwriting teacher enables and empowers students
by developing their understanding of the meanings of these codes, signs and
symbols. By presenting the breadth of techniques and conventions as options rather
than limitations, providing access to this domain knowledge empowers students. A
review of literature in playwriting pedagogy revealed a spectrum of approaches to dra-
maturgical and playwriting theory that range from the open to the closed (Pfister 1988).1
The image of a spectrum is particularly relevant to playwriting pedagogy as it removes
the issue of ‘camps’ and ‘isms’, presenting the conventions and techniques as a kind of
‘theatrical smorgasbord’. Each individual playwright may choose their own mix of open
and closed qualities depending on the central idea and vision of the particular play
they are writing.
Knowledge of playwriting semiotics will work to actively enhance, rather than limit,
creativity: As Bailin argues ‘It is an understanding of the rules and conventions, of the
reasons for them, and of what is at issue in complying with them, which enables an
artist to know when to violate these rules’ (2011, 211). In this way, this knowledge is gen-
erative as well as expressive. An understanding of the domain will allow the student to
both manipulate existing conventions and enable the creation of new combinations
and forms, giving students an ‘expanded cultural field’ (Nicholson 1998) and thus the
opportunity for thought previously ‘inconceivable’. The idealist view, by encouraging a
belief in innate creativity, encourages neither the teaching nor the learning of this knowl-
edge. Thus to encourage a belief in intrinsic creativity, and downplay the importance of
domain knowledge, could do as much to extinguish the spark of creativity as over-pre-
scriptive instruction and direction.
 250 P. GARDINER

The tensions between intrinsic creativity and knowledge, between innate talent and
pedagogical practices, were significant in the experiences of teachers and students
embarking upon writing a play. The research found that a teachers’ view of creativity
had a significant impact on both the pedagogy and the overall experience of the playwrit-
ing process.

The study
The research presented in this article explored playwriting pedagogical practices in Aus-
tralian, specifically New South Wales (NSW), Secondary schools. The study aimed to under-
stand the teaching and learning experiences of students and teachers and focused on
writing for external assessment, in this case the Scriptwriting Individual Project in the
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NSW Higher School Certificate (HSC) Drama examination.2 It explored the teaching of
the short play form – plays that are 15–25 pages in length. This research adopted a
case study approach, asking the question ‘what are the teaching and learning experiences
of students and teachers preparing a script for external assessment for the NSW Higher
School Certificate Drama examination?’
I gathered data from teacher–student pairs in five schools: five teachers and five Year 12
(final year) students. The participants and the schools are referred to using pseudonyms.
The participants were from independent schools: Sarah and Mrs Bell,3 and Phillipa and Mr
Sewell, were in single sex Sydney schools. Sam, the only male student, and Ms Bates, from
a co-educational Sydney school. Two pairs came from a regional area south of Sydney; Ms
Murray and Lucy from a co-educational, and Patricia and Mr Bovell from a single sex
school. They had all chosen Scriptwriting as their option for their Individual Project, but
the students were all new to playwriting, with only Sam having attempted to write a
play before. The nature of the Individual Project means that the majority of work is
carried out independent of the teacher, and most of the interaction between teacher
and student occurred outside of normal class time.
The data collected were qualitative in nature, and consisted of semi-structured inter-
views (referenced as Int. 1, etc. in the data), students’ logbooks, and observations of
process and product. The teachers and students were interviewed twice, once during
the writing process and once after the plays were complete, with the second round
picking up themes from the first. Where possible, I observed a playwriting teaching and
learning session and play reading workshop at each site. The plays in draft and final
form, as well as the students’ logbooks, were also collected. As a record of the student’s
creative process, the logbooks were an invaluable source of data. Forming part of the
internal assessment process, these logbooks were independent of the research and rep-
resent the students’ record of the pedagogical process undertaken over the full course
of the project. In addition to their reflections, the students would collate the resources
given by the teacher, the drafts and other text work (scenarios, character work or plot
charts) and were used to corroborate the interview data. As qualitative research, I used
this ‘thick data’ (Denzin 1989) to observe the complexity and subtlety of the situation,
exploring where the data supports, elaborates and contradicts itself. Using the image of
a crystal (Richardson 2000), I construct meaning through analysing the multiple perspec-
tives and angles offered by the data, creating a montage (Denzin and Lincoln 2005) where
interpretations are constructed simultaneously not sequentially. Like Kaufman’s ‘moment
 RESEARCH IN DRAMA EDUCATION 251

