What's a Sketch?

[Eumenides]

I was having a look at Harold Pinter's bibliography and I noticed that, besides the plays, he had also written "sketches." How do you define a sketch? What is it? And what's the difference from a play?

[alleycat]

I think of a sketch as a short, relatively simple short story, often a "slice of life" type of thing.

There's also comedy sketches or skits, as done on TV and at comedy clubs.

[Alessandra Kelley]

I had the impression a "sketch"(theatrical) is to a play as a sketch(drawing) is to a painting, a simpler, freer, less complex object but still related.

[Doug B]

I'm with Alleycat. We get a lot of sketches submitted to our ten minute play festival. A sketch starts , runs and ends with no changes to characters and does not tell a story. There is no inciting incident, point of attack or climax. Some are very funny but seldom dramatic.

They are often life without the dull parts cut out.

In our festival we usually send them back with the note that they are sketches and not plays and offer playwrights the opportunity to make them into plays.

Doug