Three Plays by Squint & How They Were Made

Are you a theatre-maker looking for devising tools? A writer wanting to improve your dialogue? A director trying to create a story through improvisation?

Three Plays by Squint & How They Were Made brings three of the company’s plays together with the methods used to create them, in a practical, user-friendly toolkit. Three of Squint’s plays - created by Lee Anderson, Adam Foster and Andrew Whyment - are published here for the first time. At the heart of each, a character is struggling to process their personal trauma under the intense glare of the public eye.

Long Story Short (2014) dissects journalism in the digital age, Molly (2015) takes a reality television-style journey into the mind of a sociopath, and The Incredible True Story of the Johnstown Flood (2021) embarks on a transatlantic exploration of class, exploitation and appropriation.

Developed over ten years through Squint’s education programme, the exercises in this book distil the company’s collaborative practice into over 25 tools for writing and devising. The Squint Toolkit covers the entire theatre-making process, from carrying out research and improvising story to writing subtext, devising from music and making cuts.

Squint is an award-winning devised theatre company that stages stories about the here and now. They collide new writing, choreography and genre in unexpected ways to create thrilling nights at the theatre.
Squint was founded at the University Of Reading in 2009 by Artistic Director, Andrew Whyment. They have been working with writers and producing new work since 2010.