work’ (Kaufman 2001), meaning is made through exploring the moments in the experi-
ence in isolation and in juxtaposition. As Fetterman argues, ‘what people believe to be
true is more important than any objective reality: people act on what they believe’ (Fetter-
man 1988, 18).

Teachers and the belief in intrinsic creativity

The research suggested that that the teachers in this study expressed a Romantic con-
ception of creativity; that ‘inspiration not education drives creativity’ (Swander, Leahy,
and Cantrell 2007, 15). Teachers chose not to interfere in the ‘natural’ creative process
but to guide and nurture. The distrust of intervention stemmed from a belief in intrinsic
creativity, that naive talent is ‘noble’ and should be kept free from the corrupting influence
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of teaching. Knowledge development and, therefore, strategies that would develop that
knowledge, were not a focus for their pedagogy.
While the initial focus of the research was to investigate the influence of theory on
teaching and learning activities and, subsequently, on the student plays, it emerged in
the study that the teachers and students did not explicitly engage with semiotic or
genre theory. While the teachers and students acknowledged this lack of theoretical or
pedagogical input, it was often explained as a virtue not an omission. They indicated
they did not follow a ‘program’ but carried out each student–teacher session based on
point of need discussion with the individual student. The teachers reported that they
did not consult texts in preparing for their interactions (Ms Bates). The desire not to inter-
vene in the creative process was based on their belief that a structured course was
unnecessary and even unhelpful.
Their belief in intrinsic creativity reflected the debates regarding whether playwriting
can actually be taught. One of the teachers suggested that great works can be written
without being ‘taught’ and without formal domain knowledge:

Ms Bates: I would say you can learn the skills to write, but great writers often have
that sort of undefinable thing that reaches people, or that they find some-
thing, a way to touch people, that perhaps is a talent, that is a natural
talent … . You hear stories of ‘I never took a writing class in my life’ and
then they wrote an amazing novel or play or whatever, because there
was something they wanted to say and they found a way of saying it
… . You can learn all the tricks of the trade but your work might be tech-
nically brilliant but not tell a great story … . (Int. 2)

The emphasis on ‘tricks’ in her response trivialises the importance of pedagogical input
and reflects a belief, not in the mastery of craft, but on the artist’s innate qualities. Even
learning the skill will not be able to make you a writer if you were not ‘born’ one.
Similarly, another teacher suggested that writing for the stage required a specific kind
of thinking, and some people have it and others do not:

Ms Bell … not everyone thinks in metaphor, therefore not everyone is Shakespeare

that can think in metaphor. Because it’s a way, everybody’s got a story and
they can tell them, but to write it in a theatrical way … . (Int. 2)
 252 P. GARDINER

Ms Bell in suggesting metaphoric thinking was a special gift reinforces the belief that crea-
tivity is innate. A systems approach defines analogous and metaphoric thinking as creative
skills that can and should be developed by all.
Ms Murray did believe that, while the inspiration to write a play was something ‘within’,
the craft or skills could be learned:

Ms. Murray: I think what you are born with is your inspiration for writing the play, but
I think that knowing what works and what doesn’t and the nuts and
bolts of it is just experience and work really … . You might be born
with the inspiration, the rest of it you can actually learn. (Int. 2)

Ms Murray’s pedagogical approach, with minimal pedagogical input, would suggest this
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‘experience’ consisted of practice and immersion, not structured teaching and ‘learning’.
This also reflects the romantic belief that creative people need just be identified and
then allowed to get to work.

