Play Script: Day 4

Please complete your play drafts today in class. Your play scripts should be between 5-10 pages in length in proper playwriting format. At the end of today's class, please print out your script and turn it in to the in-box with your name on it.

HOMEWORK: None. If you did not finish your script today in class, please finish your script over break.

Play Script Project: day 3

Continue writing your play scripts. You should get a few pages completed today in the lab. Write, write, write. Please see below for advice and help if you get stuck.

Please note that the cast list is usually printed just after the title and BEFORE the opening stage directions.

All plays deal with a complicated situation. To create a situation for a story/plot, you need to know the following:
1. Who is appearing in the play? (character)
2. Where is the action taking place (setting)
3. What are the characters doing? (action)

Once these questions are answered, you can complicate the situation by adding a "But...", "suddenly", "when...", or "uh, oh!" sort of statement.

Example: John is in his room when Penny the nun enters and tells him that War has just broken out.

Your play should stay in one setting if you can manage it and be anywhere between 3 and 8 pages in length.

In a 10-minute play, the first page is usually your exposition. We are introduced to the main characters (or minor characters talk about the major character) who are often on-stage doing something.

The next 2-7 pages develop the story or situation. As this is a short play, try to limit the # of problems a character has to overcome or solve. When developing your play, have characters talk about what they want, why they want what they want, and how they may get what they want. They can also talk about their past. What happened to them in the past?

The last few pages of a 10-minute play resolve the conflict. This is usually done just at the very end of the play script (the last few lines). 

Play Project: Day Two

List at least three EVENTS that happened in your setting that were important to the time period you picked. You may have to look around the date (include a decade or earlier in a century) in order to find an appropriate event.

For example: If I chose 1898 as my date, I might list these events: The Spanish/American War begins, Hawaii becomes a state, and the Austrian Empress Elizabeth is assassinated. I could have listed a variety of events, including Madame Curie's discovery of radium, but the first three are fine.

In my dialogue, I might want to have my characters talk about these things as topics of conversation. These events, if presented well, can also form or create a THEME and MESSAGE for my play. Also, real events might suggest a conflict for my characters. The more I know about my SETTING, the more detailed I can be in my writing!

Next: follow steps 1-5 from last class. When you have completed these steps, you are ready to being writing. Go on to step 6.

6. Create 2-5 characters that might be found in the setting you chose. For each character provide a few sentences to describe the character. Use characterization: details or physical description, actions that the character might do, a name, something the character would say about him/herself, something OTHER people might say about the character, etc. Put your notes in your journal.

7. When you have 2-5 characters designed, you are ready to start your play. Using your research, the setting, and the character list, begin writing a play.

8. Use the events from your research to consider a theme for your play. There are typically four themes in most literature:

A. Love
B. Death
C. Life
D. Nature

9. Choose one of these themes to start with. Then add a MESSAGE to your theme. For example: "I believe that love can conquer any horrible event." Most messages a writer might try to make in his/her writing can be created by completing this sentence: "I believe..." 

If this example is my theme (love) and message (love can overcome horrible events), my play's plot will ultimately show how love can survive, even if the characters are stuck in a bad situation. If my setting was 1898, for example, perhaps I would set my play during the Spanish/American War where my protagonist is saying good-bye to his true love, promising he'll return at the end of the war. Use your theme and message in the dialogue of your play.

10. Write. Check the handout for the proper playscript format we will be using for the rest of our play projects until you graduate.

HOMEWORK: None.

Fences Quiz & Brainstorming Ideas for a Play

After our quiz today, please complete the following assignment/task:

1. Select a setting. Your setting should include a TIME PERIOD (for example, Fences takes place in 1950's Pittsburgh; The Effect of Gamma Rays...Marigolds takes place in the 1960's). When writers create a setting, it is not just time period, but also LOCATION (a kitchen, a bedroom, a park, a backyard, Atlanta Georgia, Baltimore, Maryland, New York City, etc.), specific TIME (afternoon, evening, 3:00 p.m., etc.) and season (winter, fall, spring, summer). When you choose a setting try to be as specific as possible:

Example: Rochester, NY in the summer of 1990, early morning outside of a movie theater...

 2. Once you have a SETTING, you may move on to step 3. If you have not picked a setting yet, please stop.

3. Learn a little about what was going on in the world the year or time period you chose for your setting. What happened, for example, in Pittsburgh or America in the 1950's? After researching, we know that the Civil Rights Movement was starting. Baseball teams did not allow Black athletes to play in professional sports. In the South there was still segregation between Blacks and Whites. Research your chosen time period and find out what was going on. Use web searches to find out!

4. As you research, please take notes in your journal.

5. If you haven't researched your time period and setting and taken notes, please stop and do that. Otherwise, continue to step #6.

6. Create 2-5 characters that might be found in the setting you chose. For each character provide a few sentences to describe the character. Use characterization: details or physical description, actions that the character might do, a name, something the character would say about him/herself, something OTHER people might say about the character, etc. Put your notes in your journal.

7. When you have 2-5 characters designed, you are ready to start your play. Using your research, the setting, and the character list, begin writing a play. We will talk about theme and message next class.

