Instructor: Andrew Black

Schedule: Sundays

Early Bird: $250 | Regular: $300

Maximum students: 5

It takes one set of skills to write plays; it takes a whole other skill set to teach them.

This course will provide playwrights with techniques that you can use when teaching someone else’s play to your students. You’ll get to present your own lesson (where you’ll teach a play in class) and receive feedback on what worked about your instruction, along with suggestions for how to enhance your lesson plan.

Not only will you learn about a variety of methods for teaching plays; you will also discover new plays to include on your next course syllabus!

The class will be taught by playwright and PhD candidate (University of Missouri) Andrew Black.

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Instructor: Ross Berger

Schedule: Tuesdays

Early Bird: $250 | Regular: $300

Maximum students: 10

You already know how to tell your stories to be presented on stage. But have you thought of using your storytelling skills in high tech media? Video games, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and other electronic outlets are rising in popularity, and they all need content to draw customers in.

Join Ross Berger, playwright/screenwriter/narrative designer/transmedia strategist, for an exciting six- week course where you’ll learn how to expand your storytelling skills to write for cutting-edge technological platforms. Learn new ways to utilize structure, character, dialogue, and conflict/dramatic escalation to build the beginnings of a whole new world of content.

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Instructor: Naveen Bahar Choudhury

Schedule: Thursdays

Early Bird: $250 | Regular: $300

Maximum students: 10

Art exists within all of us. It’s time to activate your unique artistic voice! Learn how to write from a place of emotional honesty and authenticity in this course that is geared towards students who are looking to access their inner storyteller and write their very first stage play.

In this course, we will examine the fundamentals of dramatic writing and how to use these principles of craft to give shape to the stories we need to tell. We’ll partake in in-class writing challenges that illustrate concepts such as dramatic conflict and character objectives. Focusing more on process than product, we’ll follow our creative impulses with a sense of passion and playfulness, while also approaching our writing practice with rigorous intention and discipline.

This class is meant for first-time playwrights; it is great for theatre lovers who want to try playwriting, writers from other genres who would like to learn the rules of writing for the stage, or actors who would like to try writing their own material to perform.

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Instructors: Patrick Lazour, Daniel Lazour

Schedule: Wednesdays

Early Bird: $250 | Regular: $300

Maximum students: 10

You’ve written the first draft of a musical. Congratulations. What next?

How do you revise your musical? When there are so many moving parts to consider (music, book, lyrics, etc.), revisions can often seem like impossible tasks!

In this six-week course, award-winning writers Daniel Lazour and Patrick Lazour will guide you through the myriad steps that are involved in developing your musical from the first to the final draft. They will begin by focusing on revising lyrics, but will also touch on reworking your book, taking notes, working collaboratively, and staying on track. The strategies and techniques covered in the class will not only help participants to revise their current musicals; they can also be applied to future work.

Composers, lyricists, and librettists are all welcome to register for this course.

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Instructor: Marsha Norman

Schedule: Sundays

Cost: $400

Maximum students: 15

Pulitzer and Tony Award winning playwright, lyricist, and librettist Marsha Norman, author and collaborator of such acclaimed Broadway and regional theatre mainstays as “The Bridges of Madison County,” “The Color Purple,” “The Secret Garden,” “‘night Mother,” and “Getting Out,” will offer a workshop on the intricacies of writing the book for a musical.

This class will focus on knowing which stories to write and how to get them produced. Over the six-week semester, Marsha will also discuss how to find material to musicalize, how to collaborate with composers, lyricists, and production teams, how to build story, how to craft character and dialogue, and how to decide where to submit your work. She will offer examples from her work throughout the years, and share writing prompts that will point students towards the most successful way to tell their stories.

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Instructor: Caridad Svich

Schedule: Tuesdays

Early Bird: $250 | Regular: $300

Maximum students: 10

Are you getting frustrated with trying to fit your ideas into the traditional linear play form?

Not every story is meant to be told in a ‘typical’ dramatic structure. This course focuses on writing and reading approaches to what some call non-traditional storytelling techniques. In this class, you will learn how to tell your stories in completely different ways that honor your supposedly impossible dreams. After all, dreaming the impossible is what makes a play come alive.

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Instructor: Jacqueline Goldfinger

Schedule: Sundays

Early Bird: $250 | Regular: $300

Maximum students: 10

Calling all Sci-Fi, Horror, and Geek Theatre Writers!

Have you ever been told that you "Couldn't Do That" on-stage? That your script was more of a screenplay than a play, although you think it would be best on-stage, and you want to know how to make it more theatrical? Are you interested in creating interdisciplinary work that begins with a basic text?

Come play with us this summer in a six-week writing workshop that will focus on the strange, weird, geek, off-the-wall writing that thrills you. Every writer will have an opportunity to share their work every week or so, depending upon the final class enrollment. Writers are welcome to bring in both new pages and ongoing work.

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Instructor: Lucy Wang

Schedule: Wednesdays

Early Bird: $250 | Regular: $300

Maximum students: 10

Summer can be a tough time to write, with the call of the wild beckoning us outdoors to play. But this course, taught by Kennedy Center Award-winning playwright Lucy Wang, will help you to stay motivated and keep up your writing!

Every week, there will be an in-class writing assignment, often inspired by real-world submission opportunities. Afterwards, students will get the chance to share what they’ve written, to revise it, and to submit it to reap the added benefit of public recognition. While rewards vary with each opportunity -- publication, reading, production, or a cash prize -- the overall goal remains the same: to improve craft, create new work, increase visibility, and have fun.

Come explore and experiment with your voice across genres in a safe, supportive environment – and perhaps even go on to win public recognition and prizes afterwards!

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Instructor: Andrea Lepcio

Schedule: Mondays

Early Bird: $200 | Regular: $350

Maximum students: 20

Have you always wanted to belong to a book club that celebrates playwrights and focuses on reading plays? Now’s your chance!

Join popular DGI instructor Andrea Lepcio for a five-week course, where you will read, discuss, and celebrate amazing writers who have received Dramatists Guild awards for their work. In this brand-new DGI class, we will be reading the work of DGF Legacy Playwrights Initiative Award winners Constance Congden, Philip Kan Gotanda, and Ed Bullins, DG Lifetime Achievement Award recipient Adrienne Kennedy, and DG Flora Roberts Award recipient William Yellow Robe, Jr.

Discover some of the plays and playwrights that The Dramatists Guild and Dramatists Guild Foundation consider worthy of being included in the 21st century theatrical canon.

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Instructor: James Anthony Tyler

Schedule: Saturdays

Early Bird: $250 | Regular $300

Maximum students: 10

#DGuKnow that a ten-minute play can be used for myriad purposes? It can help you to explore your voice, to try out ideas before writing a longer version of the play, and to submit to festivals.

This summer, award-winning playwright James Anthony Tyler will help to de-mystify the ubiquitous ten-minute play form. Through in-class exercises, readings, and classroom discussions, you will learn what makes a successful ten-minute play sing and stand on its own.

Writing a ten-minute play can be a challenge but, if you can achieve writing a clear beginning, middle and end in ten minutes, then you'll be well on your way to successfully being able to accomplish the same goal with your full-length plays!

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