Playwriting Course

Lesson 1 • Anatomy of a Play

Breaks down the structural components—acts, scenes, beats—and their functional roles. Gives students a shared vocabulary for analyzing and building plays.

Lesson 2 • Theatre as a Unique Medium

Examines how live performance differs from prose and film in terms of time, space, and audience contract. Grounds all subsequent craft decisions in theatrical specificity.

Lesson 3 • Finding Your Dramatic Subject

Guides students from personal obsession and observation to stageable dramatic material. Establishes a generative practice for sourcing ideas throughout the course.

Lesson 1 • Ensemble and Secondary Characters

Addresses how supporting characters serve the play's themes and pressure the protagonist. Students learn to avoid flat foils and functional stereotypes.

Lesson 2 • Character Want and Need

Distinguishes between a character's conscious want and deeper psychological need. This tension becomes the primary engine of character-driven drama.

Lesson 3 • Character Voice and Idiolect

Teaches how vocabulary, syntax, and rhythm distinguish one character's speech from another's. Students write comparative monologues to test vocal differentiation.

Lesson 4 • Building Character Biography

Constructs a character's history, worldview, and contradictions before writing begins. Rich biography produces authentic, surprising behavior on stage.

Lesson 1 • How Dialogue Works on Stage

Analyzes what stage dialogue must accomplish beyond conveying information. Connects dialogue function to character want and scene objective.

Lesson 2 • Monologue Writing

Covers the distinct demands of the extended solo speech within a play's dramatic context. Students write and workshop character monologues tied to their developing projects.

Lesson 3 • Rhythm, Tempo, and Musicality

Explores how line length, punctuation, and interruption control the pace of a scene. Students read their dialogue aloud to diagnose and fix rhythmic problems.

Lesson 4 • Exposition Without Exposition

Addresses the challenge of delivering necessary backstory without halting dramatic momentum. Techniques include conflict-embedded exposition and discovery scenes.

Lesson 1 • Openings and Endings of Scenes

Examines how scenes begin in medias res and end with forward momentum or resonant ambiguity. Strong scene boundaries keep audiences engaged across the full play.

Lesson 2 • Scene Sequencing and Juxtaposition

Explores how the order and contrast of scenes create cumulative dramatic meaning. Students arrange a sequence of scenes and analyze the effect of reordering.

Lesson 3 • Objectives and Tactics

Applies actor-based thinking—objective and tactic—to the playwright's construction of scenes. Understanding how characters pursue goals generates dynamic, playable action.

Lesson 4 • The Turning Point and Reversal

Identifies the moment within a scene when power, knowledge, or fortune shifts decisively. Students locate and sharpen turning points in their own draft scenes.

Lesson 1 • Climax, Crisis, and Resolution

Distinguishes crisis from climax and examines how resolution earns or subverts audience expectation. Students draft the climactic sequence of their full-length outline.

Lesson 2 • Alternative Structural Models

Surveys episodic, circular, and non-linear structures as legitimate alternatives to linear causality. Students assess which model fits their dramatic material.

Lesson 3 • The Inciting Incident and Rising Action

Pinpoints the event that disrupts equilibrium and launches the play's central conflict. Students test whether their inciting incident arrives early enough and with sufficient force.

Lesson 4 • Classical and Three-Act Structure

Examines the Aristotelian model and its three-act descendant as a baseline for dramatic architecture. Students map existing plays onto this framework to internalize its logic.

Lesson 1 • Identifying and Developing Theme

Moves theme from vague topic to a specific, arguable dramatic proposition. Students test whether every scene serves or complicates the central thematic claim.

Lesson 2 • Symbol, Image, and Theatrical Metaphor

Develops recurring images and objects into theatrical metaphors that carry thematic weight. Students identify and deepen one central image in their developing play.

Lesson 3 • Writing for the Stage Space

Translates the playwright's vision into stageable action that respects the actor's body and the designer's craft. Students write scenes that exploit spatial relationships.

Lesson 4 • The World of the Play

Defines the rules, atmosphere, and logic that govern the play's fictional universe. A coherent world makes even fantastical premises believable and dramatically productive.

Lesson 1 • From Outline to First Draft

Establishes a sustainable drafting process that prioritizes momentum over perfection. Students set scene-by-scene targets and complete a full rough draft.

Lesson 2 • Macro Revision Strategies

Addresses large-scale structural problems—missing scenes, misplaced climaxes, weak inciting incidents—before line-level editing. Students produce a revision plan.

Lesson 3 • Micro Revision and Line Editing

Refines dialogue, stage directions, and scene transitions at the sentence and line level. Students apply targeted editing passes to sharpen voice and economy.

Lesson 4 • Table Reads and Revision Cycles

Uses live readings to expose problems invisible on the page and generate targeted revision priorities. Students organize and facilitate a table read of their own work.

Lesson 1 • Submission and Professional Materials

Covers script formatting standards, cover letters, synopses, and submission etiquette for theatres and competitions. Students prepare a complete submission package.

Lesson 2 • Sustaining a Playwriting Practice

Addresses the long-term habits, community, and resilience required for a sustained career in playwriting. Students draft a personal writing plan for the year ahead.

Lesson 3 • Giving Effective Dramaturgical Feedback

Trains students to offer specific, actionable, and writer-centered critique rather than prescriptive rewrites. Strong feedback culture accelerates every writer's development.

Lesson 4 • New Play Development Pathways

Maps the ecosystem of readings, workshops, residencies, and festivals that develop new plays. Students identify three development opportunities appropriate to their work.