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