Ridiculous/Historical Play Project; Hamilton (intro)

Please turn in your play analysis for The Baltimore Waltz.

Period 1: One-act Ridiculous/Historical Play Project

Four ways of writing plot:

1. Linear (syllogistic): events happen in chronological order. 
2. Circular: events start at a point in time then flashback and come back to the present by the end of the play.
3. Pattern plot: event, event, event, then repeat 1st event, 2nd event, 3rd event, etc. Your plot should form a specific pattern.
4. Genre/archetype: impose one genre or form on another. Combine mystery, romance, western, musical, realist, etc. Include a wedding, funeral, or graduation. Alternate celebrations with tragedy and vice versa. If we look at Henry V as an example, the play ends with a wedding after a terrible battle. Take the same plot, but include elements of the generic genre or archetype.

Choose 1 of the following options:

A. Writing the Ridiculous play:

• Use your notes/lists from previous exercises to choose a well-loved or hated film or novel you have read/watched. [You may use more than one source, if you wish!]
• Make a list of famous lines or well-known quotes from these sources. Check out: Best Movie Quotes or lit quotes.
• Pull the best or most interesting parts or characters from the plot. Arrange the plot (see handout).
• Lampoon (ridicule) or exaggerate your characters. Feel free to change them or mix them up. 
• Create a premise: what is your play about?
• Choose a theme or central image/idea. Consider how you might introduce your theme or central image/idea.
• Use hyperbole throughout your plot to make your play "ridiculous". 
• Use theatrical conventions (see below) to enhance your play's theatrical expression.

B. Writing a historical play:
5 Lessons Learnt In Writing a Historical Play (video)
Try your own beginning research by choosing one of these areas and learning about it. Take notes of things, people, or places from that time period that you find interesting.

• Elizabethan Period
• Elizabethan Period & Historical Figures & Events
• American Colonialism
• Famous African Americans
• British/English Historical Figures
• Ancient Greek Figures
• Historical Asian Figures
• Famous Egyptians
• Famous Hispanic Leaders/Events
• Famous Female Leaders
• Famous historical leaders
• Chinese Dynasties
• Roman Historical Figures
• Historical Periods & Important Events
• Lesser Known American History
• Famous Inventors
• Famous Artists

Once you have chosen a time period for your setting, consider HOW you will plot your story. How many scenes will you write? How may you combine time and scenes to tell your story? Consider:

Plot: (what happens on stage) off stage is part of the story, not part of the plot

a.     Pick a historical person, or set your play in a historical time period. Your play may deal with a fictional protagonist(s) in an otherwise historical setting. 

b.     Ask: Where would you start a play? Each writer will start a plot somewhere different. Write a short play with that plot in mind. Example:

1. Hamlet can be told from a variety of plots. Where we start Hamlet suggests a different story as varied as the writer writing the play.
2. Fortinbras, by Lee Blessing, for example, starts his play at the end of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Hamlet could also be a minor character (for example in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead)
3. Desdemona by Paula Vogel tells the story of Desdemona in Othello: plot can be told from the perspective of a different character. 
4. The shorter the play, the closer to the climax you will need to start your story/plot.
5. Introduce some theatrical conventions: 

Theatrical Conventions:

• Masks
• Cross-gender (costume/casting)
• Asides
• Soliloquy
• Stillness/silence/pauses
• Use of a narrator (seen in "memory plays" like The Glass Menagerie or Brighton Beach Memoirs
• Synecdoche (part represents the whole)
• Suggested scenery (consider the set in Driving Miss Daisy, for example)
• Costumes & props
• Multiple casting (one actor plays several roles)
• Lights or lighting changes
• Soundscapes/sound effects
• The fourth wall; Breaking the fourth wall (addressing the audience)
• Flash forward, flashback, slow motion, freeze
• Tableau
• Montage
• On-stage deaths; stage fights
• Physical theater; mime
• Unities of time, place, or action
• Transformation of time, character, place, or through props
• Songs
• Choruses
• Heightened language; unrealistic speaking patterns
• Placards, signs, and multimedia

If you missed this before, learn from Paula Vogel: on playwriting by Paula Vogel

Plot forms:

• Linear: the plot is told from a beginning point to an ending point. The most common type of narrative. [exposition, inciting incident, rising action, turning point/crisis, dark moment, enlightenment, climax, falling action, resolution...
• Shakespearean/Epic form: episodic scenes that culminate in the traditional plot structure...
• Circle: beginnings become endings, that become beginnings that are endings...
• Pattern: a repeating pattern is formed to frame the narrative...
• Generic synthetic form: text is comprised of a variety of hypotexts (texts that come before other texts) that function as models or a structure for the new text...(so Star Wars was a hypotext for Family Guy's Blue Harvest, for example; The Odyssey was a hypotext for James Joyce's Ulysses, etc.) 

Paula Vogel's advice: Steal. Pay homage. Read as much as you can. Write away from the subject you most want to write about but can't.

Other Video Advice:

• Jake Jeppson's Advice for Playwrights (how to get started!)
• What actors want: Actors Imagine their Dream Roles (then ask your drama friends what kinds of roles they would love to play on stage...)
• Time Management for Playwrights by Martin Zimmerman

Period 2:

Read the following reviews for Hamilton: The Musical.

Review: All About the Hamiltons (New Yorker)
Review: "Why the show isn't as revolutionary as it seems"

Hamilton, an American Musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda

As we read/listen to Hamilton, notice theatrical conventions. Also, look for some of these Greek Tragedy elements in the libretto:

• A story based on history or historical legends
• Hubris (a tragic flaw or Hamartia of a character who feels he/she is too great, powerful, or perfect to make a mistake...this is usually taking the gods or fate for granted, or ignoring the natural reality of life, etc.)
• A good (or powerful) character comes to a bad end (usually as a result of the character's hubris or hamartia)
• A peripety (turning point or change of fortune)
• An anagnorisis (a discovery) (enlightenment)
• A chorus representing the populus (the people)
• Aristotle's 6 elements of a play: Character, Plot, Idea, Language, Music, Spectacle
• Stasimon (choral singing together)
• Stichomythia (alternating short lines of dialogue between 2 or more characters)
• Parados/exodus (the entrance of the chorus (parados) and the exit of the chorus (exodus))
• Deus Ex Machina (a contrived ending)

Find examples in your notes of theatrical conventions used in the musical. Also, find at least 1 example of each of the Greek Tragedy elements as we read/listen to Acts 1 & 2 of the play. You will turn in your notes at the end of the reading. (See handout). 

HOMEWORK: Work on your play project. Bring your scripts back with you to our next class.