Learn the core elements of playwriting and theatrical storytelling and build the first draft of your new play!
Write your first (or newest) play, break that writers’ block, and unlock your theatrical voice! During this three-month course, a cohort of writers will learn the central elements of playwriting and write a new play from page 0 to draft 1. In the first few sessions, class will involve a group discussion of a contemporary American play and its use of craft and an in-class writing exercise inspired by the text – then, writers will bring in pages from their new plays and practice generative feedback as a group. By the end of the workshop, our writers will have completed at least one draft of their new play and received one round of generative feedback from their cohort.
Live video conference: This workshop will be held via our online video conferencing platform, Zoom. You can view brief tutorials on using the platform here. On the start date or the day before, participants will receive an email with login info (please check your spam if you don’t see it).
In this workshop you’ll learn:
- Character – How can you use linguistic patterns, repetition, and even font size to develop your central protagonists?
- Tone and world-building – What is this world you’ve invited us into?
- Adaptation – How can you be in conversation with novels, existing plays, and even nonfiction?
- Structure, Themes, and Form – Contemporary American plays have their own unique engine and dramatic structure. How can you craft the structure that fits your story and themes? What do you want this play to do?
- Theatrical gesture – You are writing a work to be performed in a space with an audience. What does your audience need to see? What must they hear, experience?
Time requirements
- Around 1-2 hours of outside preparation will be required outside of class. For the first part of the “semester,” we will be reading plays in preparation to discuss and experiment with their core elements of storytelling.
Materials
- These plays should be available digitally from their publishers or in print from many local booksellers (I recommend the Drama Bookshop in NYC or the Understudy in Chicago) – buying the published scripts are important in supporting the working lives of the writers!
THE CHINESE LADY by Lloyd Suh
WISH YOU WERE HERE by Sanaz Toossi
AND I AND SILENCE by Naomi Wallace
FAIRVIEW by Jackie Sibblies Drury
WILD GOOSE DREAMS by Hansol Jung
LUNCH BUNCH by Adrien Einspanier
ON SUGARLAND by Aleshea Harris
INDECENT by Paula Vogel (this is available to watch)
PASSING STRANGE by Stew & Heidi Rodewald (this is available to watch)
YERMA by Simon Stone, from Llorca (this is available to rent on NT At Home)CRAFT IN THE REAL WORLD by Matthew Salesses (small excerpts will be referenced, purchase not required)
SPRING, SUMMER, ASTEROID, BIRD by Henry Lien (small excerpts will be referenced, purchase not required)
VISIT TO A SMALL PLANET by Eleanor Fuchs (PDF will be provided)
CRITICAL RESPONSE PROCESS by Liz Lerman (PDF will be provided)
Who should take this workshop?
- This course is designed for beginning playwrights who can’t seem to finish that first draft and for writers who’ve always wanted to write a play but don’t know where to start! If you have writers’ block, if you think you just “can’t” write that play, if you want to learn how to build your own unique craft as a playwright, this is the beginning of that journey!
If you need an accommodation for this workshop, please contact us at access@writer.org. We will attempt to fulfill all requests, but advance notice is necessary to arrange for some accessibility services.
