Playwrights

A playwright creates literature that is typically designed to be performed by actors on a stage. Because of the interactive nature of theater in general, a final dramatic piece may be the accumulation of creative contributions by the playwright, a director, a dramaturge, a choreographer, actors, reviewers, and sometimes the audience. Perhaps because playwrights produce a creative product that is a blend of individual creativity (such as that produced by a poet) and group creativity (such as that produced by an improvisational acting troupe), they have not inspired a great deal of psychological research. There are many studies of actors and performers, and there are many studies of poets or fiction writers. There is also an extensive literature on dramatic therapy—but the research on playwrights and playwriting is sparse.

Some of the research on playwrights focuses on the performing arts more broadly, touching on some of the characteristics that may also apply to playwrights. Nathan Kogan and Barbara Kangas, for example, looked at environmental and familial determinants of a career in drama. They found that most drama students did not have a parent who was professionally involved in theater, and students differed on both the age when they decided to become involved in the theater and in their schooling experiences.

Several studies, many including playwrights, have examined writers' longevity. James Kaufman, [Page 681]for example, found that poets tended to be more likely to have mental illness and were more likely to die at a younger age. In contrast, playwrights did not die notably young or have notably high rates of mental illness. Antonio Preti studied suicide rates in different types of artists, and also found that poets had higher rates of suicide, and visual artists had lower rates; playwrights were not exceptional in either direction.

James Pennebaker and Lori Stone studied the collected works of 10 well-known playwrights, novelists, and poets. They found that across most writers (regardless of domain), aging brought a number of linguistic changes in their work. Specifically, writers tended to use more positive affect and fewer negative affect words, fewer self-references, less past tense and more future tense verbs, and they demonstrated a general pattern of higher complexity in cognition.

Kogan notes the paucity of work on the dramatic arts, and makes a call for more research. He outlines some basic distinctions that can be made, such as separating the study of creators (which would include playwrights) and interpreters (such as actors). Although much of his article is more focused on the performing arts, he does offer a model of artistic development that could also be applied to playwrights.