Monday’s 7pm, June 3 – July 8, 2019

Sharpen your skills by listening to the words you write.

Even though as playwrights we have so much to accomplish … character development, dramatic arcs, plot lines … we only have a single tool to work with: words. In this class, we will learn to listen to the language we write (since the words in a play are spoken). We will train our ears to hear the rhythms, tempos, and beats of our phrases, sentences and paragraphs. We will compare how we hear people speak in everyday life to how characters speak on stage. We will also use music as our guide.

This will be a true writing class, so participants must be open to in-class writing, “homework”, and sharing work with everyone in the class. We will cover topics such as: Ear Training; Rhythm and Tempo; Stress; Intonation; Repetition; Phonetics; Silences; Heightened Language; Profanity; Imagery; Metaphor; Humor; and Poetics. Anyone interested in playwriting is welcome. Even actors.

Josh Faigen is a Newburyport playwright. He is author of numerous full-length and short plays, has won several national playwriting awards, and has been produced locally as well as in Boston, Portsmouth, New York, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Winston-Salem, Providence and Buffalo.

Fee: $195

Also – See Classes page for details.