5 things I learned writing my first full-length play

This post was originally sent to Combustion Collective newsletter subscribers on July 12th, 2019. The Floorshow had a week-long run in September 2019.

Photographs in this article are from that world-premiere production, taken by Michael Bonasio.

The Floorshow is my first full-length script, and the experience was unlike any of my past writing experiences. A one act or a piece of short prose can often be written in a single session. But a full-length play requires incremental steps building up to a larger whole, and the juggling of a significantly larger number of pieces.

It’s been about two years since we started writing, and I’ve learned a lot along the way. Now that The Floorshow is getting a full production in September, I wanted to share some of the lessons I learned during the writing process.

1. Characters are everything

The Floorshow started as just a vague premise: a group of tap-dancing showgirls in the 1950s face an adversity. Rather than focusing on fleshing out that plot, we first went directly to character development. Who were these girls? What were their…