East Los Angeles College Polly Stenham on Playwriting Discussion

All Assignment Journals will have three sections. “Things to Watch”, “Things to Read” and “Responses”. You will be asked to to copy and paste the response prompts into a word document and then upload that documrnt here. Capisce?

• Things to Watch:

  • • • • • Independent Lens | Playwright | On Being a Playwright: Rajiv Joseph and Tarell McCraney | PBS
          • How to write a play – five golden rules
            Playwriting: Structure
          • Playwriting: Structure
          • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPWdwTNjOUU
          • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9ucWkyTrVM

Things to Read:

• Barton Ch 3

Responses:

• What are the elements that make up a good play?
• Traditionally Comedy=_____________ and Tragedy = __________________.
• What are some things that help make the characters in a play 3 dimensional?
• Apply the plot diagram discussed in the video by RTHS Ian Finley to a favorite episode of a program you like. Identify the Inciting incident, Climax, Protagonist and MDQ
• Multiple artists over the course of this semester will talk about how important it is to let go of good ideas that don’t serve the story. This is an idea that is often referred to as “Killing Your Darlings: How does Polly Stenham refer to this idea