Dramatic Writing Strategies

Catalog description

The art of dramatic writing lies at the intersections of vision and voice, content and craft. This graduate level course is geared at preparing new MA students for the early stages of their journey towards writing an original work for the stage or screen. Students read, discuss, and create their own artistic statements/manifestos before moving into an examination of traditional western narrative structure (think Aristotle and The Hero’s Journey); from there, class discussions and exercises move on to complicate and repudiate that form. Readings include contemporary dramatic works (which may include Is God Is, Friday Night Lights, Barry, and many more). Supplemental texts include films, television shows, and theoretical pieces, may of which will be individually assigned according to the particular interests of each student. Each student will write an original short piece (for either stage or screen), and will come away with the seeds of what may become their thesis project.