Writing for Stage and Screen
Creating a Perception Shift in the Audience
1st Edition
Published on 15. June 2023
240 pages
978-1-350-33828-9 (ISBN)
Description
" Reading and digesting the lessons in this book can be of greater value to an aspiring dramatist than years in an MFA program. Whether you are writing for the stage, screen or audio, this book is an invaluable teacher and guide to have by your side throughout the development and revision process."
Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig
"This book does what no other playwriting book in my experience has done, it offers a new way of seeing and conceiving how theatre makes meaning and carries emotional impact in performance."
Suzan Zeder, Professor Emerita and former Head Of Playwriting at University of Texas at Austin, USA
Combining a step-by-step analysis of the technique of writing for stage and screen with how the mystery, poetry, and emotional momentum is achieved for the audience, Sherry Kramer offers an empowering, original guide for emerging and established writers.
In this structured look at the way audience members progress through a work in real time, Sherry Kramer uses plain-spoken vocabulary to help you discover how to make work that will mean more to your audiences. By using examples drawn from plays, film, and streaming series, ranging from A Streetcar Named Desire to Fleabag to Pirates of the Caribbean, this study makes its concepts accessible to a wide range of artists who work in timebound art. The book also features multiple exercises, developed with MFA writers in The Iowa Playwrights Workshop and The Michener Center for Writers, where Kramer taught for the past 25 years, which provide entrance points to help you consider and create your work.
Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig
"This book does what no other playwriting book in my experience has done, it offers a new way of seeing and conceiving how theatre makes meaning and carries emotional impact in performance."
Suzan Zeder, Professor Emerita and former Head Of Playwriting at University of Texas at Austin, USA
Combining a step-by-step analysis of the technique of writing for stage and screen with how the mystery, poetry, and emotional momentum is achieved for the audience, Sherry Kramer offers an empowering, original guide for emerging and established writers.
In this structured look at the way audience members progress through a work in real time, Sherry Kramer uses plain-spoken vocabulary to help you discover how to make work that will mean more to your audiences. By using examples drawn from plays, film, and streaming series, ranging from A Streetcar Named Desire to Fleabag to Pirates of the Caribbean, this study makes its concepts accessible to a wide range of artists who work in timebound art. The book also features multiple exercises, developed with MFA writers in The Iowa Playwrights Workshop and The Michener Center for Writers, where Kramer taught for the past 25 years, which provide entrance points to help you consider and create your work.
More details
Series
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
4 bw illus
ISBN-13
978-1-350-33828-9 (9781350338289)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Book
07/2023
Methuen Drama
€27.50
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Sherry Kramer is a playwright who has won numerous awards for her work and has written more than thirty plays, including David's RedHaired Death, When Something Wonderful Ends and The Wall of Water. She teaches playwriting at Bennington College, USA, and taught regularly in the MFA programs of The Michener Center for Writers UT Austin, TX, and the Iowa Playwrights' Workshop, where she was previously head of the workshop. She was the first national member of New Dramatists.
