Class Nine: June 27th. Staged Readings.

Party time!
Let's have a BBQ/Party/Play reading to celebrate the completion of the play writing course (part of Marla's Gala Studios). We have brand new 15-minute plays and you, actors, jump in, grab a script, and do the reading!!!! The graduate writers will be there for your feedback.

Date: Wednesday June 27th, starting from 6pm when the grill will be on. Have your dinner here. I'll supply salad, breads, and some meat, plus relishes, sauces, etc. The rest will be Pot Luck for booze and food. We should perform the plays around 7:30pm, by which time most folks should be here.



What an event! The full moon rose as the sun set. Thirty or so partygoers thronged house and garden with food and wine, then settled down for the staged readings from the front porch of our home. The actors did amazingly well bringing the plays to life to the delight of the crowd.



Quite charming!

Now we will have to hold an annual Summer Party for Writers, Actors and Teachers!

Class Eight: June 20th

Group discussion

• Review of the past week. Stages show. We covered FIVE shows!!
• Writing, reading, plays, movies, etc.
• Long Beach Playhouse - June 23rd, 2-5pm - includes discussion
• Full details at Long Beach Playhouse - New Works

The development process

• Work alone
• Peer share and review - re-write
• The table reading (review, re-write)
• The staged reading (review - fix)
• The workshop production (review - fix)
• Full production

How to get produced

• Tips and suggestions

The writer's role in the production process

• Generally recognized dos and don'ts

Script workshop

• We did a detailed walk-through of the peer review/editing process picking up on: grammar, style, contractions, removal of redundancy and exposition, content of stage directions, etc.

Discussion of personal goals and aspirations

Class Seven: June 13th

Group discussion

• Review of the past week. Stages show.
• Writing, reading, plays, movies, etc.
• Long Beach Playhouse - June 23rd, 2-5pm - includes discussion
• Full details at Long Beach Playhouse - New Works

Subtext Exercise (from last time)

• Write a ten-line dialogue using subtext somewhere in the story.
• Write another 10 line dialogue where the subtext is also in the stage directions - ie, in what the character does.

Student scripts workshop

• Read and evaluate in depth. (We only support, suggest, encourage; never disparage.)
• Is this ready for the stage? Questions to ask.

The Contract with the Audience

• Discussion on what an audience has a right to expect at the theatre. Brainstorm a list.

More on Character

• How actors study your characters:
• Externally - age, physical and vocal mannerisms, overall appearance, names, where they fit in the environment: time, place, education, socio-economic, political, religious. Action - what do they DO?
• How the character describes himself; how other characters describe him. (It's more fun if these differ!) Illus: Cyrano's nose, swordsmanship and heroic qualities.
• Internally - self image; wants and needs; motivations. Plans and goals. Abilities and expectations. Strengths. Flaws and weaknesses.

The Role of the Antagonist

• Antagonist contributes to the play's action
• Must be a worth opponent
• Makes other characters more dimensional
• The antagonist within the protagonist - also exteriorized

Homework
Complete re-writes of your 10 minutes play
Read a play and introduce it to the class

Class Six: June 6th

Group discussion
Review of the past week. Writing, reading, plays, movies, etc.
Technical problems: Formatting, attachments, etc.

Passion, Form and Content

• Aristotle revisited: is he in or is he out?
• Content - a story with something to say.
• The Form becomes the structure, better, organization, for the story

Stage Directions and Parentheticals

• Some suggested dos and don'ts
• Some directors delete all directions, or do not read them. They want free artistic license. Hmm.
• Try not to tell the actor how to act.
• Stick to things the audience will see. Do not give content information in the direction that can not be seen or heard by the audience: ie - how the character is feeling or thinking; that he has died; or what the scene means.
• Must it all be in the text?
• What are wrylys?
• What about pauses and beats?

The skills of mutual criticism

• Discuss what these might be. List.

Student scripts workshop
Wow! We dug into some amazing writing tonight! Great job, guys!

Exercise

• Write a ten-line dialogue using subtext somewhere in the story.
• Write another 10 line dialogue where the subtext is also in the stage directions - ie, in what the character does.

