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In January 2003, a few Write On members approached several playwrights with whose work they were familiar. Now, six writers make up Rhombus, a group that meets every other week at the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre (BPT). Their sessions operate much differently from those of Write On, which someone can attend for months without bringing any work. At Rhombus, all members are expected to bring some sort of script to every meeting: rewrites, one-acts, 10-minute shorts, or scenes from a full-length piece in progress. The group hires four professional actors to read at every session for a 16-week term. Rhombus is currently in its third term and employs four familiar presences on Boston stages.

Gabridge, who co-founded Rhombus with Joe Byers, based the model on a writing group he ran in Denver. There, he founded Chameleon Stage, a company that produces new plays developed by writers through workshops with professional actors.

A Rhombus session is best described as a blitzkrieg of loosely guided improv — sort of the theatrical equivalent of Eight-Minute Dating. Actors see the scripts for the first time moments before they start reading. Unless it’s a rewrite of a work read earlier in the term, they have no idea what catastrophes or comic squabbles their characters might encounter three pages into a scene. Then there are the abrupt adjustments that the actors must make throughout the evening. They read characters with a range of ages, races, even genders, from scripts that run a gamut of writing styles. The mood from piece to piece changes swiftly, and after each reading, every member must have comments for the feedback session. It’s less formally structured than what goes on at Write On, but everyone is sensitive to the same general rule: rewriting others’ scripts is not allowed.

Several members say they have no qualms about bringing in something they’ve dashed off that afternoon — which was apparent at a recent meeting. As a writer distributed her script to the actors, she explained, "There are a few monologues after the scene itself. I just want to hear them as characters speaking. They’re not necessarily part of this thing, but I wrote them and I want to hear them." Another writer kicks off the talkback with, "I’m not sure where this is going. I’m hoping it’ll be a comedy about something gruesome." Most often, though, discussions revolve around whether the characters are convincing or the dialogue allows the audience to follow the story.

"One of the things I like about Rhombus is that actors have useful things to say about a script, like where they’re stumbling," says Kathleen Rogers. It’s also a boon to the actors: they hone their ability to identify a good script. "You try your best to float on lines so they carry you so the playwright can hear it," says Kippy Goldfarb, an Equity actor who’s working with Rhombus this term. "Some actors make specific choices and go full-out. I try to let the words tell me where to go. I assume that helps the writers; they find that when actors stumble over a speech or a line, it means something in the writing is not flowing the way they want it to. I’m beginning to get a sense of writing as rhythm. I always create characters based on the words in play. Writers like the cold aspect. It’s great because it’s very first-impression oriented. I don’t know if it works on a conscious level at all."

It’s one thing to be an actor working on plays that are already firmly etched in the annals of literary history or branded as modern classics. It’s another to be the performer who originates a role and has no precedents to follow or shatter. Being exposed to new works in raw form offers actors a sneak peek at scripts they could conceivably encounter down the line, and the opportunity to pick out trends.

"I’m always trying to figure out what distinguishes play scripts from screenplays from sit-coms. I think a play takes you one step beyond a situation. The rhythms aren’t the same either. Once I read for [Derek] Walcott’s class," Goldfarb says, referring to the playwriting professor at the Graduate Playwriting Program at Boston University, who won the 1992 Nobel Prize for Literature. "His comments on the readings of [students’] plays were more about rhythm. I’d be looking at a script and think an entire section could get cut. Then the writer would change a single word, which would make all the difference in how a person reads it. It helps you understand the responsibility of an actor to read every word how it’s written. Watching at [Rhombus] makes it all that clearer. They nudge and shape and take a more careful look at language. As a visual person who’s not too attuned by the ear, I’m amazed how [playwrights] can capture how people talk and how they interact."

That amazement can be just as acute for the playwright. "It’s surreal for me," says local actor and scribe John Kuntz, whose work has been produced by various small theater companies. "I’ll go back and forth between loving it because it’s so cool to seeing the people in my head in front of me walking around and talking. It’s like seeing a little playhouse come to life. I think that’s the most exciting thing about playwriting. Then other times I can’t bear to watch it, especially when there’s something at stake, like at one reading of a play I had in New York when [producers in the audience] were there to decide whether to throw money at [a full production] or not."

Since August, Kuntz has been a writer in residence at the Huntington Theatre Company as part of the Huntington Playwriting Fellows program. The writers meet twice a month with literary manager Ilana Brownstein, who runs the gatherings. Currently in its first year and supported by the Stanford Calderwood Fund for New American Plays, the fellows program supplies four writers — Kuntz, Ronan Noone, Melinda Lopez, and Sinan Unel — with financial grants and artistic nourishment to develop new plays.

The idea is "to create an artistic home and cultivate an ability to have discussions about any number of things, so that even if we’re not talking about their play, it’s helping them craft an art of thinking and writing," says Brownstein. "We want to make sure to provide social structure as well as a working structure for bringing them into the life of theater as much as we can. A lot of them have worked with smaller companies, but now they have the opportunity to see how larger companies operate."

Sessions provide a salon-like atmosphere where, through conversation, the solitary process of writing becomes something the fellows discuss as openly as the texts themselves. By growing attuned to other approaches, several remark that they’ve gotten bolder about experimenting with their work. "It comes down to the difference between Johnny or Sinan saying, ‘The second act has a structural problem’ and someone in the audience saying ‘I didn’t get it,’ " says Lopez.

SO, what happens to a script once it has been introduced into the ether? While there are plenty of playwriting contests throughout the country, and a growing emphasis among theaters — both small and regional — to produce new work, there’s no shortage of competition. Consider, for instance, the Boston Theater Marathon. Kate Snodgrass, the BPT’s artistic director, says she had to select from 300 scripts to fill the marathon’s 45 slots.

It helps to be tapped into a network of playwrights, who keep one another keyed into upcoming events, especially which theaters will be seeking scripts. That’s why Gabridge developed an activity he dubs "binging," which has attracted participants, via e-mail, from around the country. Inspired by the town that went on a group diet, Gabridge came up with the idea of going on a "group binge" to get work into the marketplace. Each year, participants commit to doing something every day for 30 days to sell their work, then post daily updates on an e-mail list Gabridge oversees.

But it all starts with the script. "It has to do with those black lines on the white page," David Mamet said in an interview with theater critic John Lahr in 1997. "Finally it comes down to — maybe this is going to sound coy — it just comes down to the writing of a play. Obviously, the point of the play is doing it for the audience — like the cook who wants to make that perfect soufflé, that perfect mousse, that perfect carbonara. Of course he isn’t going to do it if he doesn’t think someone’s going to eat it, but the point is to cook it perfectly, not to affect the eaters in a certain way. The thing exists of itself."

The Boston Theater Marathon will be held on April 18, at the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, at Boston University. Call (617) 358-7529. Liza Weisstuch can be reached at lizashayne@yahoo.com