EDUCATION
Middle
School Playwrighting Program
Chris DiGiovanni
and Doug Haverty, initiators and instructors
John Gallogly, Executive Director
A playwrighting
program for Middle School students – sixth, seventh, eighth
grades – to facilitate the writing of short plays –
1 to 20 minutes in length – and to teach the students and
their schools about the world of theater from the writer’s
perspective. Plays would be performed by student actors, with
Theatre West professional directors brought in for the final two
weeks. At the end of the program, all the plays written will be
produced in public staged and directed readings at the school
during an assembly, so all students may see what their classmates
accomplished.
Basic structure:
Over a six month period, there would be 20 weekly in school or
after school meetings, two days a week, two hours each day, followed
by two weeks to prepare for the staged readings.
1st week:
Instructor introductions, program explanations, basic idea –
a themed topic, such as “the year of water conservation”
or “the year of environment protection,” or perhaps
something that has happened at the school, or in the students’
lives, and then writing instructions are given, and the exploratory
writing begins.
2nd –
10th weeks: Develop the plays being written, have students read
them in class or after school, explain how to comment and make
comments on their peers’ work, all while working on playwriting
basics – structure, character, action, etc. – while
they learn the rewrite process.
11th week:
Student playwrights meet with directors, hold auditions and
cast each play. Technical team sets lighting trees. Minimum
wardrobe, makeup, sets, props, and lighting are put in place.
12th week:
Rehearsals and the culminating staged readings over a four-day
period (Thursday-Sunday) – dependent upon the number of
scripts written – to ensure that each play is given two
public performances.
After the
last staged reading, there will be an award ceremony where the
students and the school are honored for participating, but no
"winner" is chosen.
During the
time period affected, Participating students and classmates
would be bused to Theatre West to see a professional production.
Theatre
West will provide books on playwriting and published plays to
the school’s library.
The costs
of this program may be covered by a grant which is pending.
However, LAUSD facilities overhead and teacher salaries would
need to be the responsibility of the school.
Now in its
46th year Theatre West is Los Angeles’ oldest company theater.
Our original productions have traveled to Broadway and become
films. Our work has won Obie, Ovation, NAACP Image Awards, been
honored by the BBC Scotland, ADA Awards, and Los Angeles Drama
Circle Critics’ Awards.
