Introduction to Playwriting: National Theatre
Taught by Evan Placey
Every Monday from 7 September until 9 November 2015, 2-5pm
16 places available
Cottesloe Room, Clore Learning Centre
£375, (£300 concessions, bursaries available)
Learn to apply the basic elements of writing for the stage in this ten-week course. Explore the key principles of dramatic writing including, character, structure, story and dialogue. Using active writing exercises – on your feet, on the page and in your head – you will sharpen your tools for creating theatre.
There will be a small amount of writing or ‘homework’ between sessions and each participant will have a short one-to-one tutorial with Evan Placey to talk about the play or idea they have been working on during the course. At the end of the course you will have a clear plan of action for finishing or re-drafting your play.
Led by Evan Placey
Evan Placey is a Canadian-British playwright who grew up in Toronto and now lives in London. He recently won the Writers’ Guild Award – Best Play for Young Audiences for his play Girls Like That (Synergy Theatre/Unicorn Theatre; first produced Birmingham Rep/Theatre Royal Plymouth/West Yorkshire Playhouse.) A new play for NYT’s West End Season, Consensual, will premiere in October 2015. In 2016, Wild! (tutti frutti) will tour the UK, and his play Scarberia will be produced in Toronto. His other plays include: Pronoun for National Theatre Connections; Mother of Him at the Courtyard, London (winner of the King’s Cross Award for New Writing, UK, and RBC National Playwriting Competition, Canada, and the Samuel French Canadian Play Contest, USA); Banana Boys at Hampstead; How Was It For You? at the Unicorn; Little Criminals at York /Plymouth/Polka; and Holloway Jones for Synergy/Unicorn (winner of the Brian Way Award 2012 for Best Play for Young People). For radio: Mother of Him (BBC Radio 3/Little Brother Productions).
Evan Placey’s work has been translated into French, German, Greek, Hebrew, and Italian. He has been on attachment at the National Theatre Studio, Birmingham Rep, the Unicorn Theatre, and is a MacDowell Colony Fellow. He was part of the Kudos/Bush Writers’ Initiative, Channel 4’s 4Screenwriting, and the Royal Court’s Young Writers’ Programme and Invitation group. He is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Southampton. He also teaches playwriting for various theatres, as well as in prisons.
Course Outline
WEEK 1: What’s Worth Writing About?
WEEK 2: Dramatic Action
WEEK 3: Character
WEEK 4: Structure
WEEK 5: Story, Plot & Narrative
WEEK 6: Dialogue
WEEK 7: Setting, Location, and the World of Play
WEEK 8: Stagecraft (& Tutorials)
WEEK 9: Form and Theatricality (& Tutorials)
WEEK 10: Looking Back and Moving Forward
For an additional cost, participants will be able to see People, Places and Things, a new play by Duncan Macmillan, in the Dorfman Theatre on Monday 2 November at 7.30pm.
How too Apply: Applicants do not need to have written a play, but do need to demonstrate a passion for writing and theatre, and an ambition to develop their playwriting. Places will be allocated on the strength of applications. Sixteen places are available, including a limited number of bursary places.
To apply please complete this form by Monday 27 July, 12noon.
Email learning@nationaltheatre.org.uk if you have any queries.
Participants must be aged 18 or over.
Deadline: 27 July 2015 at noon
Source: @EvanPlacey via @PlaywritingUK