How Not To Write A Play
by Walter Kerr

"Most young playwrights nowadays want to learn 'how to' write a play.

This seems to me to be a mistake."

Thus begins the first chapter of Walter Kerr's fascinating book on the art of play writing.

Taking an about-face look at the creative process, with chapters such as "How to Spoil a Good Story," Kerr leads us through the exciting and daring adventure of successfully bringing a play to fulfillment.

"There is no point in pretending that this is not going to be an argumentative book or that overemphasis isn't going to crop up pretty frequently in the chapters that follow.

The face of our theatre is so familiar to us that we shall never see its features without blowing them up a bit, one by one.

And it does seem to me that we had better do some arguing-quick."

Kerr is a drama critic, playwright, teacher and director.

He served as drama critic for the New York Herald Tribune and was chief critic for the Sunday edition of The New York Times until his retirement.

Mr. Kerr won a Pulitzer Prize for drama criticism.