Creative Writing - Drama: Syllabus

THE PLAYWRITING SEMINARS > ENGLISH 668 SYLLABUS
Fall 1999 Tuesdays 7:00-9:40P Hibbs 307
Dr. Richard Toscan, Dean
VCU School of the Arts: Pollak Building 201
828-2787 rtoscan@vcu.edu

'It was written as it was told. I did run out of the house up to the Strand bookstore to get Sidney Poitier's memoirs. I found what I needed and kept on going. I couldn't leave the house because we were waiting for my wife's brother to arrive from Virginia and we didn't know what time he was coming. So I just stayed home and wrote. I wrote the play that day. . . . But that's once in a lifetime when things happen that fast. You have to keep writing every day so that when those accidents happen, you're there to catch them.'

-- John Guare

This is a workshop on the art and craft of playwriting with the goal of producing professionally competitive scripts for submission to the nation's regional theatres and national competitions. Occasional lectures on craft issues including voice, structure, format, submission techniques, and the play development process. Workshop members are expected to produce a substantial portion of a full-length play [a minimum of a complete Act I or approximately 50 pages] and in addition to evaluate their own work and that of others in the workshop. Guests from the profession may be scheduled as available for discussions or mini-workshops during the semester.

Playwriting is an aural craft; the ear is more important than the eye. Unless otherwise noted, scripts will be presented aurally without written copies provided in advance to workshop participants. Critiques will be offered in the same fashion. My written critiques will be provided in your manuscripts when portions or the whole are requested.

Open only to students admitted to the MFA program in English/Creative Writing or by permission of the MFA Program Director. Grading is Pass/Fail based on the understanding of basic concepts as demonstrated in the projects; talent matters as does growth. Regular attendance and writing is necessary for progress in writing workshops.

Plays

Plays in the specified editions are available at campus bookstores. The first three plays can also be ordered from Amazon.com which usually offers them at a 20% discount [shipping additional] with delivery in a few days: http://www.vcu.edu/artweb/playwriting/syllabus.html

Charles Fuller, A Soldier's Play
[U.S. Publisher: Farrar, Straus, & Giraux]
Marsha Norman, 'night, Mother
[U.S. Publisher: Noonday Press]
Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
With original & revised "Broadway" Act III.
[U.S. Publisher: New American Library - Dutton]
David Henry Hwang, M. Butterfly
[U.S. Publisher: Dramatists Play Service]

Reference

Theatre Communications Group, Dramatists Sourcebook 1999-2000 Edition
Order this new edition in mid-September through local bookstores or from Amazon.com which usually offers it at a 20% discount [shipping additional]: http://www.vcu.edu/artweb/playwriting/sourcebook.html
Richard Toscan, The Playwriting Seminars: The Full-Length Play
http://www.vcu.edu/artweb/playwriting/

Workshop Project Assignments

Manuscript Format Project:
The first 2 dialogue pages of a play with standard preliminary pages in professional manuscript format.
Midterm Project:
The first 15 dialogue pages of the play with standard preliminary pages in professional format.
Final Project:
Act I of a full-length play [50-page minimum] in professional manuscript format, prepared for professional submission. This includes a cover, standard preliminary pages, and SASE [postage need not be afixed].

Anticipated Workshop Schedule by Week

The actual topics schedule will be determined by the craft needs of students enrolled.

Aug. 31: Introduction & Review of the Basics
Plots, Subjects, Voice, Subtext, & Format
Sep. 7: M. BUTTERFLY
Narrators & Film structure
Presentations & Analysis
Sep. 14: GUEST SESSION [10-Minute Play Workshop]
Michael Bigelow Dixon, Literary Manager, Actors Theatre of Louisville
Sep. 21: Manuscript Format Project Due
'NIGHT MOTHER
Point of View & Time structures
Presentations & Analysis
Sep. 28: [Class Starts at 8:00 p.m.] CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF
Presentations & Analysis
Oct. 5: A SOLDIER'S PLAY
Thematic & Complex Time Structures Character focus & 3-act structure
Presentations & Analysis
ASSIGNMENT: Partial scripts due in Prof. Laura Browder's mail box [Hibbs 306] by Noon on Wednesday [October 6] for her workshops on October 12th & 19th.
Oct. 12: GUEST SESSION [Cold Reading Workshop]
Laura Browder, VCU Department of English
Oct. 19: GUEST SESSION [Cold Reading Workshop]
Laura Browder, VCU Department of English
Oct. 26: Midterm Project Due
The Business of Playwriting; Competitions, Copyright &
Presentations & Analysis
Nov. 2: Directors, The Development Process & Regional Theatres
Presentations & Analysis
Nov. 9: Agents
Presentations & Analysis
Nov. 16: GUEST SESSION
Nov. 23: GUEST SESSION
Nov. 30: The Synopsis & Submission Packages
Final Presentations & Analysis
Dec. 7: Final Presentations & Analysis
Dec. 14: Final Project Due
Final Presentations & Analysis

"This story has everything a tale should have. Sex, death, treachery, vengeance, magic, humor, warmth, wit , surprise and a happy ending. . . . Narration is as much a part of human nature as breath and the circulation of the blood. Modernist literature tried to do away with storytelling, which it thought vulgar, replacing it with flashbacks, epiphanies, streams of consciousness. But storytelling is intrinsic to biological time, which we cannot escape. . . . We are all, like Scheherazade, under sentence of death, and we all think of our lives as narratives, with beginnings, middles and ends."

-- A. S. Byatt

A version of this syllabus hyper-linked to The Playwriting Seminars Web site is available at http://www.vcu.edu/artweb/playwriting/syllabusgr.html

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