DRA 201 Introduction to Playwriting

3 hours 

This course introduces students to the art and craft of writing for the stage. As a workshop, the course will examine dramatic writing as a storytelling medium and encourage students to work out unique solutions to challenges confronting playwrights of a one-act play in light of historical, theoretical, and critical materials. The course emphasizes the technical elements of dramatic writing, the vocabulary of the writer, and the nature of the writing experience, from germinal idea to marketing the completed script. Students will be required to complete a series of exercises culminating in the writing of a one-act play. The course will conclude with staged readings of the one-act plays before an audience.