Introduction to Playwriting Course
Taught by Professional Playwright, Rachael Carnes
- June 29 – August 31, 2023
- 10-week online course
- Meets each Thursday for two hours
About Rachael Carnes
Playwright Rachael Carnes received a 2020 Oregon Literary Fellowship, a 2020 Oregon Arts Commission Career Opportunity Grant, a 2021 Lighthouse Writers Workshop Advanced Dramatic Writing Fellowship, and has had productions of her work across the U.S., U.K., the Middle East, Canada and Asia, with invitations to develop work at the Inge Theatre Festival, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Playwriting Intensive, the Midwestern Dramatists Center Conference, the Mid-America Theater Conference, the American Association for Theatre in Higher Education New Play Development Series, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Lighthouse Writer’s Workshop, the Great Plains Theatre Conference and the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Festival — And Willamette University’s own Theatre 33. Rachael is the founder of #CodeRedPlaywrights, an artistic collective dedicated to writing plays in response to gun violence. Her work is seen in many literary journals, and nominated for a 2020 Pushcart Prize. Rachael and her family live in Oregon. www.rachaelcarnes.com
Course Description
In this ten-week course, we will read plays together, and learn and practice the fundamentals of playwriting. A dynamic series of writing exercises and inspirational assignments will help young writers learn the very specific art of writing for the stage — plot, character, language, and spectacle — we'll explore what makes this art form unique. The course will culminate in a reading of student work by actors from the Willamette University Theater Department.