BOOKS TO READ

The Grammer of Motives (says Dietz)
Sense of an Ending (says Dietz)
Books by architect Christopher Alexander (says Zeder)
The plays of Adrienne Kennedy (says Jones)
La Ronde (says Sanchez)

On Plot Form

From Paula Vogel to Steven Dietz, in reference to her play, The Long Christmas Ride Home .

"Design a different plot form for every play. The plot form radically designs the play world..."

That particular play is a bastardized Bunraku puppetry telling of a story about a family's ride to and from grandmother's house. There is a break in the script when the family almost goes off a cliff, when the actors behind the "child" puppets step forward to talk about "years later," then step back into the play.

(T) Chronology

We've been thinking about time a lot in Steven's class -- the different choices we can make in crafting a play, the tools available.

TO TELL A STORY IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER IS ALSO A CHOICE, AND A VALID ONE

Just a thought. Sometimes the most appropriate mechanism is also the simplest...not always, but sometimes.

"A Good Story Well Told Is Always Radical"

from Steven Dietz

(Q) A Question...

A question that seems to come up a lot in my work. I need to figure out what the question means..."what is the story you are trying to tell." Yeah, the more I look at the question, the less I understand it.

Something to ponder.

(E) Story Building Exercise

This is an in-class exercise we did with Steven to explore triggering events and actions. Much of the following is taken from the assignment verbatim (mistakes are mine).

Use seven of the eight following actions. Pick one of them as your "triggering event" -- which must be placed at the beginning of your narrative.

You will then place the remaining actions in any order you wish -- with the goal of building a STORY, in the form of a play, that you will later present.

Hint: focus narrative on a small group of characters
Hint: Move your story in time, as needed, to tell story
Hint: Commit to it, don't joke. Make it mean something to you

Actions:
1. The alarm goes off
2. The kiss
3. Emptying her wallet
4. In the car, at night
5. Taking/giving back flowers
6. A secret is told
7. New shoes
8. Snow

(T) TIME as a tool in your play

Steven Dietz is teaching a whole class on TIME this semester, and there are a ton of ways to bend time as necessary to the telling of your story. A few ways:

Tell your story "backward" (as in Betrayal)
Age your characters more slowly than time (As in Cloud Nine)
Tell the aftermath of your story, where the mystery is the past, and then how it got that way (Three Days of Rain)
Show one character at different ages simultaneously (Three Tall Women)
Employ flashbacks
Employ flashforwards
Have a character remember something that happened in the past (get their interpretation of the event/s

These are just a few...more later

(E) What Happens Next?

This was something we did in Suzan's class as a way of opening up how a story might go, based on what we had heard to that point.

After listening to the beginning of a work-in-progress, have each member of class write down three things they think will happen before the end of the play. These are not suggestions, they are just guesses -- but they should be rooted in the text as it currently exists.

(E) 3-dimensions exercise

This was an exercise we did in Suzan's class to help us get a feel (literally) for our play.

Create a set, a sculpture, a model or mobile --basically a three-dimensional entity -- that represents the world of the play you are creating. Pay attention to the materials you are using, to spatial relationships, to angles and curves, to how you imagine light would interplay with the world of your play, to the dimensions of reality at work in your piece. Think about how to represent all of these, then do it. Keep it as a reference as you work in your play.

(E) Collage Exercise

This was an exercise that Erica N. and George B. had us do in a workshop for George's play "Elephant Graveyard."
(1) Assign each member of the group to one of the characters in your play
(2) Have each create a collage that represents your understanding of that character.

You could do other things with this -- have each collage an idea, a place, an event, whatever. See what they put together and pay attention to how they've talked about what they've made.

(E) Monologue Exercise

Take a character from your play who is silent or says very little. Write the monologue where your character says what they WOULD say, if they spoke.

From Steven Dietz's Playwriting Workshop.