workshops Archives

DRAMATIS PERSONAE WORKSHOP: The Tricky Middle

THE TRICKY MIDDLE
Getting to the heart of your play
A workshop taught by Colin Denby Swanson

Wednesdays, May 7, 14, 21 and 28, 7-9 PM

Zachary Scott Theatre Center Conference Room
1510 Toomey Rd.

All four sessions: $100 ASW/ $150 General
Drop-in rate: $30 ASW/ $40 General (Payable by check only)

Info & Reservations: 512.454.9727; christi@scriptworks.org

You have a great idea for a full length play. You like the beginning. You even possibly like the end. It's the middle that gets you. The middle where the meat of the play is. The middle that should be lean and efficient, the heart of the conflict. Frankly, it stinks. We'll approach the tricky, tricky middle of your play from different perspectives, comparing the tricky middles of published plays, including John Patrick Shanley's DOUBT, with shorter works. (Participants should read or see DOUBT prior to the May 14th meeting.)

ABOUT COLIN DENBY SWANSON
C. Denby Swanson is a graduate of Smith College, the National Theatre Institute, and the University of Texas Michener Center for Writers. She is a former William Inge Playwright in Residence, Jerome Fellow and McKnight Advancement Grant recipient. Her work has been commissioned by the Guthrie Theater; featured in the Southern Playwrights Festival, the Women Playwrights Project, the Estro-Genius Festival, the Lark Theater's Playwrights Week, PlayLabs 2002, New York Stage & Film (through P73), Culture Project's IMPACT Festival, and the Icicle Creek Theater Festival; and produced by Salvage Vanguard Theater, The Drilling Company, and 15 Head a Theater Lab. She is published by Smith & Kraus, Heinemann, Accompany Publishing, and Playscripts, Inc. THE POTATO FEAST received a Susan Smith Blackburn Houston Special Prize in honor of the award's 30th anniversary in 2008. She is a Core member of The Playwrights Center in Minneapolis, a former Artistic Director of Austin Script Works, and on the faculty at Southwestern University. Currently, she is the NEA/TCG Playwright in Residence at Zachary Scott Theatre Center, working on a new play about Austin blues club owner Clifford Antone.

Creating Visual Metaphor with Sherry Kramer

Tuesday, March 18th, 2008 @ 7:00 PM
Daugherty Arts Center, Conference Room B
1110 Barton Springs Rd.
$15 ASW/ $25 General

Information and reservations at:
info@scriptworks.org or 454-9727

How do we make the ordinary into the extraordinary? How do we create something that can carry meaning across the stage, into the audience and then out of the theatre, all the way home, and into the lives of these strangers who come, to sit together in the dark? How do we generate a magical object on stage?

A two hour workshop about making a magical object on stage.

Participants should come to the workshop prepared to discuss August Wilson's THE PIANO LESSON, and to write.

About Sherry Kramer:

Sherry Kramer's work has been seen at theaters across the country and abroad, including the Humana Festival at the Actors Theatre of Louisville, InterAct Theatre, Yale Repertory Theater, Soho Rep, Ensemble Studio Theater, New York's Second Stage, The Woolly Mammoth, The Tokyo International Arts Festival, and The Theater of the First Amendment. She is a recipient of N E A, New York Foundation for the Arts and McKnight Fellowships, the Weissberger Playwriting Award and a New York Drama League Award (WHAT A MAN WEIGHS), the L A Women in Theater New Play Award (THE WALL OF WATER), and the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award (DAVID'S REDHAIRED DEATH), and a commission from A.S.K (THE MAD MASTER.) Other plays include: WHEN SOMETHING WONDERFUL ENDS, THINGS THAT BREAK, ABOUT SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION, NAPOLEON'S CHINA (music theatre piece with Ann Haskell and Rebecca Newton), THE MASTER AND MARGARITA (music theatre adaptation with composer Margaret Pine), THE RELEASE OF A LIVE PERFORMANCE, PARTIAL OBJECTS, THE WORLD AT ABSOLUTE ZERO, HOLD FOR THREE, BEFORE AND AFTER, NANO AND NICKI IN BOCA RATON, THE LONG ARMS OF JUPITER, THE RULING PASSION, THE END OF RADIO, THE LAW MAKES EVENING FALL, and THE BAY OF FUNDY: An Adaptation of One Line of the Mayor of Casterbridge. She was the first national member of New Dramatists, and teaches playwriting at Bennington College, and in the MFA programs of the Iowa Playwrights Workshop and the Michener Center for Writers, UT Austin.

