Playwriting I

Readings

WeEK #	TOPICS	READINGS
1	Playwrights are Storytellers	Ives, David. “Sure Thing.” In All in the Timing: Fourteen Plays. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1994. ISBN: 9780679759287.
2	The Power of the Unspoken Word (PDF 1) (PDF 2)	Alford, Henry. “Shouts and Murmers: Unspoken O’Neill.” The New Yorker, December 1998, 68-69. Raffo, Heather. “Iraq Through the Eyes of its Women.” American Theatre, April 2005, 20-22 and 70-71. Epstein, Leslie. The Yellow Bus. In Boston Theatre Marathon of Ten-Minute Plays, Volume 1. Quincy, MA: Baker’s Plays, 2000.  ISBN: 087440-134-8
3	Actions Speak Louder than Words (PDF)	Hartigan, Patti. “One Man. Ten Plays. 100 Years.” Boston Globe Magazine, April 3, 2005, 33-35 and 47-50. Rivera, Jose. “36 Assumptions about Writing Plays.” American Theatre, February 2003. ———. “The Winged Man.” from Plays for Actresses. Edited by Eric Lane and Nina Shengold. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1997. ISBN: 9780679772811.
4	The Challenge of Exposition and How to Create High- and Low-Context Dialogue (PDF 1) (PDF 2)	Albee, Edward. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? New York, NY: Pocket Books, 1970. ISNB: 0451158717. MacFarquhar, Larissa. “Passion Plays: The making of Edward Albee.” The New Yorker, April 4, 2005, 68-77.
5	Disrupted Ritual	Schisgal, Murray. “Confessions: A Playwright Confesses.”   The Dramatist, Spring 2006, 30-33. Marguilies, Donald. “Last Tuesday.” American Theatre. July-August 2003, 42-46. Lahr, John. “After Angels: Tony Kushner’s Promethean Itch.” The New Yorker, January 3, 2005, 42-52.
6	Thinking about Plot (PDF)	Witchel, Alex. “The Confessions of John Patrick Shanley.” The New York Times Magazine, November 7, 2004, 31-35. Rudnick, Paul. “Paul Rudnick’s Random Rules for Comedy.” The Dramatist, Spring 2006, 6-7. Ives, David. “Why I Shouldn’t Write Plays.” New York Times, August 24, 1997. Wright, Nicholas. Vincent in Brixton. London, UK: Nick Hern Books, 2002. ISBN: 9780573629563.
7	Thinking about Sound	Wren, Celia. “Saints, Sin, and Erik Ehn.” American Theatre, May-June 2004, 19-22 and 65. Walker, George F. “Introduction and Beyond Mozambique.” In Shared Anxiety: Selected Plays. Toronto, Canada: Coach House Press, 2002, preface. ISBN: 9780889104723.
8	Dialogue is Action	Mamet, David. Glengarry Glen Ross. New York, NY: Grove Press, 1994. ISBN: 9780802130914. Croyden, Margaret. “The African Connection.” American Theatre, April 2005, 30-32 and 73.
9	Composition: Adding Elements (PDF 1) (PDF 2)	Shewey, Don. “Cowboy Mouth.” American Theatre, April 2004, 21-25 and 82-84. Ives, David. “Words, Words, Words.” In All in the Timing: Fourteen Plays. New York, NY: Vintage Books, 1994, pp. 22-30. ISBN: 9780679759287.
10	Obstacle + Action = Great Theater (PDF)	Foreman, Ridchard. “The Gods Are Pounding My Head! (AKA Lumberjack Messiah).” American Theatre, April 2005, 35-45.
11-12	Reading and Workshopping Final Projects