Writing a Theatre Report
Your report should always include the name of the play, the author, the Production Company or
school where it is happening, and a specific reference to which performance you saw (date).
At the beginning of the report itself, and often in the first sentence or two, to the best of your
ability, identify the general type of play you’re reporting on. Is it a contemporary musical, a 1940s
mystery thriller, a well-known classic comedy, a rarely produced French tragedy, an original
comedy, or a category you invent. This is not so much a formal designation of the play’s genre but
rather an in-your-own words description, designed to give your reader a framework for the
remainder of the report. You might also note whether the play was adapted from an earlier one, is
newly translated, or presented in an unusual style. It may also be helpful to comment on the
location and time period of the play’s setting, especially if these vary from the location and period
specified by the playwright.
Additionally, identify the director by name, even if you do not plan to discuss his or her work in
the play. Any particular individual whose work you discuss is a name you should include in the
play (“Katy Elliot’s costume designs were awesome!” “Joe Brady’s performance as the Tin Man
was mediocre.”).
Where and how you do these things is really up to you. The most important thing is that you write
a Review, an essay that discusses what you felt was effective or “worked” about the play and what
didn’t, as well as address why you feel this way or what prompts you to feel this way.
Your essay should be at least 400 words in length.
Following are some more ideas about what you might write about or how you might
approach this project if you have not done a review of this sort before.
Watching a play should evoke hundreds of sensations. These individual feelings and observations
you have and make are going to merge together into a single, over-riding opinion. And really, that
is what a Review is: one or more opinions about the performance and, by extensions, reasons for
that (or those) opinion(s).
One of the very best ways to either arrive at or solidify your sense of a play is to talk about it with
other people who just saw it or who have also seen it. One of the best ways to forget how you felt
about a play or why is to NOT talk about it or not talk about it soon after you see it. Speak about
and compare your impressions. This will make those feelings and observations MU
What to Look for When Watching/writing about a Play
One very important thing to try to focus upon is specific details. You might even want to take
notes before the show begins or during the intermission or during brief scenery changes. The
concrete details you remember are going to help you write your Review and pepper your Review
with information that helps you support the point of view you want to express.
What should you focus on? Well, what do you see? What do you hear? What are your impressions
of this character or that performance? Take note of any details that arouse your curiosity. Every
detail you see or hear is intended to focus upon the larger themes of the play. That’s what doing
theater is all about. Going to a play is an immersive kind of experience. What do you experience?
What did it feel like, look like, sound like? Each of those details you note is the result of an attempt
by an actor or designer or director to say something, to mean something. Whether the attempt
made was successful or not is completely about you and what YOU think. So tell me what YOU
think. But back it up. WHY do you think that?
All of this ultimately means you need to have a sense of what you feel are the larger themes of the
play. If you don’t think you know those it becomes pretty hard to try to discuss how this or that
detail does or does not successfully emphasize those larger themes. And not being able to tell what
those larger themes might be is actually also an opinion about the play’s overall clarity.
Don’t worry. You can start to react to some of these things, to note some of these things before the
action of the play even starts. Is there pre-show music? Does it put you in a mood? What kind of
mood? What about the set? If there is no curtain and you can see it, what do you see? Is it “real”
looking? Is it a representation of something? What? Are there aspects of the set, lighting or sound
designs that are specific or draw your interest? How or why? Is there a predominance of cool blue
tones, jagged, neurotic edges? What moods and preconceptions are bubbling up in you as a result
of noticing these things?
For this kind of assignment, you have to try to grasp the fundamentals of the story as it is unfolding.
That’s the way this whole thing was planned. The play is definitely supposed to try to entertain
you. And if you need a regular or poetry dictionary to understand what the actors are saying, I can
see how that might not be very entertaining. By the same token, if that language difficulty is there
but you still know just exactly what’s going on in the play, that’s a pretty good sign, isn’t it? By
the same token, if the character is supposed to scare you and you aren’t scared, then there are pretty
clear ways this particular part of the play is proving unsuccessful, right?
That’s what a Review is ultimately all about: was the play successful or effective? If so, why and
if not, why not?
Now let’s be honest and fair about this: If you start out your viewing experience with your mind
closed and thinking that you don’t like theater, that this show cannot make you laugh or cry or
have any feelings, YOU are making this play work MUCH harder than you almost ever make any
movie or TV show work. Give it a chance. Pay attention. Make sure you are following the story
What to Look for When Watching/writing about a Play
as it unfolds because that is exactly what it will be doing: unfolding. Watching a play – and
especially consequently writing about it – is an active experience.
This production you are watching is both a play – a story – and the group of people who are
working together to try to tell it to you. Your task, therefore, is two-fold: You must decide what
the playwright is trying to convey to you AND you must try to assess the goals and tactics of the
director, performers and designers who are working in service of that playwright’s vision.
Once the play has ended, try to come to terms with what impact the play had on you. One of the
most interesting aspects of all this is separating out all the various elements to see which have
made their maximum contributions to your theatrical experience.
Here are some questions you might consider:
About the play:
· What is the play really about?
· What characters, if any, did you root for? Which ones did you like? Which ones did
you hate? Why?
· Who, in your real life or in public life, do these characters resemble, if anyone? Did
the play increase your understanding of (or compassion for, or anger at) such people?
· Did the play get more or less interesting as it went along?
· Did the play address questions pertinent to your life (in terms of your country, culture,
religion, age, or social group)?
· Did it make you rethink your values, or wish others would rethink theirs?
· Were there emotionally moving moments in the play? Staggering moments? Or were
you simply left out in the cold?
· Were there hilarious moments? Were there dazzlingly written and delivered
arguments? Or were you perplexed? Bored? Looking at your watch?
· Was the play too long? Or did you want it to continue? If the former, what parts could
have been eliminated or shortened? If the later, how could it have been augmented? ·
What was great about the play? What was confusing? What was missing?
About the production and performance:
· Did the acting seem believable? Did the characters seem like real people? Did you
feel for their predicament? Empathize with their feelings? Care what happened to them?
· Did the “in love” characters really seem to be in love? Or were they just faking it? ·
Did the “angry” characters thrill you with the intensity of their anger? Or were they just
bellowing?
· Was the acting exciting? Did the actors enchant you with any particular performance
skills, beauty, emotional power, or rhetorical gifts? There are performers, in both
professional and amateur theatre, who can literally take your breath away; did any of
these actors do this? Or did the acting seem stilted, mechanical, forced?
What to Look for When Watching/writing about a Play
· Were the sets and the costumes appropriate for the show? (You don’t need to be a
theatre expert to answer this.)
· Did the scenery and costume elements help to make the play either more believable,
more theatrically exciting, or both?
· How did the lighting and the sound design contribute to the quality of your experience?
Did they propel the action forward and enhance the play’s ideas and emotions? Or did they
unnecessarily call attention to themselves?
About the audience:
· Was the house filled or was the attendance sparse?
· Was the applause tepid or thunderous? Was the laughter dutiful or helpless? Was the
audience rapt with interest or merely listening politely?
· Did the audience seem to enjoy the play as you did? More than you did? Less?
With your intermission notes on the production’s details and having spent some time thinking and
talking about the preceding questions (and perhaps making some notes on them as well), you will
be in a good position to write a theatre report or review of the performance.
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