A Very Personal Reading List for Newer Playwrights
Some of David’s playwriting students at the University of Victoria asked him to recommend books about writing plays. Rather than offer only how-to manuals, he assembled a deliberately personal list of books that had shaped how he thought about structure, performance, and the work of making theatre.
The result is biased and incomplete by design: less a prescription than a deeper jostle for writers who have begun learning the form.
Poetics
A distilled account of plot, thought, character, diction, song, and spectacle—and why those parts of drama still matter.
The Theater and Its Double
A charged argument for theatre’s power beyond text and for unsettling the expectations of a complacent audience.
Playwrights on Playwriting
Essays, letters, and practical advice from working playwrights, built to be read in useful pieces.
The Empty Space
A durable invitation to imagine performance beyond traditional rooms and to adapt the work to the conditions around it.
Respect for Acting
A book about acting that also clarifies how playwrights reveal character through action, need, and desire.
Backwards and Forwards
A plainspoken technical guide to how plays work—and David’s longtime choice if a new playwright reads only one book from the list.
Originally published on David’s Squarespace site and recovered from the local site archive.