Sherry Kramer

Writing for Stage and Screen (eBook, PDF)

Creating a Perception Shift in the Audience

• Format: PDF

Produktbeschreibung

" Reading and digesting the lessons in this book can be of greater value to an aspiring dramatist than years in an MFA program. Whether you are writing for the stage, screen or audio, this book is an invaluable teacher and guide to have by your side throughout the development and revision process."
Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig

"This book does what no other playwriting book in my experience has done, it offers a new way of seeing and conceiving how theatre makes meaning and carries emotional impact in performance."
Suzan Zeder, Professor Emerita and former Head Of Playwriting at University of Texas at Austin, USA

Combining a step-by-step analysis of the technique of writing for stage and screen with how the mystery, poetry, and emotional momentum is achieved for the audience, Sherry Kramer offers an empowering, original guide for emerging and established writers.

In this structured look at the way audience members progress through a work in real time, Sherry Kramer uses plain-spoken vocabulary to help you discover how to make work that will mean more to your audiences. By using examples drawn from plays, film, and streaming series, ranging from A Streetcar Named Desire to Fleabag to Pirates of the Caribbean, this study makes its concepts accessible to a wide range of artists who work in timebound art. The book also features multiple exercises, developed with MFA writers in The Iowa Playwrights Workshop and The Michener Center for Writers, where Kramer taught for the past 25 years, which provide entrance points to help you consider and create your work.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Bloomsbury UK eBooks
• Seitenzahl: 240
• Erscheinungstermin: 15. Juni 2023
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781350338296
• Artikelnr.: 67801903

Autorenporträt

Sherry Kramer is a playwright who has won numerous awards for her work and has written more than thirty plays, including David's RedHaired Death, When Something Wonderful Ends and The Wall of Water. She teaches playwriting at Bennington College, USA, and taught regularly in the MFA programs of The Michener Center for Writers UT Austin, TX, and the Iowa Playwrights' Workshop, where she was previously head of the workshop. She was the first national member of New Dramatists. Her website is www.sherrykramer.net.

Inhaltsangabe

List of Illustrations 1. Works of Art Teach Us How to Read Them First We
Must Find a Way to See The World in Front of Us There is an Old Saying in
the Theatre: The First 20 Minutes Are Free A Closer Look at The First 20
Minutes Some Advice About the First 20 Minutes Tone There is Always a Clock
EXERCISE: Spend Some Time With Structured Time Attention 2. The Perception
Shift Insight: The Eureka Moment Attention and Insight The Power of a
Moment's Newness How Newness Drives Insight A Joke is a Small Play The
Perception Shift in Three Plays: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The
Beauty Queen of Leenane, A Streetcar Named Desire EXERCISE: Experience a
Small Perception Shift in the Comfort of Your Own Home Hiding in Plain
Sight 3. Theatre Is a Rhyme For Life Certainty, Meaning, and Maybe Dramatic
Doubleness The Bone Violin The Bone Violin: A Fugue for Five Actors
EXERCISE: Track Doubling in The Bone Violin Doubleness is Our Most Elegant
Tool The Three Surfaces of Doubleness in Three Plays : A Streetcar Named
Desire, Betrayal, The Beauty Queen of Leenane Systems EXERCISE: Pleats
Systems and Theme EXERCISE: Tracking Systems In A Streetcar Named Desire
The Ends of Plays Tend to Mirror Their Beginnings Empathy and Doubleness
4. Story and Plot Sequence = Meaning EXERCISE: Order Makes Meaning
Breadcrumbs Story Is Another Word for Time How the Plot Organizes Itself
Outside of Story Futurity The Double Track of Time (Non-linear plays) Plot
and Story are Two Different Things Anti-Climax EXERCISE: How Your Plot Uses
Story Conveniences To Sum Up Story and Plot So Here We are, Ready to Talk
About the Enchantment That Is Story Vertical and Horizontal Vertical vs.
Horizontal EXERCISE: Draw Two Sets 5. Choice and Consequence Why Choice
Matters to the Audience The God Who Loves You - Carl Dennis EXERCISE:
Tracking Character Desire The And Then, The So Then, and The What If
EXERCISE: The And Then, The So Then Repeatability WRITING EXERCISE: A Five
Minute Scene About Choice Choice vs. Reveal WRITING EXERCISE: Adapt A
Family Story Alternative History WRITING EXERCISE: An Alternative History
Play Choice and Tragedy A Tragedy is like Going Down a River There are Two
Forks of the River The Sun has to Shine Breaking Bad Right vs. Right
Tragedy is the Art Form of Change Tragedy is Made Out of Hope Hope as
Strategy WRITING EXERCISE: The Nodes Tragedy is a Clash of Values What is
it Worth? vs. What does it Mean? In-Itself Value and the Evolution of the
Art Form Tragedy Is Not Simply Sad Why Do We Take Pleasure in Tragedy
Characters Don't Change No Matter How Much They Want To. No Matter How Much
We Hope They Will. In Comedy, People Change It's a Form of Magic The Magic
of Changing Without Changing EXERCISE: Find Comedies Where People Change
But it Feels Like Someone Changes in Plays That Aren't Comedies. Are You
Sure Someone Doesn't Change? But If People Can't Change How Do We Change?
WRITING EXERCISE: Write Three Monologues About the Same Choice from Three
Different Character's Point of View 6. In Retrospect, Inevitable In
Retrospect Inevitable Outcomes Not In Retrospect Inevitable Outcomes
EXERCISE: Write the Last Moment of Your Play As a Sonnet Pointers Pointers
are Lies that Tell the Truth The Attributes of Pointers: Systems and
Pointers, Forwards and Pointers How Pointers Announce Themselves How to
Write Pointers On Purpose The Atomic Throw Is an Uncertain Kitchen
Foreshadowing and Misdirection Titles EXERCISE: Finding Your Title Running
Gags A Play Tells the Truth, But It Enjoys Using a Lie To Tell It EXERCISE:
Lies Spoilers EXERCISE: Identifying Pointers EXERCISE: Identify Pointers In
Your Own Play 7. Convergence It's Never a Single Moment EXERCISE: The End
and The Beginning Is Saying That Convergence is Everywhere in A Great Work
of Timebound Art The Same Thing as Saying That a Great Work of Timebound
Art is All Convergence? To Be Human Is To Confuse a Satisfying Story With a
Meaningful One EXERCISE: Noticing Perception Shifts The Turn The Prestige
Reveal and Choice Enlarging the Idea of Dramatic Event EXERCISE: The
Dramatic Future The Difference Between What Happens on Stage and What
Happens in the Audience EXERCISE: The Last 45 Seconds Again. Endings as
Different Genres Why a Perception Shift Makes Things Weightless How
Coincidence is a Form of Rhyme Open Endings Mysteries are Almost All
Writers' Favorite Genre for a Reason A Small Play To Fill Us With Wonder
Structure is Just What Happens in the End EXERCISE: Adapt the
Climax/Convergence of a Song Hope is at the Heart of Everything in the
Theatre EXERCISE: Tracking Hope Once Again: The Duck Rabbit Index