Targets for next week

• Completed 10 minute plays (- ready for revision!)
• Some creative writing
• Read a play and be prepared to introduce it to the class

Play study guides

As promised - here is the link to the Grade Saver Study Guides where you can quickly hone up on the plots and characters scores of plays.

If you don't have time to read the play in full, at least get a competent analysis! I like them.

Class Five: May 29th

Group discussion
Review of the past week. Writing, reading, plays, movies, etc.

Dialogue and language

• Stylistic pitfalls to avoid
• Exposition (and how to get away with it!)
• Writing for action, not merely discussion
• How to get a character's voice
  Stems from character bio; make mental comparisons;listening, reading, speaking the text aloud
• Illustrations from Shakespeare - it's all in the text!
  Is this a dagger?
  
• Subtext, what's buried between the lines
• Exercises on subtext
  Click this link to get the document: Subtext exercises

Workshop on student Ten Minute Plays

Suggested Homework
Write your play to the climax; then stop. Outline the remainder of the play.

Class Four: May 24th

Group discussion
Review of the past week. Writing, reading, plays, movies, etc.
Check on playwright habits
The craft of play writing is re-writing. Get it down; review; re-write, How does this relate to inspirational writing? Inspiration is fleeting. By all means get it down; but when it’s passed, the graft begins.How to get the muse talking.

Review preparation for 10 minute plays
Write brief character bios, with single adjective, and driving passion.
Identify Protagonist/antagonists.
Summarize the plot (story) in one paragraph. Include the inciting incident, rising action, climax and resolution.
Max 3 words - what is the theme?
That this work is the basis also of nay full length play.

Exercise
Ten minute play. Write the Time, Place and Setting of your play.

Character and conflict: rules and reasons
Concentric circles of conflict. Illustrations from Death of a Salesman
The end of the main conflict is the climax of the play (or false climax). Illustrate from Romeo and Juliet.
How the arc completes (R&J again)
Tricks and misdirection add to the fun. These are twists and turn of the plot. (Hamlet)

More about planning a play
Summarize your scenes.
Say what happens in each scene and how the action moves forward. How does the status at the end of the scene differ from the start? Have you fulfilled the scene object
What are plot points? Each scene ends with a plot point.

The heart of the matter - Clothing the summary with words
Have you met the scene objectives?
What if it changes mid scene?

Homework
Write the first 4 pages of your 10 minute play, with Time, Place and Setting

Set the meeting for next week

Class Three: May 16th

Review plays seen or read in the past week

Forthcoming events
Comp. tickets for Laguna Playhouse available to us - see Laguna Playhouse for upcoming plays.
Long Beach Playhouse new works festival - free. Saturdays May 26 and June 23. Please plan to go! Full details at Long Beach Playhouse - New Works

HOW CHARACTER DRIVES ACTION
Review past discussions on Character development

Exercises and discussion
Character as a single adjective!!
Want vs need - which is more fundamental?
Character flaws - discuss cases

Your character in your play - Active or reactive?

Character trajectory: Comedy and Drama/Tragedy
The Fender Bender: Scene Writing and sharing

CHARACTER, THEME AND PLOT
Clarify terms.
You may start from any one, but eventually you need out flesh out all three.

Exercises and discussion on Theme

Exercises and discussion on Plot

STUDENT PLAY ANALYSIS

HOMEWORK
PREPARE AN OUTLINE FOR YOUR 10-MINUTE PLAY
Write brief character bios, with single adjective, and driving passion.
Identify Protagonist/antagonists.
Summarize the plot (story) in one paragraph. Include the inciting incident, rising action, climax and resolution.
Max 3 words - what is the theme?

Submission opportunities for short/10-minute plays
Fn Productions
Emerging Artists Theatre

Class Two: May 9th

SUMMARY

Group discussion - review of the past week. Writing, reading, plays, movies, etc.

THE PARTS OF THE PLAY TEXT
Hand out annotated examples.
Check the layout of TITLE, ACTS, SCENES, CHARACTERS, Directions, (Parentheses), and Dialogue. Discussion of the reasons for this, and professional expectations. Evaluate special software, or get a WORD Template from me for free – which works almost as well.

