- Winter 2025
Syllabus Description:
DRAMA 441A: Beginning Playwriting
Class schedule: T/TH 11:30am - 1:20pm (PST)
Hutchinson Hall 303
Winter Quarter 2025 Course Syllabus
Instructor: Nikki Yeboah
Email: nyeboa@uw.edu
In-Person Classes: HUT 303
Zoom Classes: https://washington.zoom.us/j/93426257856
Office Hours: Wed. 4:30-5:30pm (PST) and by appointment
Zoom optional: https://washington.zoom.us/j/7983063758
Course Description
This workshop-style course introduces the fundamentals of playwriting. Students will explore the elements of dramatic structure, character development, dialogue, and scene construction. Through writing exercises, peer critique, and the study of professional plays, participants will develop original scripts while fostering their unique voices as playwrights. By the end of the course, students will have completed a script treatment, which is a document that maps out the entire story idea of the play before you begin writing, and a fully developed scene from the play.
Course Objectives
- Understand the core principles of dramatic writing, including plot, character, dialogue, and structure.
- Develop skills in writing compelling, stage-worthy scenes through a multi-draft process.
- Analyze professional scripts to understand effective playwriting techniques.
- Give and receive constructive feedback in a workshop setting.
- Create an original, complete scene from your play.
- Develop an outline for a “well-made play.”
Performances
I urge you to see as much theater as possible this semester. See anything and everything on campus and off. Extra Credit will be given to those who see and review one live theatre production. We will attend one performance together as a class.
Required Text and Materials:
Textbook:
Goldfinger, Jacqueline. Playwriting with Purpose: A Guide and Workbook for New Playwrights (Routledge Publishing Group; 2021). On Canvas
Dramatic Texts not available on Canvas: I have placed all books on course reserve at the Drama Library
Straight White Men by Young Jean Lee (Library e-book or hard copy)
The Thanksgiving Play by Larissa FastHorse (Drama Library Resreve)
School Girls or An African Mean Girls Play by Jocelyn Bioh
Slave Play by Jeremy O. Harris (Library e-book)
Free scriptwriting software options:
Preferred:
Other Options:
Causality (Curious about this one)
Additional readings and resources will be available on the course’s Canvas site; in addition, you will be asked to provide electronic and hard copies of your work for reading purposes.
Community Agreements (tbd):
List of Submissions (in order of deadlines)
Deadlines Submissions
10/8 Character Profiles
11/05 Plot Outline
12/3 The Scene
12/9 Public Reading
Ongoing - Community-Building
Ongoing -Pre-Class Exercises
Ongoing - Workshops
Ongoing -In-Class Reflections