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The Dialogue Paradox

audreycefaly.substack.com

The Dialogue Paradox

Less is more.

Mar 8, 2023
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The Dialogue Paradox

audreycefaly.substack.com

Playwrights must go through a ruthless distillation process, weeding out anything in the manuscript that does not belong… anything that might drain the life out of a moment or a scene. It may be generally understood that in playwriting, economy builds tension. But it also has an added benefit: it creates options.

When you strip away the noise, magical things begin to happen. It is a paradox: the fewer words you give an actor, the more choices they have.

Strip your dialogue to the bone: free your actor from the exacting sentence while gaining the gift of tension in return.

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PREVIOUS ARTICLES BY AUDREY CEFALY

  • 52 Vocabulary Words for Playwrights
    A collection of weird and unusual words for the things we do as playwrights.

  • 10 Things Playwrights Wish Their Actors Understood
    A love letter

  • To Speak or Not to Speak?
    4 Ways to Create Indelible Non-Speaking Roles for the Stage

  • 21 Things I Know About Playwriting
    I wrote my first play twenty years ago. I wrote my second play one year later. Here are 21 things I learned in the year between the two.

LEAN MORE ABOUT AUDREY

  • @audreycefaly | Linktree

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  • Purchase my plays from Concord Theatricals.

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QUICK LINKS TO MY PLAYS

Alabaster

The Gulf

The Last Wide Open

Maytag Virgin

Trouble


Audrey Cefaly's plays (Alabaster, Maytag Virgin, The Gulf, The Last Wide Open, Trouble) have garnered the Lammy Award, the Calicchio Prize, the Edgerton, and a Pulitzer nomination. Her works have been produced at Signature Theatre, Cincinnati Playhouse, Barter Theatre, Merrimack Rep, Florida Studio, Florida Rep, Gulfshore Playhouse, and countless others. Cefaly is a Dramatist Guild Foundation "Traveling Master," an Arena Stage playwright cohort, and a recipient of the Walter E. Dakin Fellowship from the Sewanee Writers Conference.  She is published by Concord Theatricals.

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The Dialogue Paradox

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