Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Percy the Playwright

Percy the Playwright

I’ve been neglecting my blog for the past couple of days….the reason is that I have started a new course, applied for a job to teach a course at New Horizons here on WDC, am doing a Quickie Entry each week and working on my novel Habit of Despair. This is in addition to trying to lead a normal life. At least I have been busy.

The course I will be teaching is one on playwriting that will begin in May. In looking over some of the syllabuses I am amazed by how comprehensive they are and the detail of the planning that has gone into them. Right now I am trying to decide how to approach the subject in a way best suited to my experience and talents.

It is my experience that in seeking to define something a good place to start is with what that something isn’t.

I am a practitioner rather than an academic. To use a driving school analogy, I will not be teaching the history of the automobile, the theory of how the components operate…how they are assembled or anything in that vein. I will be the guy in the passenger seat explaining how to start the vehicle, use the transmission, steer, apply the brake and where to put the gas. I won’t be discussing the history of Drama, the Shakespearian period, contemporary drama or anything like that….I will be teaching how to parallel park, turn into a skid and fix a flat tire. I won’t be teaching periodic maintenance, race car driving, or how to pass a driving test….I will be teaching staying focused on the road, using the turn signal, and defensive driving…

Now I know some will think that all this other stuff is important to learn and it is….however it is not where I intend to go. I will be using the one act play as a guide, providing a canned story line outline, and saying In scene 1 we will have a monolog and some dialog and foreshadowing…in scene 2 more dialog, character development, and conflict and in scene 3 a climax and some resolution. The student will write the play’s script within the structured constraints using the most common tools of the trade….The output will be the student will complete a 1 act play.

I had to chuckle when I inquired into doing it that after novels and poetry I mentioned some limited stage play writing experience….Don’t you know that was the area they were looking for someone….Well for what its worth I wrote a formal three act Shakespearian/Greek play and it is named Andromache and is parked on my port….What you see is what you get….and while it was never produced I still like to read it from time to time and remark to myself…..self, this darn thing wasn’t all that bad.