Dear Geist,

When a group of people perform a dance with a beginning, middle and end, and no one speaks or holds up signs, isn't it really a dance, rather than a play? Our writing club is about to produce a performance like that, and we're divided down the middle as to the genre.

—Saffron, for the Club

Dear Saffron and colleagues,

It sounds like a wild, intriguing piece! And we think you can call it what you want without confusing anyone. But don't take our word for it—here is the writer Philip Pullman on making a similar discovery in his younger days: “I used to think that stories were literature, and literature was made out of language,” he writes, until one day when a theatre group came to town and performed “a complete story—funny, moving, frightening, absurd, thought-provoking—presented to an audience who could understand every nuance without a single word being uttered.” Break a leg, Club!

—The Editors