10-Minute Coming of Age Project: Day 2; The Glass Menagerie

It's writing time! Hooray! Use period 3 and some of 4 to write your 10-minute coming-of-age play drafts. Use your notes, previous writing tasks, and your imagination and get to it! Write.

Before writing your play consider/define:

• Use the 4 stages of the coming of age plot. I suggest starting with a confrontation with authority. From there you should quickly establish removal and challenge stages. Your last page should address the reintegration of your protagonist. 
• Your protagonist should struggle to achieve a solution to a problem. Remember to use other characters to develop conflict: person v. person; person v. self; person v. society; person v. nature or God/fate--you can use any of these to help introduce conflict for your protagonist.
• Choose a setting. Keep your play in one setting for now. 
• Think about how your story will express a message. Ex. In order to grow up, we need to accept responsibility, or it's okay to accept one's flaws despite what others think of you; or friends are the only true support we should expect in our lives; or to learn to forgive is the greatest gift you can give yourself, etc. Messages tend to be a statement that the writer believes is important and true. What do you want to say to the world? That's your "message". 
• Remember that plays and acting involve playing a different person than oneself and showing a character's actions (actors act--that's what they like to do!)
• Be creative with familiar material. You know the struggles and conflicts you face growing up because it's happening to you...use your own experiences, but go out on a creative limb and tell us an old story in a new way. 
• Make sure your protagonist wants something that he/she can achieve. Make your protagonist work to achieve this goal with obstacles--often in coming of age stories, obstacles are parents, teachers, relatives, rules, or self-inflicted problems. See what you can do with these ideas.
• It's okay to fail. Do your best. Think outside the box. Give yourself a chance to succeed. You're not an expert at writing plays yet because you have just started doing so. The more you write the better you will get at this. Remember: above all--tell an interesting story. 
• 10-minute plays should be between 7-10 pages in script format. To help give you some advice please spend about 10 minutes reading this article: How to Write a 10-Minute Play and watch this video. See the handout as well for more advice on how to start and what your 10-minute play script can include. 

Write your play.

Period 4ish:

Please return Brighton Beach Memoirs and pick up the play The Glass Menagerie from the library. When you return to class, get into groups of 5-6. With your group assign the 3 parts: Amanda, Laura, & Tom. We'll discuss the play a bit further Tuesday, next week. 

This is another example of a coming-of-age play. It is also a memory play, just like Brighton Beach Memoirs. The character of Tom is loosely based on the playwright Tennessee Williams. He "remembers" the story and therefore controls the "action" and how we "see" the characters. He is not kind to Amanda, his mother, as you will see.

Read The Glass Menagerie until the bell with your small group. 

HOMEWORK: Complete scene 1. We will start together as a class on Scene 2 next time. Feel free to continue writing your coming of age plays. Use The Glass Menagerie as a good model.