Playwright: From Page to Stage

The Film

At its core, Playwright: From Page to Stage tells the story of two outstanding young playwrights — one, an African American from Miami’s inner city; the other, an Indian American from Cleveland — whose lives are brought together inextricably in the process of creating a new language for the stage.

Both men have written jagged, probing new plays that feature multi-ethnic representations of a society in turmoil. They both employ unconventional structures in their work, defying the orthodoxy of a commercial theater establishment that rarely supports innovation. These two playwrights, however, are making inroads precisely because they're extraordinarily talented outsiders, bringing real-world perspective and hard-won drama to create theater that feels fresh and new. The unexpected success of their plays has ignited a resurgence in American theater, and is threatening to push traditional boundaries ever further apart.

Raised in Miami’s Liberty City housing projects, Tarell Alvin McCraney has an unlikely background for a career in mainstream theater: he’s under 30, lived most of his life below the poverty line, and is black. Nevertheless, his Brother/Sister Plays are universal in their stylistically heightened depictions of family, love, history, and loss. They reflect the sum of McCraney’s own life experiences with unrelenting, raw emotional resonance, boldly reflecting the social and cultural realities of America’s underclass.

The other playwright, Rajiv Joseph, is a quiet but intense young man who followed a different path, traveling to Africa for a three-year stint in the Peace Corps after graduating from college, to seek meaning in a life that had no discernable direction.

As the film follows both plays, traveling from regional theater to Broadway, it captures the intimate process and challenges — and the ultimate triumph — of these controversial new works.