Please turn in your test today.

HOMEWORK: None.

Fences & Characterization

For the first 10-15 minutes of today's class please take a look at these scenes from Fences (please use headphones if you have them):

• Act One, Scene Three
• Fighting Death
• I Don't Want Him To Be Like Me

1. With a partner, compare what you're seeing with the image you had of the play from reading the script. What are some differences you note? Discuss these differences. Talk to each other please.
2. How do plays like Fences increase the dramatic tension of a situation? What are some things you learned about writing plays from watching these clips? Please discuss, then write brief comments on the index card provided to you in class. You and your partner may turn in one card for both of you.

• Next, working alone, choose one of the characters in the play Fences: Troy, Bono, Rose, Gabriel, Cory, Raynell, or Lyons.
• Draw a character sketch of that character on a 8.5 x 11 sized paper. (You may also find an appropriate picture on-line, if you'd like.) 
• Print the picture out, cut the picture out, and paste on the paper; or draw your own interpretation of your chosen character. (You may decide to draw a symbol of that character instead.) Feel free to be creative with this depiction. 
• You should be able to explain your choices to others in the class. 
• On the same side as the "picture" of your character, please describe the character's characterization (see below for details). Indicate lines and words (with page #'s) from the play's text that helps describe and characterize the character you chose.

When an author develops a character, he/she relies on characterization. Characterization is based on four distinct things:

• What a character says or thinks about him/herself
• What another character says or thinks about the character
• What the character does (the actions the character does and the choices he/she makes)
• The details or physical description the author or narrator gives us. In this case, what is revealed in the STAGE DIRECTIONS of the play script. 

Please turn in your portrait by the end of class for participation credit.

We are a little behind in our class schedule. Please complete reading the play on your own if you have not yet done so, and prepare for the quiz next class.

HOMEWORK: Study for your quiz on Fences. There will be a quiz next class. You should know the basic plot, characters, characterization, key symbols, and structure of the play. If you didn't complete your characterization portrait project, please complete it and turn in by next class late.

Fences: Act One & Characterization

RESEARCH: Start class off today by researching the following items. In your journal, write down your answers. You should be able to relate the research to Fences.

Please research and find information about:

In 1918 when Troy Maxson is your age (about 14), he leaves the South for Pittsburgh. His father was a sharecropper. What is a sharecropper? What was life like for a sharecropper in the South? How did the system of sharecropping entrap people? How could a person escape that life? Read about it here.

• The Negro League
• Jackie Robinson & Satchel Paige

The setting of this play is 1957. Please research and find information about this time period. Some questions to help guide your research are:

• What were the social, economic, political and educational expectations and opportunities for African Americans at this time?
• What advances had been made in civil rights?
• What significant changes will occur in America during the years between 1957 and 1965?

Some links to help you:

Images of the civil rights movement
Images of “the children’s crusade" of the civil rights movement
Timeline of the civil rights movement

After 15-20 minutes of research online and taking notes in your journal, please pair up with the partner you chose last class. (Get into pairs from your reading group).

In the next 20 minutes, please complete the following task:

1. Choose one of the characters in scene one or two: Troy, Bono, Rose, or Lyons and draw a character sketch of that character. Indicate lines and words from scene one that help describe and characterize the character you chose.

When an author develops a character, he/she relies on characterization. Characterization is based on four distinct things:

• What a character says or thinks about him/herself
• What another character says or thinks about the character
• What the character does (the actions the character does and the choices he/she makes)
• The details or physical description the author or narrator gives us. In this case, what is revealed in the STAGE DIRECTIONS of the play script. 

On your picture, please make sure you have found words/description/lines from the text that support your examination of characterization. Please turn in your portrait by the end of class for participation credit.

During period 4, please continue reading Fences in your reading groups. Before you read, discuss with your group what you learned about the SETTING of this play, and some of the important events that might shape the characters in this play. Which characters seem most affected?

Please complete the play for Monday. There will be a quiz on the play during the 2nd half of the class on Monday.

HOMEWORK: Please complete your reading of Fences. There will be a quiz Monday on the play. You should know the basic plot, characters, characterization, key symbols, and structure of the play.

Fences, August Wilson

Warm-up Activity: In your journal, make a list of 10 common problems that people or families often face. You can draw from your own experience, from books, or films that you have seen for ideas. You may also use your imagination (which is what it's for...) Come up with 10 common problems and list these problems in your journal.

Then:

Please check out the link on August Wilson. In your journal take a few notes about how he got started writing plays and what he was attempting to do. What are his plays generally about?

Information about August Wilson can be found here. Please check out this interview as well. August Wilson interview

We will be picking up the play Fences by August Wilson and beginning it today. When we return from the library, please get into the same groups you had last class reading The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds. Please select parts and begin reading today.

Additionally: please stop after reading scene one and in partners, choose one of the characters: Troy, Bono, Rose, or Lyons and draw a character sketch of that character. Indicate lines and words from scene one that help describe and characterize the character you chose.

HOMEWORK: Please read scene two.