19/09/2024
Cementa will be running a free three-day workshop next Kandos for young playwrights this school holidays!
The 3-day Introduction to Playwriting workshop will be led by Sydney Theatre Company Associate Director Kenneth Moraleda and Sydney Theatre Company Associate Artist Ruth Little.
Workshop dates: 1-3 October 2024
Location: Wayout Artist Space, Kandos, NSW
Workshop activities
Day 1: Building blocks of drama; finding and developing character (Kenneth Moraleda)
● Warm-up games and introductions
● The building blocks of drama
● Developing character: with objects, actions, hotseating, animal selves, idiomatic
speech and behaviour
● Archetypes, caricatures, tricksters
● Creating your own character: voice, physicality, dialogue, status (writing and
performance exercises)
Day 2: Wild art: working with natural patterns and processes (Ruth Little)
● Warmup games
● Exploring context: theatre in specific places, environments
● Working with weather and turbulence: patterns and structures in nature and art
(drawing/photographing exercise)
● Developing research methods (writing, photographing, recording, sketching,
mimicking)
● Playing with scale: storms in teacups
● Disturbed rituals as starting points for drama
● Communal movement: rhythm, synchrony (flocking exercise)
Day 3 Action, scenes and story arc (Kenneth Moraleda)
● Warmup games
● Culture/setting and their impact on character, speech, action (playing out scenarios) ● Using specific verbs to define motivation, intention, action
● Wants, needs, obstacles, secret objectives (writing/sharing exercise)
● Action: private, intimate, public
● Building scenes: what your character feels vs what is shown/seen
● Performing and discussing existing scenes to explore how characters try to get what
they want
● Responding to obstacles (raising the stakes, conflict)
● Finding the ending Outcomes
The workshops are designed to be participatory, playful and pragmatic: the aim of the three days of making and sharing is to develop the confidence and creativity of all who take part as storytellers and potential theatre artists.
Participants will discover the fundamental building blocks of theatrical storytelling and experiment with methods of designing and developing story structure. Together we will compile a tool kit for creating characters, obstacles, actions, scenes, and story arcs. Each session takes us through games, creative research and collaborative action towards a deeper understanding of the principles and processes of theatrical storytelling.