AN INTRODUCTION TO THE TEN MINUTE PLAY
This is a led discussion.
Slice of life/sketch/a big idea/character and plot arcs. Examples
History and value of the 10-min play. Demand.
Great learning exercise. Develop conciseness. Also requires great skill to do it well.

EXERCISE
How to draft an instant play!!
Discussion

TIME TO DISCUSS FREITAG’S TRIANGLE
The terminology.
How and why it works.
Relate it to well known plays.
When and why you might break the rules

STUDENT PLAY ANAYLSIS
Turning story into plot

Class One: May 2nd

SUMMARY

Introductions from class members.
CLASS OBJECTIVE
To understand what a playwright is:
· The origins go back to the earliest story-tellers who recorded their feats on cave walls or devised the first cosmological myths to explain the creation of the world.
· In Ancient Greece Homer set off a train of storytelling. He was followed by a succession of playwrights who exhibited their works at annual festivals for tragedy, comedy and dithyrambic dance – the precursor of the musical! These writers included Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides. We will keep coming back to this as required.
· Plato determined that his ideal Republic would have no place for drama. But as if by reaction his student, Aristotle, used his skills to analyze and classify the Greek plays and systematize their essence into his now famous Poetics. This is worth reading in any of its various forms on the Internet.
· Graeco-Roman theatre was submerged in obscurity until the Renaissance brought its philosophies, arts and biblical texts to light in medieval Italy. From here the line extends onwards through Europe to Shakespeare’s age, Moliere, and on to Ibsen, Shaw, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller and Neil Simon – pick an arbitrary few!
· These were all the commentators, the mind shapers of their ages. If you wanted to criticize the king you stood to get your head chopped off; but write a play about bad kings and the crowds got the message.
· The playwright is therefore the community story teller, the folk psychologist, the activist, the shaper of opinion.
· The playwright must know himself because so much of what he writes will inevitably be based upon his/her own narrative and insights.

EXERCISES
· Make a list of the 10 highest and best traits of people as you see them. Do it quickly.
· Make a list of the 10 lowest and worst traits of people as you see them – quickly.
· Group Discussion on what these lists say about YOU. Which traits are mostly YOU? These will also tend to inhabit the characters you write. The best will be marred by traits from the ‘lowest’ list. An the evil antagonist will have noble traits. Know yourself to build your characters.
· Now make a list of the 10 things about which you are most passionate.

If a playwright has no passion she will not move her audience to Aristotle’s catharsis. There will be no message.

· Now augment three of the better traits and three of the lower traits with a few words of stage direction which will non-verbally reveal these characteristics. Discuss. Drama is action. Action reveals character.
· It takes a great deal of practice to get away from stating every aspect of character on the surface of the words. Learn to use subtext and action. We will return to this many times.

Homework – to write what you BELIEVE.

THE PLAYWRIGHT’S HABITS
· Discuss what these might be. These should include: write daily – almost anything, even a blog. Keep notes in a writer’s notebook; things you see and hear, dialogue you overhear which you could never invent even if you tried.
· Go to plays. Critique them. Learn to distinguish the how the play works or fails. Is it a fault or triumph of the script, the acting or the direction? Keep notes about the plays you see or read.

End of class for today. 3 hours

Announcement: New play writing course

Here's how it started:
Announcing - A new course in Play Writing by Orange County playwright Michael Buss.
Time and place: Nine 3-hour sessions commencing Wednesday 2nd May, from 7 – 10pm at the Gala Studios 461 North Citrus, Orange, CA 92868.

The course will include:

• Classical origins of theatre
• Character, theme and plot
• Action, drama and conflict
• Presentation, format and structure
• Elements of a play
• Time, place and setting
• Stage directions
• Writing techniques
• Meeting actor and audience expectations
• The playwright’s self identity
• The collaborative process
• Creative writing exercises
• How to get produced
• Individual script consultation available
  Students should bring writing instruments and a writing notebook. By the end of the nine weeks each student will have written at least one new 10-minute play.
  Although designed as an introduction to playwriting, this course will also be a great refresher for those who have been writing plays for a while.
  Course Fees $135 payable at the first class.The class will not exceed 12 students.
  Register quickly to avoid disappointment. Further enquiries: Call Michael Buss at (714) 329-7311 or email busstop9@hotmail.com