Final Exam Review 2016; Play Project: Lab; Playwrights' Festival

Tonight we start the playwrights' festival from 3:00-7:00 in the Black Box and labs. Please arrive at the black box on time and prepared. Our showcase will happen on Friday in the Black Box at 7:00. Please plan to attend to support the creative writing department. You get in free, but companion tickets are $5. The show will likely last about an hour.

Instead of a test on Waiting for Godot today, the test question for that play will be on the final exam. Please study for your final exam. Exams will occur on Monday, January 25--no late exams will be given. If you are absent Monday, you will lose 25% of your marking period grade.

Today in the lab, please use the time to further and/or complete your play projects. Make sure your scripts are properly formatted and proofread. All play drafts are due Thursday, January 21.

The Final Exam for Playwriting may cover any or all of the following items, please review the following:

The plays & playwrights: [we read 19 plays during this course]
Jane Martin: Talking With
Marcia Norman: 'Night Mother
John Leguzamo: Spic-o-Rama
Mark St. Germain: Freud's Last Session
Eve Ensler: The Vagina Monologues
Alfred Uhry: Driving Miss Daisy
Paula Vogel: The Baltimore Waltz
Charles Busch: Vampire Lesbians of Sodom; Psycho Beach Party; Lady in Question; Red Scare on Sunset
Greek Playwrights: Aeschylus: Agamemnon; Sophocles: Antigone; Euripides: The Bacchae; Medea
Tennessee Williams: The Glass Menagerie
William Shakespeare: Titus Andronicus
Steve Martin: Picasso At the Lapine Agile 
Henrik Ibsen: Hedda Gabler, The Master Builder, Ghosts
Anton Chekhov: The Seagull
Samuel Beckett: Waiting For Godot 

Proper script format
How to create characters/characterization
Techniques to motivate and gather ideas

Play Vocabulary:

• Premise: a deeply held belief by the playwright which shapes a script.
• Conflict
• Structural Unity: all parts of the plot (exposition, rising action, turning point, climax, resolution, etc.) should work and fit together.
• The classical unities: the unity of time, place, and action. A well-written play should encompass only a short amount of time, use one main setting, and have only one main plot (subplots can occur, but only one plot should be the main plot). 
• Inciting Incident: the point of attack, the inciting incident forces the protagonist into the action of the play's plot.
• Events
• Major Dramatic Question (MDQ): the hook that keeps an audience interested in a play; a dramatic question that a reader/viewer wants answered.
• Major decision: A decision a character makes in the plot that creates the turning point for their character.
• The three C's: Conflict, crisis, complication: obstacles characters must face for an interesting and dramatic plot.
• Rising Action
• The dark moment/crisis: the lowest moment of a character's struggle--when all the world seems lost, the fight unbeatable, the "darkest hour before dawn" -- a stunning reversal of fortune and sense of failure.
• Deus ex machina: a contrived ending. Often one in which the characters did not have a hand in solving. (It is more interesting to see a character deal with their own problems rather than an outside force solving it for them.) literally, a "god from a machine"
• Enlightenment: When the protagonist understands how to defeat the antagonist. A revelation that begins the movement toward a climax.
• Climax
• Catharsis
• Ten minute play format
• One act plays
• Full length plays (2, 3, 4, or 5 act)
• Monologues/Soliloquies
• Commedia d'ell Arte 
• Cross-dressing; pantomime
• Generating ideas for plays 
• Absurdist Theater 
• Constantin Stanislavski
• Moscow Art Theatre
• Farce
• The Event: a uniquely significant moment in the character's lives
• Time lock: setting up a time limit or specific deadline characters have to meet in order to spur them into action (for example having a script project due...)
• French scenes
• Place & setting
• Theme
• Scenario: an outline for a writer to identify major/minor characters, plot, and setting used BEFORE writing a script
• Catalyst: the event in the play that causes a character to take action
• Character flaw
• Creating credible characters
• Protagonist
• Antagonist
• Subtext: what is not said in a character's line. The subtext are the subtle details or clues used by the actor to develop their character.
• Beat: a short exchange of dialogue
• Different types of beats: physical, behavioral, inner-life
• Time lock: a deadline for a character to achieve his/her goal in a scene or play
• Sign post/Pointer: foreshadowing or hints that something will happen in a play
• Backstory
• A Confidant: a character the protagonist or antagonist can talk with to reveal necessary backstory
• Verisimilitude: the semblance of truth in characters and setting. "a king should act like a king, not a foul-mouthed beggar."
• Dialogue (tips and advice) 
• Theatrical/literary periods: realism, modernism, absurdism, symbolism, comedy, naturalism, romanticism, Elizabethan, tragedy, comedy, etc. 
• Contributions of various playwrights: Ibsen, Shakespeare, Chekhov, Williams, etc.
• Play development & workshopping a play 
• Writing and rewriting a script (advice)