Teaching intrinsic creativity – facilitators not teachers

Consistent with this idea, the teachers all defined their role (employing only marginally
different terminology) as ‘facilitators’ and not teachers. They indicated that they did not
teach playwriting but ‘guided the process of discovery’ (Mr Sewell). In the context of sig-
nificant independent work and self-directed study, the teachers saw their facilitating as
helping the student bring this particular play to fruition and not to teach them how to
write a play. Mr Sewell outlined that to help students write their play he focused on
where the student is situated and works from there:

Mr Sewell: I’m conscious that a play can take so many different forms and I am inter-
ested [in] … focusing on the form that starts to emerge for this particular
project, so I don’t come with a, you know, ‘learn how to write a well-made
play before you go off and write something avant-garde’. (Int. 1)

Teachers were reluctant to engage in specific teaching and learning activities to address
the theory or knowledge of playwriting and saw their role was to identify plays for the stu-
dents to read (Ms Bell, Ms Bates and Ms Murray). Ms. Bates reported that she did not
address any of the theoretical concepts in her facilitating:

Ms Bates: So I guess I didn’t bother going ‘here is a template of how to write a scene
or a script’, like he had already come up with a lot of the ideas … so he
would start doing it without me having to give too much. (Int. 1)

Ms Murray concurred, and considered that being too rigid imposed a ‘house’ style,
because ‘there are a lot of ways of arriving at where they want to get to … ’ (Int. 2.2). Tea-
chers expressed the view that providing pedagogical input felt like ‘teaching a formula’
and considered that the students were ‘old enough to read plays and see how they are
structured’ (Ms Murray).
 RESEARCH IN DRAMA EDUCATION 253

Consistent with the playwright’s ambivalence regarding playwriting knowledge, their

pedagogy was based on the idea that the students would approach playwriting with an
understanding of theatre (Ms Sewell, Int. 1) and therefore an existing knowledge of
how to write a play (Ms Murray, Int. 1). The assumption of existing skills and knowledge
was common:

Ms Murray: Look, there wasn’t a lot of that from me … however, the basics they would
have. How to set things out … . I guess that I rely on the fact that if they
choose to do writing, they already have those basic skills. (Int. 2.2)

Mr Sewell considered that, based upon the plays they had read and the theatre they had
seen, students at this level should already know how to write a play:
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Mr Sewell: I suppose I expect that when a senior student … who has seen quite a bit
of theatre … . I expect they leap in at a kind of more sophisticated level.
(Int. 1)

Ms Murray explained this idea further:

Ms. Murray: To be honest, I expect them to go and research themselves. I actually

think they are old enough to look at plays and see how things work
themselves … . I encourage them to watch as much theatre that is not
conventional musicals, and things like that … (Int. 1)

Ms Murray suggested that much of the playwriting learning was the responsibility of the
student:

Ms. Murray: I don’t say ‘here is the formula to do it and here are the dot points, make
sure you do all of this’ … I tend to put a lot back on the students, and not
scaffold for them … if they choose scriptwriting they need to be able to
do it before they start. (Int. 1)

The view was that knowledge of how to write a play is not distinct from the ability to ‘read’
a play, and that a general understanding of theatre could be turned into specific playwrit-
ing ability just by adding knowledge of formatting, of ‘how to set things out’.
Conflation of the students’ ability to interpret a text and the ability to compose a text
suggested the unknowability and certainly unteachability of the creative process of writing.
The view that playwriting teaching involved formulaic points reinforces the extent to which
exposure to theories of playwriting was considered a danger to student creative expression.
What emerged, however, was the reliance on immersion as a pedagogical strategy was
perhaps erroneous. As indicated in interview and through an examination of their log-
books, it was evident that the students either did not read the plays (Phillipa) or did not
read beyond the one or two plays (or sections of plays) suggested by their teacher
(Sarah). Some relied on plays studied in class and had not ‘read’ any other plays (Lucy
and Patricia). Further, Sam’s statements that he had read a number of plays in preparation
for his writing, supplemented by analysis of his chosen Absurdist style, were not supported
 254 P. GARDINER

by evidence in either his logbook or in the play itself. Sam’s experience questions the
assumption that exposure to plays will transfer to knowledge on how to construct one
– that aesthetic understanding is more than an ability to read and interpret a text.
While reading plays and learning the format of a script were considered key learning
tools, practising how to write a scene or control the elements of drama were not:

