Offstage
Course Description
Summary
One secret to great playwriting is that what you put offstage is just as important as what you put on. In this class, we will explore a variety of offstage worlds: from realistic to fantastical, from richly detailed to deliciously sparse. We will think about how playwrights bring offstage environments to life through language—how a single image can evoke wider landscapes, how a single story can conjure vast histories.
Through frequent writing exercises, we will practice creating vivid, surprising, and sometimes dangerous offstage worlds. We will investigate those thrilling moments when what is offstage bursts onto the stage, destabilizing and pressurizing the onstage action. We will also explore the offstage worlds of memory, fantasy, and dream. Readings will likely include Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem, August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Yasmina Reza’s Art, Caryl Churchill’s Far Away, and others.
This class is intended for writers with playwriting experience, although those from other artistic disciplines are also welcome to apply. The primary work of the course will be writing a one-act play that includes a vivid offstage world. We will workshop each other’s plays with rigor and generosity. We will build our imaginative and analytical capacities, preparing for a lifelong creative practice.
Prerequisites
nterested students should e-mail me (abekoogler@bennington.edu) ten pages of a play they’ve written, as well as a few sentences about their playwriting background. Students who do not have a play to submit should e-mail me another short piece of writing, as well as a few sentences about why they are interested in the course.