Stephanie Fleischmann

WRITING IMAGE / WRITING SOUND
An Intensive Workshop For Playwrights
September 20 – 25
$225*
NOTE: Scholarships available. See below.

Full Class Details Here

To reserve a space in the class:
1) Fill out the online registration.
2) Then make a deposit payment of $100 or pay the full amount.

You can make a payment through Brown Paper Tickets or by sending a check to:
Playwrights Foundation, 131 10th street, San Francisco, CA 94103

class information

Class Dates:*
Sat, 9/20 10:00am-2:00pm
Mon, 9/22 7:00pm–10:00pm
Tue, 9/23 7:00pm–10:00pm
Thurs, 9/25 6:00pm–10:00pm
*14 hours of class time


Class Price:
$225
NOTE: Partial scholarships may be available for those in need, and discounts available for Repeat Offenders who have taken a institute class in the past twelve months.

Class Description:
You dream up your plays. Long before they land on a stage, you see them unfolding before you, you hear them in your head. Sound and image are invaluable tools, as instrumental to the playwright as dialogue and character, responsible not just for the visceral texture of the layered, 3-dimensional world of your play but catalysts also for change, for movement, for meaning and emotional resonance.

In this workshop we will explore the realm of the stage direction—sound and image as event and action—both as literal blueprint for the staging of your play and as amazingly impossible jumping off point for your collaborators. We will parse the theatrical gestalt and narrative thrust of sound, approaching plays as music—full of shifts and interruptions and the ghosts of the return. And we will explore the music inherent in the juxtaposition of images. We will also investigate the dramatic potential of song, as well as the presence of audio/visual technology on stage, embedded within your text, as a tool for propelling narrative, distance, and intimacy.

Exercises will be geared towards generating new material as well as deepening works already in progress. We will also read some excellent (and mostly very short) plays for inspiration/example.

In preparation for the workshop, please read one Melissa James Gibson play: either [SIC] or Suitcase... and Patti Page by Erik Ehn (available c/o The Playwrights Foundation)

For the first class, bring:

-a scene from a play you’re working on, or a completed play
-3 images/photos that move you and that you don’t understand
-the Melissa James Gibson text that you’ve read

Important Details:
Limited to 12 Students. Partial scholarships awarded based upon need. Register early, workshops tend to sell out quickly!

Stephanie Fleischmann had a recent play produced by Crowded Fire and the Playwrights Foundation, and directed by Octavio Solis. Coming up: she will workshop her play with many songs, The Secret Lives Of Coats, at the Playwrights Center in Minneapolis; devise 15 song lyrics for The Greeks, Part 3, at Juilliard (Feb. '08); premiere her multimedia music-theater work Red Fly/Blue Bottle (music by Christina Campanella), at HERE Arts Center in NYC next April. Her work (seen at venues across the country and abroad) has received grants from NYSCA, NYFA, NEA, NY State Music Fund, the Greenwall Foundation, and Pew Charitable Trust, and awards including the Frederic Loewe Award and the Whitfield Cook Award. Residencies/fellowships/development opportunities include: Playlabs, MacDowell, Hedgebrook, HARP, DPI/Gertrude Stein Rep, Mabou Mines/Suite, Tennessee Williams fellowship. She is published by Playscripts.com, among others. She is a core writer at the Playwrights Center and an alumnus of New Dramatists.