Paul: Can you tell me about your advice to the students on the writing process?
Timelines, scaffolding, sequence of events, etc.?
[Pause]
Did you give her writing activities or specific exercises that would develop
her writing skills?
Ms Bell: No. No, I didn’t. What a good idea … and it would have been a good idea, I
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wish I had thought of it. (Int. 2)

The belief in intrinsic creativity suggested that the best pedagogical approach was for the
students to begin the process with a draft, without any playwriting-specific teaching and
learning activities, with the teachers then responding to the work to ‘tell them if it is any
good’. To protect the student’s natural voice and to facilitate discovery, drafts were the
main focus of the teaching process to enable discussion (Mr Sewell and Ms Bates) and
to have something to shape and edit (Ms Bell and Ms Bates).
The teachers’ philosophies suggested that they did not consider playwriting theory to
be a distinct area to be examined and mastered and that their general theatre knowl-
edge would be sufficient to prepare them to facilitate the playwriting process. Teachers
adopted a teaching and learning process based on a belief that theatre knowledge was
playwriting knowledge, and that there was not a specific skill set to learn – for either
student or teacher. The teachers’ experience as theatre viewers and makers, the
informed audience perspective as well as the actor’s perspective, was thought to be
appropriate:

Ms Murray: I don’t consider myself an expert at writing, but I consider myself an

expert at looking at it and knowing if it’s going to work and being an
honest audience member. (Int. 2.2)

For some teachers, the belief in the intrinsic nature of creative skill went further than
feeling theory was unnecessary: there was an expressed aversion to ‘how to’ books or
theoretical texts. Teachers expressed the view that their knowledge was sufficient:

Mr Sewell: I suppose I bring my knowledge of theatre to the student. I am the

resource in that sense, and I look for ways of tapping into that as appro-
priate for the idea the student is working on. (Int. 1)

The teachers referred to using only their ‘understanding and experience of theatre’ (Ms.
Bates, Int. 1) which resides ‘in their head’ (Mr. Sewell, Int. 1) and that they ‘garner the
little bits that might be useful out of my encyclopedia of stuff [in my head]’ (Ms. Bell,
Int. 1).
 RESEARCH IN DRAMA EDUCATION 255

This aversion to teaching theory was accompanied by an aversion to learning theory

themselves:

Ms Murray: If I see a book on playwriting theory, I am not going to read it. (Int. 2)

Ms Bates indicated that consulting theoretical or pedagogical resources was not part of
her approach, either for her own or the student’s benefit:

Paul: So to clarify, [Sam] started the conversation and you responded from your
perspective and knowledge of theatre and that was how you facilitated
[the process].
Ms Bates: Definitely.
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Paul: As opposed to ‘this is how a play is written, so go away and write that’?
Ms Bates: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Paul: On that note, where do you get your planning materials, your resources?
Ms Bates: I definitely haven’t referred to any texts at all. (Int. 1)

Mr Sewell (Int. 1) also indicated that he had not consulted theoretical texts, and was
unaware if any existed as he had not looked for them. The teachers, in adopting a
passive, non-interventionist approach to teaching playwriting, considered they were
protecting the students’ unique voice and that this approach was the best way to
realise the students’ creative ownership and expression. Reflecting the aversion to
pedagogy, this also reinforced the idea that expression was more important than
knowledge, and that responding to an existing written draft was best pedagogical
practice.

