Richard O'Reilly

Scenecraft: The Art of Hearing Voices

Any prose benefits from sharpening the tools most often associated with playwriting: monologue, dialogue, and silence. Whether the example is the compelling presence of the monologue in the radio work of NPR's Ira Glass and David Sedaris, the sharp stylized dialogue in the films of Mike Leigh, the comic outrageousness and vulgarity of Sarah Silverman, the naturalistic street smart sweep of David Simon's The Wire, or the wry poignant humor in the stories of Lorrie Moore, modern prose leans heavily on theatrical lessons of how people speak to each other and to themselves. The class will include looking at these examples as a bridge to generative writing. Using gossip, dreams, photographs, listening to voices reading aloud, writing in the room, and working collaboratively, interdisciplinary experiments will be undertaken to create different modes of dialogue and monologue. Working with actors and performing, the class will make writing that steps off the page and into the mouths of real and imagined people. This workshop welcomes makers from performance, sound, design, or any other forms.

This class will focus on students' artistic works that are nearing completion and/or production. These projects can include plays, film scripts, podcasts, poetry chapbooks, books of essays and beyond. After reading and discussing students' existing works in progress, we will select one piece for each student to focus on and complete. We will hear from local theater producers, recording engineers, playwrights and publishers. We will read interviews with artists including playwright August Wilson, radio producer Ira Glass, novelist Margaret Atwood and cabaret performer Justin Vivian Bond. The class will end with a presentation of the finished works.

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.

Taken every semester, the Graduate Projects courses allow students to focus in private sessions on the development of their work. Students register for 6 hours of Graduate Project credit in each semester of study.