BUILDING CHARACTER (without the bother of adversity)
A four week workshop with Colin Denby Swanson
Wednesdays, May 6, 13, 20, and 27, 7:00-9:30 pm
The State Theatre, 719 Congress Ave.
All four sessions: $100 ASW members; $150 General
Drop-in rate: $30 ASW/ $40 General
INFO/RESERVATIONS: 512.454.9727; info@scriptworks.org
Your dad told you that cutting the lawn with clipping shears would build character. Maybe there’s an easier way. In this four-meeting workshop, we’ll experiment with ways to express, engage, and fortify the characters in your work. The adventure will include exercises on dialogue, objective, secrets, lies, non-verbal moments, and the power of focused (but intensive) revision.
Participants should see or read Caryl Churchill’s play A NUMBER (playing at Different Stages through May 10) before the May 7th meeting.
ABOUT COLIN DENBY SWANSON
C. Denby Swanson is a graduate of Smith College, the National Theatre Institute, and the University of Texas Michener Center for Writers. She is a former William Inge Playwright in Residence, Jerome Fellow and McKnight Advancement Grant recipient, and a former Artistic Director of Austin Script Works. She has been commissioned by the Guthrie Theater; featured in the Lark Theater’s Playwrights Week, PlayLabs 2002, New York Stage & Film (through P73), Culture Project’s IMPACT Festival, the Icicle Creek Theater Festival, and JAW: A Playwrights Festival at Portland Center Stage; and premiered by Salvage Vanguard Theater, The Drilling Company, and 15 Head a Theater Lab. She is published by Smith & Kraus, Heinemann, and Playscripts, Inc. She was the 2007/2008 Playwright in Residence at ZACH Theatre Center as part of the NEA/TCG National Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights, and is developing a play about Austin blues club owner Clifford Antone. An excerpt of her play A BRIEF NARRATIVE OF AN EXTRAORDINARY BIRTH OF RABBITS will be featured in the WPA Festival at SVT, May 23. Currently she is on the faculty at Southwestern University.