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Page to Stage: The Craft of Adaptation
Vincent MurphyAt last, for those who adapt literature into scripts, a how-to book that illuminates the process of creating a stageworthy play. Page to Stage describes the essential steps for constructing adaptations for any theatrical venue, from the college classroom to a professionally produced production. Acclaimed director Vincent Murphy offers students in theater, literary studies, and creative writing a clear and easy-to-use guidebook on adaptation. Its step-by-step process will be valuable to professional theater artists as well, and for script writers in any medium. Murphy defines six essential building blocks and strategies for a successful adaptation, including theme, dialogue, character, imagery, storyline, and action. Exercises at the end of each chapter lead readers through the transformation process, from choosing their material to creating their own adaptations. The book provides case studies of successful adaptations, including The Grapes of Wrath (adaptation by Frank Galati) and the author's own adaptations of stories by Samuel Beckett and John Barth. Also included is practical information on building collaborative relationships, acquiring rights, and getting your adaptation produced.
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Cover
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Title
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Copyright
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Dedication
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Acknowledgments
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Contents
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Introduction
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Part One. The Six Building Blocks
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1. Find Literature That Compels You and Define Its Theme
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Ways to Think about Choosing Material
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Discovering Your Theme
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Naming Your Theme
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Considering Your Landscape and Neighborhood
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How I Choose Material to Adapt
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Construction Exercises for Building Block 1
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2. Select Dialogue and Narrative
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Theater's Advantage: Seeing Each Character's Point of View
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Creative Partnership: Reassigning Dialogue to Different Points of View
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Dialogue: The Building Block of Playwrights
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Narrative: Pacing Your Build
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How to Handle Different Kinds of Narration
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Research on Language
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Construction Exercises for Building Block 2
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3. Identify Principal Characters and Primary Relationships
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Choosing Which Characters Your Adaptation Will Enact
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Know Your Characters Intimately
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Actors' Skill at Playing Multiple Roles
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Letting Actors Shape Your Vision
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Relationship: The Mortar That Holds Characters Together
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Family: The Blueprint for Understanding Relationship
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Construction Exercises for Building Block 3
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4. Choose an Evocative Stageable Image
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Finding the Theatrical Environment
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Contemporary Staging: Spatial Metaphors as Viable Playing Spaces
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Evocative Details: Parts Suggest the Whole
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Imagining Onstage: Setting the Scene with What's Necessary and Evocative
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Creative Spaces
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Choosing and Integrating an Evocative Stageable Image
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Using Narration from a Character's Point of View to Establish Place
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How Scale of Venue Changes the Focus
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Construction Exercises for Building Block 4
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5. Construct the Storyline
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Building a Storyline on Your Foundational Theme
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Conflict: Tensions between Characters That Add Heat and Light
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Finding the Central Event
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Prior Circumstances: The Past That Shapes the Future
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The Beginning, Middle, and End of a Clear Storyline
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Construction Exercises for Building Block 5
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6. Craft Playable Actions
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Language as Action
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Image as Action
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Physical Action as a Direct Theatrical Vocabulary
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Effective Stage Directions for Essential Actions
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Offering Suggestive Clues in Stage Directions
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Construction Exercises for Building Block 6
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Part Two: Sturdy Construction: Yours, Mine, & Master Adaptors
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7. Balancing the Blocks
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What Is Your Significant Content Element?
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What Anchors Your Adaptation?
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What Performance Vocabulary Best Serves Your Story?
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Trust Your Hunches
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Balancing the Elements
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Two Case Studies
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Clarifying the Where and When
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Tracking Time and Place
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Utilizing Your Best Materials and Tools as You Define Shifts
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Aspirations for the Next Stage
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Construction Exercises for Balancing the Blocks
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8. Two Case Studies: Enough and Me and My Shadow
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The First Enough—Boston, 1979–80: Reality Theater
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Casting, Producing, and Permission
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The Six Building Blocks for the First Enough
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Second Enough—Boston, 1984: Theater Works
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The Six Building Blocks for the Second Enough
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Third Enough—Atlanta and the Netherlands, 1991: Theater Emory
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The Six Building Blocks for the Third Enough
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“Petition”/Me and My Shadow—Boston, 1982
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Speaking the Speech, and to Whom
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Clues to Finding the Evocative Stageable Image
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Staying Open to Finding Collaborators
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The Six Building Blocks for “Petition”/Me and My Shadow
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9. Partnership and Performance
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Building Collaborative Relationships
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The Workshop Process
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The Auteur Model of the Adaptor-Director
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Challenges That Multitasking Adaptors Face
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Some Auteurs and the Theater Companies That Have Kept Them
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Models of Collaboration
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Playwriting Centers
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Establishing a Collaborative Relationship with a Theater
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A Way to Start: The Readers' Theater Model
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Appendix: Adaptations by Vincent Murphy
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Bibliography
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Index
- 978-0-472-02879-5 (ebook)
- 978-0-472-07187-6 (hardcover)
- 978-0-472-05187-8 (paper)