Content
List of Illustrations
1. Works of Art Teach Us How to Read Them
First We Must Find a Way to See The World in Front of Us
There is an Old Saying in the Theatre: The First 20 Minutes Are Free
A Closer Look at The First 20 Minutes
Some Advice About the First 20 Minutes
Tone
There is Always a Clock
EXERCISE: Spend Some Time With Structured Time
Attention
2. The Perception Shift
Insight: The Eureka Moment
Attention and Insight
The Power of a Moment's Newness
How Newness Drives Insight
A Joke is a Small Play
The Perception Shift in Three Plays: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, A Streetcar Named Desire
EXERCISE: Experience a Small Perception Shift in the Comfort of Your Own Home
Hiding in Plain Sight
3. Theatre Is a Rhyme For Life
Certainty, Meaning, and Maybe
Dramatic Doubleness
The Bone Violin
The Bone Violin: A Fugue for Five Actors
EXERCISE: Track Doubling in The Bone Violin
Doubleness is Our Most Elegant Tool
The Three Surfaces of Doubleness in Three Plays : A Streetcar Named Desire, Betrayal, The Beauty Queen of Leenane
Systems
EXERCISE: Pleats
Systems and Theme
EXERCISE: Tracking Systems In A Streetcar Named Desire
The Ends of Plays Tend to Mirror Their Beginnings
Empathy and Doubleness
4. Story and Plot
Sequence = Meaning
EXERCISE: Order Makes Meaning
Breadcrumbs
Story Is Another Word for Time
How the Plot Organizes Itself Outside of Story
Futurity
The Double Track of Time (Non-linear plays)
Plot and Story are Two Different Things
Anti-Climax
EXERCISE: How Your Plot Uses Story
Conveniences
To Sum Up Story and Plot
So Here We are, Ready to Talk About the Enchantment That Is Story
Vertical and Horizontal
Vertical vs. Horizontal
EXERCISE: Draw Two Sets
5. Choice and Consequence
Why Choice Matters to the Audience
The God Who Loves You - Carl Dennis
EXERCISE: Tracking Character Desire
The And Then, The So Then, and The What If
EXERCISE: The And Then, The So Then
Repeatability
WRITING EXERCISE: A Five Minute Scene About Choice
Choice vs. Reveal
WRITING EXERCISE: Adapt A Family Story
Alternative History
WRITING EXERCISE: An Alternative History Play
Choice and Tragedy
A Tragedy is like Going Down a River
There are Two Forks of the River
The Sun has to Shine
Breaking Bad
Right vs. Right
Tragedy is the Art Form of Change
Tragedy is Made Out of Hope
Hope as Strategy
WRITING EXERCISE: The Nodes
Tragedy is a Clash of Values
What is it Worth? vs. What does it Mean?
In-Itself Value and the Evolution of the Art Form
Tragedy Is Not Simply Sad
Why Do We Take Pleasure in Tragedy
Characters Don't Change No Matter How Much They Want To. No Matter How Much We Hope They Will.
In Comedy, People Change
It's a Form of Magic
The Magic of Changing Without Changing
EXERCISE: Find Comedies Where People Change
But it Feels Like Someone Changes in Plays That Aren't Comedies.
Are You Sure Someone Doesn't Change?
But If People Can't Change How Do We Change?
WRITING EXERCISE: Write Three Monologues About the Same Choice from Three Different Character's Point of View
6. In Retrospect, Inevitable
In Retrospect Inevitable Outcomes
Not In Retrospect Inevitable Outcomes
EXERCISE: Write the Last Moment of Your Play As a Sonnet
Pointers
Pointers are Lies that Tell the Truth
The Attributes of Pointers: Systems and Pointers, Forwards and Pointers
How Pointers Announce Themselves
How to Write Pointers On Purpose
The Atomic Throw Is an Uncertain Kitchen
Foreshadowing and Misdirection
Titles
EXERCISE: Finding Your Title
Running Gags
A Play Tells the Truth, But It Enjoys Using a Lie To Tell It
EXERCISE: Lies
Spoilers
EXERCISE: Identifying Pointers
EXERCISE: Identify Pointers In Your Own Play
7. Convergence
It's Never a Single Moment
EXERCISE: The End and The Beginning
Is Saying That Convergence is Everywhere in A Great Work of Timebound Art The Same Thing as Saying That a Great Work of Timebound Art is All Convergence?
To Be Human Is To Confuse a Satisfying Story With a Meaningful One
EXERCISE: Noticing Perception Shifts
The Turn
The Prestige
Reveal and Choice
Enlarging the Idea of Dramatic Event
EXERCISE: The Dramatic Future
The Difference Between What Happens on Stage and What Happens in the Audience
EXERCISE: The Last 45 Seconds Again. Endings as Different Genres
Why a Perception Shift Makes Things Weightless
How Coincidence is a Form of Rhyme
Open Endings
Mysteries are Almost All Writers' Favorite Genre for a Reason
A Small Play To Fill Us With Wonder
Structure is Just What Happens in the End
EXERCISE: Adapt the Climax/Convergence of a Song
Hope is at the Heart of Everything in the Theatre
EXERCISE: Tracking Hope
Once Again: The Duck Rabbit
Index