Intrinsic creativity in practice – student experiences

The students’ experience of this pedagogy revealed a number of important but contradic-
tory factors. The students shared a belief in the unknowability and immersive nature of
learning how to write a play. However, they also felt the non-interventionist approach
had inadequately prepared them for the task and were surprised by how difficult they
found the playwriting process.
When asked how you learn the craft of playwriting, Sarah suggested that you learnt
how to write by immersion:

Sarah: It’s a combination of everything; it’s the teacher telling you in any form of dra-
matic work – if you are performing in class ‘you’re not being clear, make it
clear’. You draw not only on experiences, you draw on things you’ve read,
things you’ve been taught, you draw on things you have realised yourself
and all of that goes into it, all of that becomes part. So it’s not a conscious,
‘This is what I was taught, so this is what I am going to do’. (Int. 2)

While necessary, the research suggests this immersion was not sufficient to create play-
writing proficiency. Sarah revealed a lack of understanding of how her learning by immer-
sion informed her practice:
 256 P. GARDINER

Paul: What do you grab from your ‘knowledge of theatre’ to communicate your
message?
Sarah: I don’t know … if it works, it works. (Int. 1)

Sarah expressed a further realisation that this approach was not effective and admitted
that it left her feeling underprepared:

Sarah: It’s the first script [that I have written] and I am enjoying it, but at the same
time it has made me aware that I have no idea what I am doing. (Int. 1)
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The students general understanding of what playwriting involved did not translate into
playwriting proficiency or even an understanding of how to begin to learn these skills.
For example, the student participants voiced awareness that plays were complex: three
dimensional, temporal and ‘precise’ (Sarah, Int. 1). They saw that the playwright
needed to attend to more than just the semiotics of language, that they needed to
manipulate theatrical semiotics, proxemics and sensual semiotics (sound and light)
(Phillipa, Int. 1). They understood that a play needed to be written as a blueprint
for an imagined performance; allowing space for a group of theatre artists, director,
actors and designers, to bring the text to life, adding to the perceived level of com-
plexity (Sarah, Int. 2).
The belief in intrinsic creativity resulted in an assumption that, despite the complexity
of the dramatic text, playwriting would be easy. It was only during the process of writing
that the students understood that they had underestimated the difficulty of writing a play:

Sarah: It’s more complex [than prose] in that you are writing for people to perform so
you have to take into account the audience reaction and how it can be per-
formed on stage … . (Int. 1)

Lucy expressed that playwriting was ‘harder than she imagined’, as did Sam who was sur-
prised ‘how much effort goes into writing a play … it requires so much more effort’ (Int. 2).
Ms. Bates agreed that Sam underestimated the difficulty, suggesting that playwriting is a
specific skill:

Ms Bates: I don’t think he realised how hard it was going to be and I don’t think he
perhaps knew enough about scriptwriting. Cause he’s quite a good English
student … and he’s a good essay writer … but … writing a play is totally
different … . I don’t know that he was as prepared as he probably …
could have been or skilled, perhaps, as he could have been. (Int. 2)

Ms Bates’ conclusion regarding Sam’s process suggested that her assumption, that Sam
could learn playwriting without much input from her, was perhaps erroneous. Ms Bell
sums up the problematic position of playwriting in schools, that it is a highly complex
activity that requires specific skills and knowledge, but is not part of the students’
general drama education:
 RESEARCH IN DRAMA EDUCATION 257

Ms Bell: I think it’s hard, otherwise there would be a lot better plays out there … play-
writing is a foreign process … [students] bring [their] idea to birth without all
the tools [they] have from other areas … [they are] performing everyday …
[they]‘don’t write everyday’. (Int. 1)

This reveals the tension between conclusions regarding the difficulty of the task and the
pedagogical practice that assumed playwriting proficiency would be achieved through
applying their general understanding of theatre. Further, the students’ surprise regarding
the difficulty of playwriting reflects their inexperience with this ‘foreign process’. The stu-
dents’ initial belief that playwriting would be ‘easy’ was perhaps influenced by their (and
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their teacher’s) belief in intrinsic creativity, supported their experience of pedagogy that
suggested that the play would ‘ooze’ out of them.

