This six-week class meets on Mondays: September 16, 23, 30, October 7, 14, and 21. Each session is 2.5 hours.
Playwriting allows writers to tell stories using a unique medium–live performance. But how to harness the full power of the audience’s imagination? This class reviews the fundamentals of narrative structure, with a focus on the creation of a ten-minute play. The principles will be applied to full-length works as well. Just click your ruby heels together and say: “there’s no place like a theater.”
This class unfolds in six consecutive sessions over six weeks. The first session is an overview of the key elements of narrative structure. In the second session, students present an outline for a ten-minute play utilizing the key elements. In the third/fourth sessions, plays are read, and the work is discussed / critiqued. Professional actors come to bring the plays to life. In the fifth/sixth session, rewrites are heard. At the end of the seminar, student playwrights will have completed a full ten-minute play.
About the Instructor
Andrew Black believes that everyone has a story to tell and is committed to helping people find ways to tell their stories. He has PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies from the University of Missouri, Columbia (but please don’t hold that against him). He has taught playwriting at Ohio University, the University of Missouri, and the Indiana Writers Center. Read more here.
