| WeEK # | TOPICS | READINGS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Playwrights are Storytellers |  Ives, David. "Sure Thing." In All in the Timing: Fourteen Plays. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1994. ISBN: 9780679759287. |
| 2 | The Power of the Unspoken Word (PDF 1) (PDF 2) | Alford, Henry. "Shouts and Murmers: Unspoken O'Neill." The New Yorker, December 1998, 68-69.
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| 3 | Actions Speak Louder than Words (PDF) | Hartigan, Patti. "One Man. Ten Plays. 100 Years." Boston Globe Magazine, April 3, 2005, 33-35 and 47-50. Rivera, Jose. "36 Assumptions about Writing Plays." American Theatre, February 2003. ———. "The Winged Man." from Plays for Actresses. Edited by Eric Lane and Nina Shengold. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1997. ISBN: 9780679772811. |
| 4 | The Challenge of Exposition and How to Create High- and Low-Context Dialogue (PDF 1) (PDF 2) | Albee, Edward. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? New York, NY: Pocket Books, 1970. ISNB: 0451158717. MacFarquhar, Larissa. "Passion Plays: The making of Edward Albee." The New Yorker, April 4, 2005, 68-77. |
| 5 | Disrupted Ritual | Schisgal, Murray. "Confessions: A Playwright Confesses." The Dramatist, Spring 2006, 30-33. Marguilies, Donald. "Last Tuesday." American Theatre. July-August 2003, 42-46. Lahr, John. "After Angels: Tony Kushner's Promethean Itch." The New Yorker, January 3, 2005, 42-52. |
| 6 | Thinking about Plot (PDF) | Witchel, Alex. "The Confessions of John Patrick Shanley." The New York Times Magazine, November 7, 2004, 31-35. Rudnick, Paul. "Paul Rudnick's Random Rules for Comedy." The Dramatist, Spring 2006, 6-7. Ives, David. "Why I Shouldn't Write Plays." New York Times, August 24, 1997. Wright, Nicholas. Vincent in Brixton. London, UK: Nick Hern Books, 2002. ISBN: 9780573629563. |
| 7 | Thinking about Sound | Wren, Celia. "Saints, Sin, and Erik Ehn." American Theatre, May-June 2004, 19-22 and 65. Walker, George F. "Introduction and Beyond Mozambique." In Shared Anxiety: Selected Plays. Toronto, Canada: Coach House Press, 2002, preface. ISBN: 9780889104723. |
| 8 | Dialogue is Action | Mamet, David. Glengarry Glen Ross. New York, NY: Grove Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780802130914. Croyden, Margaret. "The African Connection." American Theatre, April 2005, 30-32 and 73. |
| 9 | Composition: Adding Elements (PDF 1) (PDF 2) | Shewey, Don. "Cowboy Mouth." American Theatre, April 2004, 21-25 and 82-84. Ives, David. "Words, Words, Words." In All in the Timing: Fourteen Plays. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1994, pp. 22-30. ISBN: 9780679759287. |
| 10 | Obstacle + Action = Great Theater (PDF) | Foreman, Ridchard. "The Gods Are Pounding My Head! (AKA Lumberjack Messiah)." American Theatre, April 2005, 35-45. |
| 11-12 | Reading and Workshopping Final Projects |
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Study Materials
Readings
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