MAKING IT [FUN] AND GOING TO MARKET (Write. Laugh. Rewrite. Move it.)
With Paul Bonin-Rodriguez
Tuesdays, May 24 & 31, June 7 & 14, 7-9:30 pm
$100 ScriptWorks/ $125 General
Drop-in $30 ScriptWorks/ $35 General
Email info@scriptworks.org for reservation and location
Making it [fun] and going to market (Write. Laugh. Rewrite. Move it.)
This workshop begins with the proposal that new plays need time, space, and the support (and challenge) of comrades to get better. The playwright needs to witness the work. Over a period of four weeks, we will work as a community to create bad works that get better. And then we’ll plan on where they might go to build an audience to get even better. Artists may come for the whole, or for parts, although the writing used in class as examples will come from the first two weeks of work.
Weeks 1 and 2: The Worst Play I Never Wrote, Parts 1 and 2
This workshop comes to creative development from the least likely direction – that of prospective failure – for the purposes of freeing up our creative voices and illustrating just how capable we already are at rescuing bad writing, especially after a first reading, during which everyone (including the author) has fidgeted awkwardly. Working separately, but caucusing together, we’ll find ways to rescue bad plots, stilted dialogue, corny jokes, and overly long descriptions (as in the first sentence). Two dimensional characters will expand; melodramas will find their hidden Brecht; unnecessary adverbs will get pruned out; and we’ll all be the wiser.
Week 3: The Development Plan
Because the workshop leader bragged about it in his bio, and because he researches it all the time now, we’ll discuss where we might take our new plays for continued chrysalis-like development. The workshop leader will bring in a host of development opportunities, links, and programs. We’ll discuss and plan to build individual donor and audience bases; we strategize about how we can get the most creative work done without having to 1) break the bank or 2) start a new non-profit. This week is all about partnerships. Names will be dropped…and picked up.
Week 4: Your Show of Shows:
We revisit the works-in-progress and we continue planning for next steps.
Paul Bonin-Rodriguez is a playwright and performer who has created and toured multi-disciplinary performances nationally since 1992. His plays include Memory’s Caretaker (1999), Quinceanera (1997), an adaptation of Naomi Shihab-Nye’s Habibi, and six episodes of the stories of John Roy Hobson, Talk of the Town (1992), The Bible Belt and Other Accessories (1993), Love in the Time of College (1994), Fringe and Fringe Ability (2004), Higher Planes (2006), and A Ranch Home in Manhattan (2009). He is currently editing all six as a book.
He holds a PhD from the Performance as Public Practice program at the University of Texas at Austin, where he works as an Asst. Professor and researches artist sustainability across the U.S.; consequently his current creative workshops combine artistic practice with resources building exercises, helping playwrights to answer, “Where should this go next?”