Playwrights' workshop

Lectures: 1 session / week, 3 hours / session

It is recommended that students take the course 21M.604 Playwriting I or receive the permission of the instructor.

Requirements for this course consist of attendance at weekly class meetings, seeing at least two professional theatrical productions during the term and reading many plays, keeping a playwright's journal, participation in Playwrights in Performance, and a term project of sustained dramatic writing.

Weekly class meetings will consist of the reading and discussion of material supplied by the members of the workshop. You can bring in material at any stage of development—fragments, scenes, first drafts. The point is to use the workshop sessions as a reality check and to use responses to deepen and expand your thinking about your project and suggest rewrite possibilities. Be sure to have enough copies for every member of the workshop—and me. Every member of the class will participate in the oral reading of your work.

Each member of the course will be required to see at least two professional theatrical productions during the term and to read at least one play a week. Be ready to discuss the play you have read or seen during each workshop session. It will be important that you speak about the plays you have read articulately for other members of the workshop who have not read them, and with a clear idea that you want to convey about them. The plays will be of your own choosing.

This will usually be a full one-act play or the first act of a longer piece. Normally, the final project will necessitate at least one rewrite. Your first draft should be completed on or about mid-term. This will give us time to mount a workshop production if the material is ready for that stage of the process, as well as allow time for further rewrites as you work with a director and actors. This is not a fixed deadline—some people write more slowly than others. It's only a deadline if you want your work to be considered for Playwrights in Performance.

Members of the workshop will keep a Playwright's Journal. This can include notes to yourself (in any form) about the piece you working on, the plays you have seen or read, the meaning of the cosmos or how you feel about your partner leaving you (or getting together with you). You may paste certain pages together when you submit it at the end of the term.

Members of the workshop will ordinarily have an average of three private conferences with me over the course of the term. You can schedule more if you find them helpful, less if you find them a pain.

Playwrights in Performance consists of three or four one-acts produced at the end of the term. It is designed as a lab to give all the participants in this course the experience of the process of play development beyond the reading stage through the rehearsal process and performance. Everyone in the Playwrights Workshop is required to participate in the production in some capacity, whether or not your play is being done. It is considered your lab requirement for the course.

The final grade will be based on the development of dramatic writing skills throughout the term, attendance, level of participation in Playwrights in Performance and class discussion.

Don't show me this again

This is one of over 2,200 courses on OCW. Find materials for this course in the pages linked along the left.

MIT OpenCourseWare is a free & open publication of material from thousands of MIT courses, covering the entire MIT curriculum.

No enrollment or registration. Freely browse and use OCW materials at your own pace. There's no signup, and no start or end dates.

Knowledge is your reward. Use OCW to guide your own life-long learning, or to teach others. We don't offer credit or certification for using OCW.

Made for sharing. Download files for later. Send to friends and colleagues. Modify, remix, and reuse (just remember to cite OCW as the source.)

Learn more at Get Started with MIT OpenCourseWare