“You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can’t, but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world...The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way a person looks or people look at reality, then you can change it.”
- James Baldwin in a 1979 interview
Instructor Faulkner Fox
The goal of this creative writing course is for aspiring playwrights to think deeply about what—exactly—they are trying to do, and avoid, in their writing. What causes a play to be heavy-handed and propagandistic, as opposed to impassioned? How can students who believe deeply in a particular issue write artful drama about that issue? In what ways is theater similar—and dissimilar—to social protest in the streets? Students will be encouraged to experiment, question, and revise, at every turn.
This course will closely examine a diversity of plays that have had a marked impact on their cultures—an impact beyond an excellent and meaningful theater-going experience. Recent examples we will study include Pass Over by Antoinette Nwandu and The Talk by local playwright Sonny Kelly. We will also watch and study more traditional plays like The Crucible and Angels in America.
Over the course of the semester, students will read—and watch—excellent political plays as well as write their own. They will write and develop their own full-length script, in addition to doing weekly creative responses to produced plays. Class discussion will be divided between focus on student work-in-progress, produced plays, and playwriting craft. Most weeks, we will run scenes (have students read aloud from other students’ scripts-in-progress). Outside of class, students will work in small groups, meet with alumni readers, consultants at the Writing Studio, and individually with me.