a workman in some mechanical business. Webster's dictionary says:
"Wright is used chiefly in compounds, as, figuratively, playwright."
It is significant that the playwright is compelled to rely for
nearly all his effects upon purely mechanical means.

An intimate knowledge of the stage itself is necessary for success
in the writing of plays. The dramatist must know precisely what
means, such as scenery, sound-effects, and lights--the hundred
contributing elements of a purely mechanical nature at his command--
he can employ to construct his play to mimic reality. In the
present commercial position of the stage such knowledge is
absolutely necessary, or the writer may construct an act that
cannot possibly win a production, because he has made use of
scenes that are financially out of the question, even if they are
artistically possible.

This is a fundamental knowledge that every person who would write
for the stage must possess. It ranks with the "a b c" course in
the old common school education, and yet nearly every novice
overlooks it in striving after the laurel wreaths of dramatic
success that are impossible without it. And, precisely in the
degree that stage scenery is different from nature's scenes, is
the way people must talk upon the stage different from the way
they talk on the street. The method of stage speech--_what_ is
said, not _how_ it is said--is best expressed in the definition
of all art, which is summed up in the one word "suppression." Not
what to put in, but what to leave out, is the knowledge the
playwright--in common with all other artists--must possess. The
difference in methods between writing a novel and writing a play
lies in the difference in the scenes and speeches that must be