Acting/Playwriting (Period 6)

Acting and Playwriting will teach students the essential skills of how to analyze a script for character detail and motivation, the arch of the plot, historical/social/cultural contexts, and the overall choices of a playwright.  Students will use this analytical work to gain a greater understanding of character study and approach, as well as what to consider when composing a script.  Students will be exposed to both acting and playwriting styles of the past and present, and create their own pieces by the end of the course.

Acting and Playwriting are both deeply personal endeavors, even though there have been many dedicated documented styles, in the end it is up to the individual how they want to act and/or write.  Many actors have studied a vast number of approaches and still end up choosing their own method, whereas others hold fast to one methodology such as Meisner repetition or Strasberg’s sense memory/emotional recall.  The goal within this class is to teach a variety of methods, so that students will be able to assert their own choices by the end of the course to do what makes them comfortable as actors.  The same process will be implemented in terms of writing styles and methods.  By the end of the course, students who are more interested in acting than playwriting will act in the plays written by those students more interested in playwriting.