You Don't Have to Write About Politics To Be Political
This is theatre. We all have something to say.
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writing confessions, and all the mess in between.
Everyone has a story to tell.
And every story stems from something personal.
A lived experience.
A moment in the past.
All the fractures and the fixes that shaped that narrative.
And that… is political.
Because it’s you.
It’s your story.
Based on your views of the world, of the character, of the scene, of your play.
And there’s power in that.
James Graham, British playwright & screenwriter:
“When you're all in it together as an audience. You ask bigger questions, and you're talking about it, and debating about it.
All theatre is always gonna be political. It's gonna be about economics, it's gonna be about gender, it’s gonna be about class.
So I don't really know how any theatre can’t be political.”
Every character you write comes from a specific background,
in a specific time, with specific constraints.
What they do, or don’t do, defines who they are.
Think about dramaturgy:
How do this character’s lived experience and geography affect their choices?
And in that, it becomes political.
Take A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen.
Set in a Norwegian town in the 1800s,
a time where women had no legal agency in a man’s world.
So the play isn’t just about whether Nora leaves or stays —
It’s about what it means for a woman to even consider leaving.
That act alone becomes political.
Alia Bano, British playwright:
“You want to say something about the world, the government, how we react to the state, how that influences our lives.
We all have an agenda. What is it?”
As someone growing up queer in Malaysia, a country that demonises and criminalises queer people, I have a voice.
My characters are sometimes queer-coded.
Sometimes they’re openly queer.
Sometimes they’re just trying to exist in a space that has made their existence illegal.
And sometimes, they go against that grain — whether consciously or unconsciously.
David Hare, English playwright:
“You don’t choose to be a political playwright.
You just simply happen to see the world that way.”
We all have that lens.
The way we see the world.
And the way we know something isn’t right.
And so we write.
To explore.
To question.
To hypothesise.
To imagine.
To uncover deep human truths —
About what we want, and what we need.
As individuals. As a collective. As a community.
Matt Charman, British screenwriter & playwright:
“Politics is all about wants and needs. And that’s what drama is. You write about what people are reaching for. What you can’t get and what you can get.”
And so you write stories that haven’t been told in a voice that only you can write.
Because all our views are individual.
We grew up differently.
We were treated differently.
We carry different weights, burdens, expectations.
And we all have something to say.
Something that maybe hasn’t been said yet.
Something worth saying.
Katori Hall, American playwright & screenwriter:
“I end up asking my teacher for a specific scene that had 2 young African American women in it.
She stood there for 10 seconds… 20 seconds went by… 30 seconds went by… a whole minute went by.
And she couldn’t think of a play that had a scene for 2 young black women.
So in that moment, I decided, I’m just gonna have to write them myself.”
So the next time you write,
you don’t have to start with injustice, rage, or politics.
Just simply, write.
Because even in your softest stories, your politics will find their way in.
They always do.
Richard Bean, English playwright:
“I started writing plays about things that made me angry.”
What about you?
Are you a conscious political writer?
Or do you only realise it after the play is done?