The Human Nature of Playwriting
Samson Raphaelson
The Macmillan Company
EXTREMELY RARE! - In 1948, Samson Raphaelson taught a master class in "creative writing with an emphasis on the drama" at the University of Illinois. He recorded the experience in a book, The Human Nature of Playwriting. The introduction expresses Raphaelson's deep regard for language so visible in his writing - - - "This course does not aim directly to teach writing. Whether you write or not after you finish school means nothing to me as a teacher. In fact, I don't think it is important from any viewpoint. But whether you live or not is important; and how you live. You may become businessmen or women, office workers, farmers, or wives, and as such you will be, whether you know it or not, deeply related to the culture of your age. That culture is largely expressed by creative writers through the written word. And if from this course you get a notion of how that written word comes into being, of the connection between a writer and his own life and between his life and all lives, then this course will be successful indeed." - - - (About the author - from Wikipedia): Samson Raphaelson (b. New York City; 1894-1983) was a leading American playwright, screenwriter and short story author in the first half of the 20th century. Over a single weekend he transformed his short story "Day of Atonement" into his first play, The Jazz Singer. Following its successful run on Broadway, Warner Brothers studios made it into the first successful talking picture in 1927, starring Al Jolson. His screenplays for Ernst Lubitsch, perhaps that era's most admired director of sophisticated comedies, included "Trouble in Paradise," The Shop Around the Corner, and Heaven Can Wait. One of Raphaelson's best known screenplays is Suspicion (1941), directed by Alfred Hitchcock. In 1977, Raphaelson received the Laurel Award for lifetime achievement in screenwriting from the Writers Guild of America. - - - A true collector's book.