Intermediate Playwriting

The Intermediate Playwriting Course is for people who have completed our playwriting for beginners course or who have previous writing experience.

Over the ten weeks we will explore -through exercises, sharing, one-to-one and group discussion as well as recommended reading- headline topics like SUBTEXT, STRUCTURE, NARRATIVE, DIALOGUE, SETTING, CHARACTER, SCENE and PLOT and at the same time each student will be writing (and re-writing) (and re-writing!) a twenty-minute piece for three characters set in one place but, if desired, at different times. For example: three office workers in the office before, during and after the office party…(Doesn’t that just want to make you rush out now and buy a ticket?)

The core of any performance writing is The Scene – where dilemmas are faced, decisions made, fates decided. It is the building block of your story. The smallest set-up is as important as the biggest set-piece. It must move the story and the lives of your characters. By the end of the course you will know how to write a good dramatic scene. The rest will follow…

Your original creativity as writer is a given. The course will provide you with the tools to work that original creativity into powerful dramatic shape.

The course will end with a rehearsed reading of scripts developed in class, performed in front of an invited audience.

SEPTEMBER 2017 TERM: