Playwright’s Playground: Adaptation Edition
WRITE A PLAY
Welcome to Playwright’s Playground:
Adaptation Edition
Everything old is new again when you take pen to page!
Familiar titles, favorite characters, and cherished stories are often the perfect source material for playwrights to mine for inspiration, crafting new versions of classic tales. Often, the ability to take an existing property and fashion a new interpretation is an appealing way for a theatre to grab their audience’s attention.
But adaptation can be so much more than that! Adaptation can be the entry way for a writer to seek inspiration from history, from mythology, from the public domain and from even personal experience, providing the foundation to create something completely new.
In this course, taught by playwright Mark Shanahan, you'll gain invaluable insights and techniques for adapting existing works for the stage while maintaining their essence and adding your own unique voice. While investigating the key ingredients for successful stage adaptation is our goal, we will also seek to gather the many tools necessary to practice your craft as a playwright. Further, we’ll discuss the unlimited potential of adaptation as an approach to writing, and wrestle with preconceived notions about what adaptation means.
Together, we will investigate how to identify source material for inspiration, as well as investigate dramatic structure, define a dramatic problem, inject humor and pathos into dialogue, and to develop your voice in service of writing for the stage.
The first 2 weeks of are devoted to in-class writing exercises and spirited discussions of assigned readings (don’t worry, it’s not too academic- in fact, it’s fun!).
Each week thereafter, class time will find us sharing scenes from the plays we are writing- with a discussion and conversation about the work provided in a safe and respectful environment.
What To Expect:
Assigned class readings and video viewings are shared on a dedicated class Slack channel.
Students will write scene work outside of class time and share excerpts of their plays during our class meetings. Writers may request class members to be readers or, on occasion, bring in outside actors for these presentations.
Students will meet at least once a week with assigned accountability partners from class to share progress and move their work forward in a supportive environment we like to call a “What If?” Group.
The course culminates in a public reading of scenes written in the Playwright’s Playground. Participation in this public share is always encouraged but never required!
Class size is limited to 10 artists.
MARK SHANAHAN is an accomplished playwright, director and actor based in New York City. HIs plays have been produced on the New York and London stage as well as across the United States and Canada. As a playwright, he has consistently enjoyed adapting older works, penning such plays as A Sherlock Carol (New York Times Critic’s Pick and Off-Broadway Alliance Nominee for Best New Play), Agatha Christie’s The Murder Of Roger Ackroyd (Premiering at The Alley Theatre in 2023, the official adaptation of the Agatha Christie Estate),The Dingdong (The Off Broadway and regional hit comedy adaptation of Feydeau’s Le Dindon), A Merry Little Christmas Carol (produced each holiday season throughout the country), The Chronology Protection Case (Edgar Ward nominated Best Play) and See Monsters Of The Deep (inspired by the life of artist Tony Sarg). Additionally, Mark has penned numerous radio drama for NPR, adapted from the works of authors Blue Balliett and M.R. James, among others and starring luminaries from Hollywood and Broadway. As a director, his work has been seen on the New York and London stage as well as at major theatres around the country, and as an actor he has appeared on and Off-Broadway and in the regions. He is the resident director at White Heron Theatre and the curator of The Script In Hand Series at The Westport Country Playhouse.