503Studio – Spring 23: Playwriting Course, Brad Birch

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503Studio: Playwriting Course, Brad Birch

Playwrighting Course – Brad Birch

Five weekly Monday sessions from Monday 5 June to Monday 3 July, 7 – 9.30pm. The sessions will take place over zoom.

Intended for playwrights who feel they have a grip on the basics. Over the course we will explore how we can push and develop our ideas, add to our playwriting toolkit and learn how to redraft more efficiently and effectively. There’ll be writing exercises, plays to read (between the sessions) and lots to talk about.

Session One
Character – learning from your characters; developing backstory that feels real
rather than convenient for the play; sharpening choices and intentions; how
characters can operate in different styles of theatre.

Session Two
Structure – planning versus splurging; traditional structures as tools rather than prescriptions; when a character note is actually a structure note; characters leading plot and plot leading characters.

Session Three
Space – what your play looks like; how the use of space can affect the drama; the presence of the audience.

Session Four
Dialogue and Action – how our scenes stay active; the tricks and tactics that
characters use to get what they want; sharpening intentions.

Session Five
Surgery – an opportunity to bring problems to the group – what we’re stuck on, what we’re worried about, where we’re lost.

Theatre503’s Playwriting Courses are bespoke to the individual practitioners. They are now all being pitched to an advanced level, where participants will be expected to have at least some experience of the basic areas of playwriting craft, even if they have not yet written a full length play.

All of the expected areas of craft will be covered by each practitioner but how those practitioners engage with those areas may differ from course to course. Please see the individual course breakdown for more information.

If you have any access requirements, you can let us know here. If you would rather discuss any access requirements and how we can accommodate them prior to booking, please get in touch with us here.

Time: 7pm – 9.30pm

Running time of workshop: 2.5 hours – delivered online. Maximum class sizes are 14.

To sign up for advanced booking for future iterations of the 503Studio: Writers Programme, please join the waiting list here.

Dates/Times: Monday 5 June (7 – 9.30pm), Monday 12 June (7 – 9.30pm), Monday 19 June (7 – 9.30pm), Monday 26 June (7 – 9.30pm), Monday 3 July (7 – 9.30pm).

Brad Birch is an award-winning playwright and screenwriter from Mid Wales.

His work has been produced in the UK, USA, Japan, Russia, Germany, Spain, Italy and Malta. In 2016, he was awarded the Harold Pinter Commission at the Royal Court. His plays are published by Methuen Drama and his first anthology, Plays One, was published in 2018.

Plays include: Missing People; Black Mountain; The Brink; Gardening for the Unfulfilled and Alienated; and Tender Bolus.

He is currently writing a new feature for Rooks Nest and Film4.