What a Novelist Has Learned From Play Writing
Dorothy Bryant, being a former writing instructor, just could not bring herself to lead one more writing exercise! However, her delightful talk included insight into an ongoing debate in our group regarding stage directions in scripts. (To include or not to include. If you include them, should they be sparse or detailed etc.)

Having watched four or five of her plays come to life on the stage, she now comes down firmly on the side of detailed stage directions. She observed that even if the playwright is involved in bringing the play to the stage, tight rehersal times simply do not allow for giving feedback and suggestions about how scenes are to be done.

If the nuances envisioned by the playwright are not spelled out in the script initially, they may very well be missing from the final product.