2nd Edition

How to Read a Play Script Analysis for Directors

By Damon Kiely Copyright 2025
208 Pages 12 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

208 Pages 12 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

208 Pages 12 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Now in a fully updated second edition, How to Read a Play offers methods for analyzing play scripts from a diverse range of perspectives, giving directors practical tools as they prepare for production. Based on interviews with award-winning directors, university professors, and experimental theatre companies, How to Read a Play provides practical advice on how to first approach a script,... Read more

1. Introduction  2. Lessons from the past  3. Survey of Current Practices  4. Reading a Play without a Script  5. Workbook Chapter

Biography

Damon Kiely is a professional director, writer, and professor of directing and acting for the Theatre School at DePaul University. He is the author of How to Rehearse a Play: A Practical Guide for Directors (Routledge 2020) and Play Directing: The Basics (Routledge 2023).

"Damon Kiely has written a book that is readable and helpful to everyone faced with the very particular challenges of reading plays. Clearly driven by his own curiosity, Kiely examines how talented theater professionals throughout history have found success and true gratification in reading scripts."

- Anne Bogart, foreword to the first edition