Playwriting Basics with Andrew Black

Instructor: Andrew Black
Date: 2 Saturdays: June 20, 27
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Location: Zoom
Cost: $75 nonmembers, $48 members, $42 student members/teacher members/senior members/military members/librarian members

If you have been thinking about writing a play, this two-session overview of playwriting basics will provide you with what you need to get started.   In the first interactive section, you will learn about storytelling as an innate human capacity, identify four reasons that people tell stories, and see where playwriting fits into to an array of genres.  You will learn about seven key elements of narrative that drive stories (on and off stage) and read a play out loud in class that will help you identify how the elements of narrative appear in a play.  You will learn about five places that playwright get ideas.

Your home work assignment (for session two) will be to come in with at least three ideas you might develop, were you to write a play of your own.  You will talk about your ideas and by the end of the session, you should have selected an idea you like and have an idea about what your next step would be, were you to turn that idea into a play.

The session is highly interactive and designed for learners who have experience in other genres (fiction, etc.), for people who just like theater, or for people who just think it might be fun to write a play.