DGI INSTRUCTOR & PLAYS IN PROGRESS MENTOR
SHERI WILNER
Their DGI Teaching History includes Writing the Biographical/Autobiographical Play, Architecture of Plays: Plays By Women, Writing Workshop: Crafting Character, Writing Workshop: Crafting Character II, and Writing Plays to Address Social Justice: Finding Inspiration from Hallie Flanagan and The Federal Theatre Project.
Sheri is also a Plays in Progress Mentor. Interests: Interests: comedy, autobiography, character, deep emotion, personal stories, dramatic action, issue-based, short or full-length, theatricality, writing exercises. Request Sheri as a PIP Mentor.
“I’m drawn to playwrights who have a deep personal connection to their plays, an urgent need to tell a particular story, and a mission to initiate important conversations with, and among, their audiences. I connect to writers who can answer such questions as: What story won’t be told unless I tell it? Why am I the one who needs to write this play? And: Why do I need to write it now? If you don’t have the answers, I can help you find your emotional connection to your story and why you were drawn to tell it. I believe the degree to which we as writers connect to our stories is proportional to the degree our audience will connect with it as well. So I’m drawn to boldness, bravery, passion, and self-exploration.
My main goal is to help you to achieve your storytelling goals, and to find out what might be getting in your way. Are your characters’ wants, needs, and objectives clear enough? Does every character have a high stake in the story? Is there physical and rising action? Is your dialogue natural or supporting too much exposition? Is the protagonist on a clear and focused journey? Once we determine what playwriting elements need attention, I can offer both suggestions for revisions, and sometimes writing exercises focused on a particular playwriting fundamental to help you strengthen your play.
The feedback, questions, writing exercises and playwriting tools I offer will always apply not just to your current work, but to all your future work as well.
For the DGI I have taught Writing the Autobiographical Play, Crafting Character, and Plays By Women. I also have experience teaching Writing the Issue-Based Play and ten-minute and one-act playwriting. ”
SHERI WILNER’s plays include Kingdom City, Father Joy, Hunger, The End, A Tall Order, Relative Strangers, Little Death of a Salesman, The Unknown Part of the Ocean, and Joan of Arkansas and have been performed and developed at major American regional theatres including the La Jolla Playhouse, the Old Globe, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Eugene O'Neill Playwrights Conference, Guthrie Theater and the Williamstown Theatre Festival. In New York her work has been presented by New Georges, Naked Angels and the Lark.
She has twice been a co-winner of the prestigious Heideman Award granted by the Actors Theatre of Louisville: in 1998 for Labor Day, which premiered at the 1999 Humana Festival, and in 2001 for Bake Off, which premiered at the 2002 Humana Festival. Bake Off was praised by The New York Times as a “barbed, witty, thoughtful, giggle and snort inducing satire on gender roles.” She co-wrote the libretto for a full-length musical version, entitled Cake Off, which premiered at the Signature Theatre in Washington, D.C. (nominated for a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Original Musical Adaptation); workshopped at the Old Globe in San Diego; and produced by the Bucks County Playhouse, starring Euan Morton and Justin Guarini.
Her plays have been published in over a dozen anthologies, and Playscripts.com has published twelve of her one-acts, which have received over four hundred productions across the United States as well as in Australia, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Japan, United Kingdom and India.