Go GREEN. Read from THE SCREEN.

Writing from The Heart

Writing from The Heart
Design and execution by Meeko Marasigan

Writing from The Heart

"Writing from The Heart" is a workshop on creative writing, creative drawing, and creative drama. There are three available versions of this workshop: one for beginners on the secondary, tertiary, and graduate levels, and another for practitioners. A third version of this workshop is designed as an outreach program to disadvantaged and underserved audiences such as the disabled, the poor and the marginalized, victims of human trafficking, battered women and abused children, drug rehabilitation center residents, child combatants, children in conflict with the law, prisoners, and gang leaders. This third version incorporates creativity and problem awareness, conflict resolution, crisis intervention, trauma therapy, and peacemaking.
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Thursday, August 31, 2017

Dramaturgy for TheatreWorks Singapore: _A Commitment_ by Ivan

Hello Ivan!

Your draft promises an interesting play. Be mindful, however, that the subject of gay marriages and gay partnerships has been tackled by other playwrights before; your play will shine only if it offers new, 21st-century insights. Here are my comments:

--Page 1, Line 5, Stage Direction, Top of Page: "at the bottom right corner" = "at the bottom right corner of the mirror"
--Always proofread your work. For example, Page 1, Line 1: "thought" = "taught". There are many other examples all throughout your work. A play with a lot of typos is like a photograph that is out of focus.
--You begin your play with parallel scenes depicting flashbacks and the present time. This is unfair to the persons performing the flashbacks. Their roles are not acting roles. The information they provide the audience is better off relayed as exposition.
--Consider visualizing the play without sets and props.
--Scene 10 is an abrupt flashback. How will the audience know this change in time if the players are the same players and of almost the same chronological ages as they are in the present time?
--Scene 11 is under-written and creates an aesthetic imbalance. Remember that you are writing a play, not a movie script that can employ long shots, close-ups, cut-to-cut shots, and a sound track.
--Finally, Scene 12 is the real beginning of the play. It is when the real dramatic crisis occurs, and it is as close to the climax as possible.

Do NOT be discouraged, Ivan. Mull over Scene 12 and see if you can propel the play from that scene onward without the use of flashbacks.

I look forward to the development of your play.

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