For those of you who suffered the tragedy (knowingly or unknowingly) of missing TC2 Theatre Company's New Play Festival 2025, here is my short play for your reading enjoyment. Sleepwalking (a play)Download
Category: writing
Owen’s Monologue (from The Bella Vista Motel)
All actors feel free to use for auditions and workshops, but please tell me so I can have a smile. monologue-the-bella-vista-motel-030524Download
Fiasco
A short play (and a quick read). Two characters. They're a couple. Time: Right now. fiasco_charlie-lyonsDownload
PUT on the PAGE what you want to SEE on the SCREEN
I've tried to practice this for sometime (and presumably the screenwriters from whom I learned it have too). After all, movies and TV are comprised of sound and vision, so put that sound and vision on the page and -- Voilà -- Got Movie or TV show. No wonder people say writing is easy. But [...]
“Does Your TV Pilot Have A Story Engine?”
Some version of this question seems to get asked ... A LOT. No, surprise. After all, the whole point of a TV pilot is that it's the beginning of a TV series, so how's this beginning going to lead to a very very long middle? How's this first script lead to 50 more or 100 [...]
Some Notes on Getting Notes
I have a table reading of a play of mine tomorrow, (Margaret. The Maid. The Son.) and I'm very excited about what the director and actors are doing with the pages, so ... Woo Hoo! It's gonna be fun! After the reading, however, we will be encouraging the audience to stick around and give critical [...]
Put Your Script in the Hands of Actors
Last night I had the pleasure of hearing and seeing a group of wonderful actors read/perform a short script I wrote, The Blue Diner, based on a story that a couple of friends of mine and I came up with, and that we're going to shoot. This reading, however, had nothing to do with casting [...]
The Intensity of the Want
“The thing the character wants need not be violent or spectacular; it is the intensity of the wanting that counts.” Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, by Janet Burroway. What a great, simple observation about story telling that gets right to the core of things. And this intensity of the wanting applies to both [...]
Charlie Lyons Writes 