SUMMER WORKSHOPS AT PLAYWRIGHTS FOUNDATION:

Partial scholarships available for those in need, and discounts available for Repeat Offenders who have taken a institute class in the past twelve months.

LEIGH FONDAKOWSKI

(award-winning writer/director;
The Laramie Project, The People's Temple, I Think I Like Girls)

Wednesday evenings, Saturday and Sunday, July 18-August 1
Performance: Wednesday, August 1
Wednesdays: 6p-11p; Saturday/Sunday: 11am-5pm

EVENTS IN PEFORMANCE: The Archeology of Playmaking

Do you have an event, current or historical, that you are burning to explore on stage? Did you love the urgency and depth of The Laramie Project and The People's Temple?

Leigh Fondakowski, creator of The People's Temple and head writer for The Laramie Project, teaches a rare two-week summer intensive on how to create riveting theatrical plays from researched material and/or found text. Using a highly evolved process she has created through her work with Tectonic Theater Project, students will work on projects that are based entirely upon text discovered and uncovered through interviews and archival sources - from current and/or historical events or non-fiction. Participants can either start something new or work on an existing unfinished draft, and will explore the theatrical language and vocabulary of the material. This step-by-step process teaches students how to think and create theatrically from traditionally non-theatrical material, and how to discover the piece using the elements of the stage as well as dramaturgical work. The goal of the two-week course is to generate new material with an eye on understanding the overall narrative, structure and theatrical event of the piece. Students will have a clear sense of how to structure the material, what the forms are and how to proceed in the writing of the whole play.

Questions the course will address are:

• What are the criteria for selecting cogent exciting material from the source material?
• How do you make decisions about how to edit, which characters to develop and what story you are telling?
• What is inherently theatrical about the material and/or an individual's perspective on an event?
• What other source material should be sought out to round out the play?
• What are the theatrical forms that bring non-traditional text to life on stage?

In the studio, students will work intensively and collaboratively, assisting each other in the exploration of material. The studio will be available to students for developing work outside of class. The workshop will culminate in a reading/showing of moments created over the course of the two weeks.

Limited to 12 Students. Partial scholarships awarded based upon need.

35 hours of in class instruction. EARLY BIRD PRICE: $425 if registered before July 1st
$500 after July 1st. Register early, workshops tend to sell out quickly!

OUT OF TOWN STUDENTS: discounted hotel accommodations available.

Leigh Fondakowski (playwright/director) was the Head Writer of The Laramie Project and has been a member of Tectonic Theatre Project since 1995. She is an Emmy nominated co-screenwriter for the adaptation of The Laramie Project for HBO. Her latest work, The People's Temple, has been performed under her direction at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Perseverance Theater, and The Guthrie Theater, and received the Glickman Award for best new play in 2005. Another original play, I Think I Like Girls, premiered at Encore Theater in San Francisco under her direction and was voted one of the top 10 plays of 2002 by The Advocate. Other directing credits include: 3 Seconds in the Key by Deb Margolin (San Francisco Playhouse), The Laramie Project (Berkeley Repertory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, Perseverance Theatre), La Voix Humaine by Jean Cocteau (Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh), Agatha by Marguerite Duras (French Alliance, New York), Gwen John adapted from the novel by Jane Warrick (HERE, New York), and readings and workshops of new plays by Jeff Baron, Stephen Belber, Colman Domingo, Laura Eason and Lisa Ramirez. Leigh is currently developing a play about 19th century actress Charlotte Cushman with Tectonic Theatre Project and About Face Theatre.

Click here to register.

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