This is a dramaturgically-inspired playwriting class. While forging ahead on your own works can be very fulfilling, sometimes the best way to forward your writing is through studying the work of others. Over the course of 8 weeks, Winter will guide you through play analyses and writing exercises, looking at great works from the outside in order to strengthen your own writing. Each class will be ⅓ discussion of the play, ⅓ writing prompt, ⅓ sharing new pages.

This class might be for you if you are: 

• A writer who wants to employ the principles of dramaturgy to strengthen your scripts and engage with your collaborators more effectively. 

• Interested in sharpening the components of your writing rather than diving into a full-length play.

• Curious about how genre and style define the parameters (or don't) of your own play.

In this class you will:

• Read a play each week that Winter chooses, which you will discuss in class.

• Break down each play to examine structure, plot, character development, and dialogue from the outside in, looking at existing works and seeing why they succeed.

• Actively participate in the play discussion with prepared observations.

• After discussing each play, you’ll have an in-class writing prompt to write a scene in that writer’s voice, perhaps a scene that was never in the play, but could have been. You will share your new pages inspired by our playwrights every other week.

By the end of this class you will: 

• Confidently approach a broad range of plays with an ability to identify a play’s fundamental components and what makes it successful.

• Have a deeper understanding of your own writing through analyzing and emulating the writing of others.

• Break out of your patterns and habits and explore new facets of your own writer’s voice.