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