The outcome – how effective was the process based on intrinsic creativity?
What emerged in the data was that, while necessary, a general understanding of theatre
was not sufficient knowledge to equip the students to be playwrights. As Ms. Bell
suggested, many students embark on scriptwriting without knowing how to do it. In
the context of a philosophy of playwriting pedagogy based on an aversion to playwriting
‘how to’ texts and one that does not teach generic playwriting skills, students were unlikely
to develop sufficient playwriting proficiency to reach their creative potential. The teachers’
belief in the intrinsic nature of creativity and reluctance to intervene meant that they also
neglected strategies, such as writing exercises that may have addressed this skill deficit
before submission. Their pedagogy focused on encouraging students to express their
intrinsic natural creative product.
The student logbooks further verified the absence of theoretical research or reflection
and may explain their feelings of not being prepared. Their logbooks revealed an
absence of theatre genre theory or other engagement with dramaturgical information.
Sarah included no playwriting or drama theory in her log and no research into style
or theory of any kind. There was no analysis of the plays she was given to read. Lucy
similarly lacked any drama theory or research in her log, instead focusing on reflecting
on a film she saw that conveyed a mood she enjoyed. Her research into one act plays
consisted of two quotes. Phillipa begins to research styles and genres of theatre, incor-
porating four pages of genre summaries. While it represents some theoretical input, it
was superficial and was so simplistic that, in trying to employ features from these
genres, the techniques remained unsynthesised and were not essential to telling her
story. Phillipa admitted that ‘I have never thought about the theory side of’ writing a
play (Int. 2) and as such the superficial genre work did not become integral to her
writing.
At the end of the process, however, the teachers all voiced remorse regarding their
process. They felt that they could have helped their student more (Ms Bell) or been
more systematic (Mr Sewell) or structured (Ms Bates). Ms Murray expressed a general
feeling of uncertainty regarding supervising this project:
 258 P. GARDINER

Ms Murray: I am not sure what it is. I don’t feel entirely comfortable with the whole
supervising of scriptwriting. (Int. 2)

Ms Bates voiced similar regret, noting the need to be more vigilant and structured, but
thought that her approach was what was expected:

Ms Bates: But from my understanding and my talks with my colleagues, and things
like that, it is that you are a facilitator, you’re not like … all the work is done
by them, you’re simply giving them some feedback, and things to think
about for the next stage and that’s I guess how I saw my involvement.
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(Int. 2)

This reinforces the entrenched belief in intrinsic creativity – and a need to reconsider the
role of collaboration and ownership in the generation of creative ideas.
Teacher remorse was exacerbated by their assessment that the work produced by the
students had not met its earlier potential:

Ms Bell: She did have a great idea … but the actual elements of human drama
seemed to disappear … to me. I don’t know what happened. It just … disap-
peared. (Int. 2)

Sam’s play was, by his teacher’s admission, not entirely successful: the play ‘kind of [got]
there’, and was ‘sort of writing in genre’ (Ms Bates, Int. 2). Similarly, Sarah could not turn her
ideas into a successful play. The clarity required for writing for actors was paramount in her
thinking, but she was not able to effectively reproduce it in her own writing. For example,
Sarah realised the need for symbol and introduced a broken vase to convey the metaphor
of a fractured relationship. However, this was unsynthesised and was confusing rather
than affecting:

Ms Bell: There’s a section in the script where there’s a cracked vase – it’s supposed to
be a visual metaphor – but nobody actually ever says ‘look there’s a few
cracks in the façade here’, it doesn’t follow through. (Int. 2)