Playwriting from the Director's Perspective
An examination of Dramatic Structure and Character Development and how each resonates theatrically in the context of performance. Taught by Jorge Luis Cacheiro.

Saturday, December 8th, 2007 @ 10:30 AM
The Vortex, 2307 Manor Rd.

$15 ASW/ $25 General

Information and reservations at:
info@scriptworks.org or 454-9727

DANCING IN CYBERSPACE: The basic principles of creating performances in the digital world
with Clay Nichols

Weds. June 6, 7-10pm
State Theatre, 719 Congress Ave.

We will cover some of the basics: staking out your digital real estate, creating digital content (includes basic digital filmmaking), posting or "performing," aggregating an audience (or what used to called online marketing), and monetizing your work (or what used to be called making money).

They say that on the web "content is king," and writers are the kings of content, so why aren't you the king of the internet? Or Queen. Whatever. Simple applications now exist to allow to broadcast your writing and performance to an audience of potentially unlimited size. You can even make (a little) money at it.

Clay Nichols is a nationally produced playwright, co-author of "Filmmaking for Teens: Pulling Off Your Shorts" and the Chief Creative Officer at DadLabs.com, the video website for fathers. He is also an ASW Core Alum and president of the ASW board.

$15 ASW members/ $25 general pulbic
Email christi@scriptworks.org or call 512-454-9727 to reserve a slot.

Just in time for the Latino Playwright Initiative call for short plays, or maybe just a head start on your FronteraFest piece ...

Hold on to your Shorts!
The Learning to Write Quickly (and shortly!) Workshop
led by Amparo Garcia

6:30-10:00 p.m.
Monday, May 22, 2006
State Theatre, 719 Congress Ave. (map)
$20 ASW members/ $30 General
512-454-9727 or

Playwrights learn about craft from t-shirt slogan
Dramatis Personae Workshop with Jennifer Haley

$100 ASW members; $150 non-members

Life is short, so eat dessert first.

It's a t-shirt slogan. It's a darn good idea. Moreover, it's a workshop offered by Austin Script Works as part of their ongoing Dramatis Personae series. Intimate, extraordinary classes taught by some of the nation's most innovative playwrights.

In this 3-week workshop with former Austinite (and recent Brown University MFA) Jennifer Haley, you'll get the playwriting equivalent of relishing the last course.

Why is it challenging to write the end of a play? Does the end of the action have to be the chronological end of the story? If the end is the last bite, what does it say about the entire meal? Explore your process and investigate new narrative structures in an open, creative, invigorating class.

Jennifer Haley is a playwright and performer from Austin, Texas. She has worked with a variety of theater companies around the United States, including Refraction Arts/Blue Theatre in Austin, The Empty Space and Annex Theatre in Seattle, Perishable Theatre in Providence, Women's Theatre Initiative in Cincinnati, and Stark Raving Theatre in Portland, Oregon. She recently received her MFA from the graduate playwriting program at Brown University, where she was awarded the Weston Award for Drama and the Joelson Prize for Creative Writing.

7-9:30 PM
November 30
December 7
December 14
Dougherty Arts Center, Conference Room A
1110 Barton Springs Road

Info/Reservations: 512.454.9727; christi -at- scriptworks.org