These writing exercises are adapted from The Playwright’s Handbook, by Frank Pike and Thomas G. Dunn (1996)
THE BEGINNER’S WORKSHOP
Day 1 – Setting: Explore several settings, at least one public and one private. Also try to find one setting that is unfamiliar to you. Concentrate on the physical setting; filter out any people or activities. Using all five senses, jot down as many details as possible. Now do this again, from memory, for a setting from your past. From the lists, write two short descriptions, one for each setting.
Day 2 – Characters: Write a short, pithy paragraph about how a present stranger you observe (the ‘present character’) and a person you were close to that you haven’t seen for some time (the ‘past character’) dress. Then, based on your observations and recollections, write a brief personality profile/life history for both the ‘present character’ and the ‘past character.’
Day 3 – Put the Characters in the Settings: Place the ‘present character’ in the ‘past setting.’ Have the character perform a simple, specific piece of business with some part of the setting that reveals something about both who the character is and why the character is in the environment. Describe the activity in a short paragraph. Repeat the exercise, describing the ‘past character’ performing a piece of business in the ‘present setting.’
Day 4 – Give Them Voices: Invent some sort of antagonistic relationship for the two characters you have been working with. For each character, write a 3-minute (about a single-spaced typed page) monologue, addressed to the audience. The characters should describe each other, and give their point of view of the relationship of the two characters.
Day 5 – Describe a Scenario: As the foundation for a short scene, put together a basic scenario—a narrative description of everything that happens in the scene from lights up to lights down. Focus the scene on a conflict that arises between the two characters you’ve created.
Day 6 – Write the Scene: Based on everything you’ve done so far, write the first draft of a brief scene (5 typed pages) with a strong, clear-cut conflict between the two characters.
Day 7 – Thoughts on this week’s reading, Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller (1948)
THE INTERMEDIATE WORKSHOP
Day 8 – Create a Stock Company: Create six characters to use in the Intermediate exercises. Three of the characters should be based on people you observe in the present, and three of the characters should be based on people you knew in the past.
Day 9 – Write a Group Scene: Write a 10-minute scene using all six characters from your stock company. Use an appropriate central reflector [one pivotal idea, person, object, place, or event on which all the characters have an opinion] to anchor and focus the scene, reveal character and relationships, and generate conflict. Extra Credit: make your central reflector a disrupted ritual (social, family, spiritual, personal).
Day 10 – Write a Confrontation Scene: Using any two characters from your stock company, write a 10-minute all-out, no-holds-barred confrontation scene. Extra Credit: Re-write the scene for three characters. Make the third character an unwilling spectator/participant.
Day 11 – Let the Setting Drive the Scene: Using four characters from your stock company, write a 10-minute scene that uses setting as a subtle reflection of the conflict.
Day 12 – Play with Surface Comedy: Using two characters from your stock company (other than those used in the confrontation scene, write a 10-minute scene that is outwardly comic, although the situation is serious for one or both of the characters.
Day 13 – Unresolved Conflict, The Elephant in the Room: Take two to four characters from your stock company and write a 10-minute scene in which an old conflict is unearthed and rehashed in the present.
Day 14 – Thoughts on this week’s reading, Topdog/Underdog, by Susan-Lori Parks (2001)