Portland Dramatists Workshop
and
Portland Dramatists WRITERS Workshop
Led by award-winning playwright
Sharon Sassone (ShaSha)
If you have a play or a scene to read, bring enough copies for each character and someone who will read stage directions. Then sit back and listen, take notes, and hear your play read by talented actors. All levels of expertise welcome and present.
If you are looking for actual WRITING activities, attend the PORTLAND DRAMATISTS WRITERS WORKSHOP (PDWW). In this workshop, ShaSha provides writing prompts and guides you through the beginning of a new dramatic piece of writing.
The Portland Dramatists Workshop was formed in the fall of 2005. The purpose of the group is to nurture, educate, and encourage aspiring and established playwrights and other theatre artists through readings and critiques of new plays-in-progress. Below, ShaSha explains the importance of workshopping new plays.
Why Workshop a Play?
by Sharon Sassone
The Portland Dramatists Workshop is the baby step of playwriting—the first step. Ordinarily, a theatre or an awards group will call for a
script to be submitted to them for consideration for a prize—such as a reading or workshopping with a director, or even for a production. This call
for a play assumes that the playwright has already written a complete script, that it is production-ready, and that the playwright has not only the
talent, but the experience, which will make this script viable to a professional theatre.
Such a request jumps right over the inception of the play, the first writings and all the redefining and recreating that are essential to a good
play. It skips the play development—which is an ongoing process, not a one-time event—and often winnows out talented playwrights who truly
need only more time and guidance in order to develop into successful, contributing playwrights with much to say.
Theatres will often say they would love to do new plays but that the scripts submitted to them are “just not ready,” or that the subject matter is redundant. Unfortunately, it is the uniquely-talented playwright—the playwright with something new to say—who may not know how to go about writing a complete play and making it commercial as well as profound. Playwrights with brilliant ideas or with plays-in-their-infancy need an opportunity to work on their scripts—among themselves, with actors, and with directors—so that they may bring the play out of their head and onto a stage. They need to hear their words read—is the dialogue authentic? See their directions and movements executed—how much do they need to tell an actor? a director? a set designer? a costumer? and what can those talented artists tell them?
In the workshopping process, playwrights are asked by creative peers such hard questions as “Why did you write this play?” “Who is your audience?” “What is your intent?” “Why did you choose this character? this location? this period?” Now is the time for experimenting, for discussion and debate, for the elimination of ego and the introduction of the group collaboration which is unique to this art. Picasso may have drawn his masterpieces alone in his studio, but a play is produced by any number of gifted artists working together.
It is a time of joy when a playwright sees how actors and directors can make a script work, but it is a time of growth when the playwright sees what neither an actor nor director can fix—and the playwright goes back to the page and rewrites to correct the flaws! This metamorphosis is not a failure, it is an opportunity, and the rewrite—which is often major—is done sensitively and without a production date looming like a glaring light that inhibits the playwright or shuts down the creative process altogether.
It is in this developmental stage, too, that the playwright can be assisted in the art of making a play a commercial success. Huge casts can be winnowed down. Elaborate sets can be eliminated—the play can often have one or two locations instead of a dozen. Playwrights learn that less is more during the workshopping period, and, additionally, they learn how to accommodate the needs of the producers—who must realistically worry about money—while not giving up the artistry of their play. Too often playwrights don’t get to hear from a director or producer as to what a theatre realistically needs in order to be able to pay for a play and keep a theatre successful, and a playwright will send out a play that simply is doomed from the beginning because of its extravagant needs.
If the flaws of a play—artistically, logistically, or financially—are not detected early, the play can never come to fruition, or it may continue on, floundering, and, ultimately, failing, with the flaws glaringly visible to all connected with it—but never corrected until terrible reviews and empty theatre seats result.
