Mark Bly has worked as a dramaturg, director of new play development, and associate artistic director for the Arena Stage, Alley Theatre, Guthrie Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, Seattle Rep, and Yale Rep, producing over 250 plays in a career in theatre spanning more than 40 years. Bly has dramaturged Broadway productions and has been credited as being the first production dramaturg on Broadway for his work on Execution of Justice. Bly has also served as the Director of the MFA Playwriting Programs for the Yale School of Drama, Hunter College, and Fordham/Primary Stages in a nearly 30-year Teaching Artist career. He is the editor and author of The Production Notebooks: Theater in Process Volumes I & II. Bly is an active freelance dramaturg and was the recipient of the LMDA's G.E. Lessing Award for Career Achievement in 2010 and in 2019 was honored by The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival with its most prestigious award, The Kennedy Center Medallion of Excellence.

Foreword Introduction 1. The "Sum Forty Tales from the Afterlives" Exercise 2. Bly's "Einstein's Dream" Exercise 3. Bly's "Character's Greatest Fear" Exercise 4. Bly's "Character's Greatest Pleasure" Exercise 5. Bly's "Kafka's Train" Exercise 6. Bly's "Music Memory" Exercise 7. Bly's "Myth" Exercise 8. Bly's "Nashville Film Overlapping Dialogue and Storyline" Exercise 9. Bly's "SensoryWriting" Exercise Index