Ms Bell concluded that the motif was ‘clumsy. It was layered on top’ (Int. 2). Lucy, too,
demonstrated a superficial understanding of the play form and the way thematic
meaning is made, introducing techniques, such as foreshadowing and intertextuality
that were confusing rather than clarifying (Lucy’s play script). Mr Sewell’s assessment
was that Phillipa did not realise the potential of her play’s idea or theme as she ‘didn’t
attempt to get her head around its complexities’ (Int. 2).
These problems with skill development challenge the effectiveness of their non-inter-
ventionist pedagogical approach. The teachers’ reluctance to intervene was related to
their assumption that their skills with creative pedagogy were intrinsic. This did not encou-
rage their own engagement with, and thus knowledge of semiotic and pedagogical
approaches to playwriting. As they did not pursue knowledge, the teachers did not
 RESEARCH IN DRAMA EDUCATION 259

expose students to the specifics of the domain that would have increased their ability to
understand and manipulate the conventions of the dramatic form. The dissatisfaction with
their process provides further evidence of the need to question the impact of assumptions
of intrinsic creativity on teaching for, about and with creativity.

Implications for practice and further research

The findings in this study suggested teachers were unnecessarily cautious in their treat-
ment of the creative aspect and that their caution was, in part, a product of a belief in
intrinsic creativity. The lessons from a systems approach to creativity theory suggest a
greater engagement with dramaturgical theory and/or a semiotic approach to playwriting
would enable rather than limit critical reflection and creative invention. An imaginative
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vision is developed and then expressed, as Bailin (2011) argues, through the ‘skilled use
of language and dramatic conventions’.
We need to challenge the passive idealist teacher–student dynamic and reposition the
teacher as a dramaturg, one who can build the potential, identify possibilities, and not
merely highlight flaws; the teacher as the one who actively structures pedagogy and
knowledge around an understanding of semiotics and ‘how meaning is made’. The distinc-
tion here is fundamental and is explained best by thinking about where the teacher ‘sits’ in
the theatre when they engage with the play: in the audience as a critic, or backstage with
the writer as a dramaturg? For this to occur, teachers will need to rethink assumptions
about intrinsic creativity and their approach to teaching as much as learning. The teachers’
role as facilitators and assessors of the worth of the product was affected by their own lack
of playwriting literacy. We need to rethink the assumptions underpinning the ‘facilitating’
of intrinsic creativity, specifically the assumption that improving knowledge and skills
would hinder creative promise, in both the teachers and the students. The research indi-
cated the disadvantages of prescriptive teaching would be minimised with greater knowl-
edge of playwriting theory and pedagogical strategies by the teacher to complement the
student and their ideas. The best-case scenario is that the teacher takes on the role of an
experienced and knowledgeable practitioner who guides the student adding the insight,
knowledge and experience absent in the student. Students are then taught how to write a
play as much guided through the realisation of the current project. Increased playwriting
literacy enables and empowers the student, making them less reliant on the teacher and
more able to assess their own work. The research provides evidence that there is a strong
link between theoretical knowledge, a working understanding of the semiotics, and the
students’ ability to stand above their work and be their own dramaturg. This conclusion
has implications for pre-service teacher education and the lack of focus on dramatic
writing in the school drama courses. The dissatisfaction with their process provides
further evidence of the need for greater ongoing professional learning for teachers.
This study demonstrated that the skills of playwriting, while accessible, are specific and
need to be consciously addressed. It showed that a general understanding of theatre was
not sufficient knowledge to equip the students to be playwrights and did not provide the
students with the ability to deconstruct the play text and understand how to manipulate
theatre signs and symbols. Students need knowledge of the form, from a dramaturgical
perspective, to deconstruct how playwrights convey their meaning and how signs and
symbols are controlled in a play (Esslin 1987). This knowledge needs to be available,
 260 P. GARDINER

