Any prose work benefits from sharpening the major tools of playwriting: monologue, dialogue, and silence. We will look at your draft of a new play, and engage in a workshopping process: reading aloud, then discussing edits and rewrites to align your work with your intentions and objectives. Over the course of the week, you will hear your script come alive, and you will be challenged to bring it to completion through daily input and rewrites. Please plan to send Beau your initial draft by the last week of June, if possible (if you register later, now worries! We will adapt). Any length is welcome, but please keep it to one project/script. In this workshop, we will provide feedback on writing you produce in our week; critique writing you bring from home.

This is a “doers” workshop, designed to address the problems that present themselves to the writer faced with a public performance or presentation of their own work. We will investigate tactics and techniques essential for making those presentations stronger. How do I take the stage? How do I use my voice well? How do I relax in front of people? What do I wear? Do I use a prop? Do I memorize? How do I hold the text? Can I have fun? We will look at these questions, working through the presentations of every student in the class. We will begin with a monologue, essay, group of poems, or short story that you have chosen from your own writing. Suggested length is ten to twenty minutes when read aloud. Please plan to send your work to Beau two weeks before we meet in Iowa City, if possible (if you register later, no worries! We will adapt). In this workshop, we will provide feedback on writing you produce in our weekend; critique writing you bring from home.