University and College Teaching
Over the past 25 years, I’ve had the good luck to teach the extraordinary playwrights in the MFA programs at The Michener Center for Writers, UT, Austin, and The Iowa Playwrights Workshop, where I was head of the workshop for a time. Now I teach the dazzling undergraduates at Bennington College. I’ve also taught at New Dramatists, Northwestern University, the Carnegie Mellon University MFA Program, Catholic University MFA Program, and I’ve done short workshops at Brown’s MFA Playwriting program, The University of Arkansas, Fayetteville’s MFA program, and PlayPenn.
Workshops
I also teach workshops as short as a day, as long as three weeks. The Magical Object has been a popular short workshop, and workshops about The Perception Shift, the core of my playwriting philosophy, by necessity need to be longer. I also teach a workshop about Choice and Consequence, which includes a look at how we write about tragedy. I suppose that what I enjoy most are longer workshops that include both the standard group sessions, where I lead participants in new ways of considering how meaning is made in their work coupled with short writing assignments, and then time for me to read a full-length play from each workshop participant and have a conference with them. If you’re interested in adaptation, my Adaptation workshop is structured to give participants a pickpocket’s “sticky fingers” to enable them to borrow everything in their world in order to create the world of their writing.
Individual Script Consulting
I work with playwrights individually, reading their plays twice before giving them extensive notes in a phone or in person session. Please contact me to discuss my availability and rates.
Writing for Stage and Screen: Creating a Perception Shift in the Audience
My book about playwriting and screenwriting is published by Methuen/Bloomsbury. Written in plain spoken, conversational language, it’s accessible by anyone. It’s not an academic book but an introduction to my concepts and philosophy about making meaning in timebound art. It includes multiple exercises that can benefit writers at any stage in their writing life.