accessed, scaffolded and sequenced as a student’s skills and abilities progress. Playwriting
is not intrinsic to our creative selves; students develop their skill through interaction with
the domain. Also, the study found that the teachers’ belief that their general understand-
ing was sufficient preparation to teach playwriting was not supported by practice. Semiotic
and genre theory emerged as crucial whether the students or teachers actively engaged
with it or not. Avoiding a direct or explicit engagement with theory does not diminish its
importance and the idealist approach deprives the students of a structured and compre-
hensive engagement with this knowledge.
Further research is needed to explore the impact of a more structured and theoretical
teaching and learning process on students’ playwriting literacy. There is also the need for
curriculum design and programming for pre-service drama teachers to respond to the
findings and to address the lack of knowledge and experience of playwriting.
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Conclusion
One of the key focusing questions in the study was ‘How do teachers and students approach
teaching and learning of the creative aspect of playwriting?’ For the teachers and students,
the question of how to encourage and develop creativity in the process was problematic.
The approach to creativity observed in my study reflected a Romantic reluctance to inter-
vene in the perceived natural creative process. The research suggested that drama teachers
should consider a playwriting pedagogical approach that takes account of the spectrum of
theoretical approaches for two main reasons. Firstly, it will extend the students’ understand-
ing of what a play can be and broaden their semiotic vocabulary, which has the potential to
encourage creativity and innovation in their writing. Secondly, it will broaden the teachers’
view of what a play is, and should equip teachers with the skills not to restrict the students’
voice by applying generic categories, but to identify innovation and encourage individual
vision. The findings in this study give teachers permission to intervene and a clear
impetus to rethink assumptions of intrinsic creativity.
Playwriting is not an innate skill and creativity is not an intrinsic quality. Both can and
should be taught. An approach that minimises teaching activities and relies on problema-
tisation has the potential to stifle, rather than enable, the unique voice of the student play-
wright. It is also clear that playwriting pedagogy has much to learn from a systems view of
creativity (Csikszentmihalyi 2008), which could have a significant positive impact on the
way we teach playwriting in the classroom. The refocusing of the student–teacher
dynamic, from critic to dramaturg, could see a much more rewarding experience for
both teacher and student, resulting in more autonomy in the student and more satisfying
teaching experience.

Notes
1. The closed approach (heavily influenced by Aristotle’s Poetics) focuses on the resolution of a
plot, centred on a single protagonist, struggling against both their fatal flaw and an
opponent/antagonist. This approach, reflecting a worldview that assumes that ‘certainty’ is
possible and that we are agents operating with free will, normally include ‘witty and logically
built up dialogue’ (Esslin 1965), resolved dilemmas and consistent characters (for example,
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House). The open approach on the
other hand is informed by the experience of twentieth century avant-garde theatre makers
 RESEARCH IN DRAMA EDUCATION 261

(for example Samuel Beckett and Bertolt Brecht). These plays often choose not to resolve the-
matic ideas or demands of plot and may adopt a cyclical structure that rejects a reliance on
‘cause and effect’ and deny the existence of an ‘ultimate’ meaning grounded in resolution
and finality (Edgar 2009). Eco (1989) suggests that an open text is one that offers multiplicity
and perhaps ‘inexhaustibility’ of meaning, and explores this in juxtaposition to the closed
work, that contains a single meaning that reflects a belief in certainty and hierarchy. (For a
more detailed discussion see Gardiner (2014))
2. Students in their final year of school in NSW complete the HSC. The HSC drama course involves
three components: The study of core content (Australian Drama and Theatre and Studies in
Drama and Theatre) assessed through a written examination (40%), as well as a Group per-
formance (30%) and an Individual Project (30%). The Individual Project allows students to
choose to complete work in critical analysis, design, performance, scriptwriting or video
drama.
3. The teacher participants’ pseudonyms are the names of Australian playwrights.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge and thank Professor Michael Anderson and Dr Kelly Freebody, my doc-
toral supervisors, for their guidance and assistance in the preparation of this article.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor
Paul Gardiner is a Research Fellow in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of
Sydney where he teaches courses in drama pedagogy and creativity. He is currently researching play-
writing pedagogy in secondary schools and is interested in the interconnected concepts of knowl-
edge, creativity, agency and engagement.

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