The Play’s the Thing: Introduction to Playwriting

Jennifer Wynne Webber
Cancelled

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The play’s the thing! A dramatic story lived out by rich, multi-layered and conflicting characters who are in action before your eyes is a powerful thing to experience – and an even more amazing thing to create. This five-day playwriting intensive invites you to discover what’s involved in writing for the stage and to see if the genre is for you.

This retreat style, five-day course is an introduction to the art and craft of playwriting. It will cover basic building blocks of playwriting in theory and practice. A series of lessons on key elements in dramatic writing will be accompanied by exercises designed to free up your imagination and get you visualizing characters in action, writing scenes, developing plot, and moving well on the way toward writing a play of your own.

Class Limit: 12

Eligibility:           
This course is suitable for aspiring or developing playwrights, including any interested writers of other genres. No previous playwriting experience is required.

Course Topics: 
Action and the physical reality of theatre; character and conflict; raising the stakes (why now; why today?); power shifts; crackling dialogue and the art of subtext; plot and story structure; getting started (entry points); revision plans (the end is just the beginning); productions and more.

Date/Time: 
Students will meet for class daily from 9 a.m. to noon. (Afternoons and evenings will be free for work on assignments and your own writing.)