"Most young playwrights nowadays want to learn 'how to' write a play. This seems to me to be a mistake." Thus begins the first chapter of How Not to Write a Play, a fascinating book by Walter Kerr on the art of play writing.

Taking an about-face look at the creative process, with chapters such as "How to Spoil a Good Story," Pultizer Prize-winning author and drama critic Walter Kerr leads us through the exciting and daring adventure of successfully bringing a play to fulfilment. "There is no point in pretending that this is not going to be an argumentative book or that overemphasis isn't going to crop up pretty frequently in the chapters that follow. The face of our theater is so familiar to us that we shall never see its features without blowing them up a bit, one by one. And it does seem to me that we had better do some arguing — quick."

What people say:

"The slow strangulation of the theater, says Kerr in a witty, solidly documented new book, How Not to Write a Play, cannot be blamed on the economy or war or television or the movies — and least of all, on the low taste of the public. The real trouble lies with the plays themselves." — Time Magazine

About the Author:

Walter Kerr (1913 - 1996) was an American drama critic, playwright, teacher and director. He earned his degrees at Northwestern University and taught speech and drama at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., prior to his career as a critic. On campus he directed, wrote and adapted plays. Walter Kerr served as drama critic for the New York Herald Tribune and was chief critic for the Sunday edition of the New York Times until his retirement. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his drama criticism and when he died, Broadway dimmed its lights.