Playwriting: "A Work in Progress"

When Marcus Gardley was in middle school, he discovered that he had a superpower.

We got an assignment to write a short story, and I put every one of my classmates in the story, and when their character was talked about in the story, I said their name and an adjective that was the same letter as their name.

So if somebody's name was Nancy, I would say Nosy Nancy.

And so the teacher was so impressed by the short story, she made me read it in front of the class.

And when I got to a student's name, I looked at them and I saw how they face lit up.

And what was kind of remarkable about that moment is the student could recognize that I figured out their personality because I didn't just pick a arbitrary adjective.

I picked something that actually described them to a T, and so everyone would fall out, and it was the first time I realized, oh my God, I have a talent.

Marcus made his classmates feel seen.

Theater has that power, and that all starts with the written word.

You might remember from episode one that the Drama School was originally born from a playwriting class.

The real raison d'être of the whole endeavor of this beginning of the Department of Drama was to put American playwriting on the same footing with modern, at that point, modern European writing like Ibsen and Shaw and Wilde.

And so playwriting has always been at the heart of the whole venture from the Department of Drama through the Drama School to today.

Since its founding, the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale, or DGSD's playwriting program, has been a training ground for celebrated writers like Wendy Wasserstein, Amy Herzog, and so many more.

While the Yale Repertory Theater has premiered or showcased the work of respected playwrights like Athol Fugard, Lynn Nottage, Suzan-Lori Parks, and August Wilson, each of these writers has affected countless hearts and minds.

What does it take to write a play that might change someone or that inspires joy, empathy, and understanding? Welcome to Oh, The Drama.

I'm your host, Courtney B. Vance.

In this 10-part series, we'll explore 100 years at the David Geffen School of Drama, where it's been, where it's heading, and how each of the school's programs individually and collectively trains the next generation of artists.

Today, playwriting, a work in progress.