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Playwriting

Students stuck on “what do I write?”

These playwriting activities are all about sparking ideas. Use prompts, quick exercises, and creative challenges to get students thinking, imagining, and writing without the pressure of a full script.

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Playwriting

Playwriting Exercise: Fun With Words – One

It’s time to have some fun with words! We’re taking a word that means a mouthful and using it as an inspiration for a scene. But not only that, the word in question is from a foreign language....
Playwriting

Playwriting Exercise: Fun With Words Introduction

Here’s the deal. There are many words out there that mean a phrase, their definition is practically a sentence. I love those words, it’s so cool to take one word and have it mean so much. For...
Playwriting

Playwriting Exercise: Chairs

Sometimes I see a picture, hear a sentence, something flashes in front of my eyes and a dramatic conversation instantly forms. It’s a moment that would come alive on the stage. This is one of those...
Games & Exercises

Playwriting Exercise: The Name Game

Use this exercise to practice creating titles based on a picture. • Find a photograph. A great source for public domain photos isflickr.com/commons. • Take a few moments and study the photograph....
Playwriting

Playwriting Exercise: Dead words brought back to life

“Groak : To silently watch someone while they are eating, hoping to be invited to join them.” As a lover of words, nothing tickles me more than seeing words that used to have a life and do no...
Playwriting

Playwriting Exercise: Happy Objects

Over on Buzz Feed they have pictures of Happy Objects. Not, you know, objects with a cheery disposition, but that have happy faces somehow in them. They can’t help it, they look really happy. You...
Playwriting

Brainstorming

I’m working on a new play in a different way this month. It’s going to be from the ground up with a class. When we had the first meeting a student raised their hand and asked “What’s this play...
Playwriting

Playwriting Exercise: The Empty Space

““I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and this is all that is needed for an act of theatre to be engaged”...
Playwriting

Playwriting Exercise: Be Number One!

In a previous Theatrefolk podcast I talked about celebrating the competition and got off on a little side tangent about what it must be like for athletes who not only *must * compete to excel in...
Playwriting

Playwriting Exercise: Starry Starry Night

This interactive version of van Gogh’s Starry Night by animator Petros Vrellis is so engaging. When I watch it, I feel like I’m been drawn into the picture, into the swirls of the night sky. It’s...
Playwriting

Playwriting Prompts: Western Taglines

I was recently in Arizona and visited a most unique museum. It was out in the desert (I love its name – the Superstition Mountain Museum) and on the property there was a wedding chapel that had...
Playwriting

Playwriting Picture Post

All of these pictures come from the Japan pavilion at Epcot in Disney World. The store at the pavilion is an experience, based on the Mitsukoshi Department Store. I adore wandering through and...
Playwriting

Playwriting Exercise: Picture Prompts

When I was in San Diego I found a lot of interesting plant life and a number of objects that just struck me as great inspiration for writing. So let’s get to it. Each picture contains a non-human...
Playwriting

What is a dramaturg?

““One of the most consistent challenges of being a practising dramaturg is convincing other artists of the usefulness of my being in the room.” Dramaturgy in Action, Beccy Smith” It is a funny word...
Playwriting

Playwriting exercise

I came across this most vivid sentence this week: ““They want you to fail so they won’t be alone.”” Who are they? Doesn’t matter. It’s anyone who beats you down. It’s anyone who sneers at you....
Playwriting

What’s in a Name?

Naming characters. It’s something that I take very seriously as a playwright. Some might say a little too seriously, as I spend an hour on a baby name website instead of actually, you know,...
Acting Technique

On Taking Direction

Suppose you’re auditioning for a play. You choose the most dramatic monologue in your aresnal. Let’s say the character is at her father’s funeral. She never told him she loved him while he was...
Playwriting

Chicken Road: After the Performance

All theatre should be a theatrical experience. And that to me is what Listowel did with Chicken. Road. The director established a theatrical vision and vaulted the script off the page. The students...