Based on the author's teaching methods and experience, the book presents an examination and analysis of the creative process of playwriting through the insight of the very foundations of drama and theatre—the ritual process. Using the playwright as a ritual quester, it attempts to concretize the playwright's creative experience from the gestation of a dramatic idea, through the development of that idea, to its expression as a scripted and theatrical expression. To give the concept a wider scope, parallels and/or contrasts are often made with similar creative experiences, especially performative. The first part of the book visually crystallizes the ritual-creative concept in the psychical emanations of the questing playwright; the second part locates the concept in the dramatic structure, a result of the physical engagement, struggle and expression of the playwright. Various established dramatic works, classical and contemporary, are used to illustrate this creative concept.

"The three appendixes—exercises, a one-act monologue, and a text analysis—will interest young playwrights in particular, but this is not a set of directions for beginnning dramatists. Rather, it is a meditation on craft.Summing Up: RECOMMENDED. Lower-/upper-division undergraduates and graduate students." - CHOICE