The Annual Playwrights’ Workshop
From Page to Stage
A Festival of Original,
Student-Written 10-Minute & One-Act Plays
Playwriting is a mysterious art. As playwrights, we awaken in the wee hours of the morning to work on a draft that more than likely will end up in the trash bin. Then after days, weeks, months (sometimes even years), we may finally have a working draft that we can take into a rehearsal hall—all in an attempt to better polish our words. However, this is not the end result. The final task will come only after we witness the impact our play has upon an audience. Only then can we truly consider the dynamics of rewrites.
The Annual Playwrights’ Workshop at Illinois State University showcases Ten-Minute and One-Act plays by student playwrights. The Workshop, in its fourth season, is held during the Fall semester of each academic year. It grew out of the Playwriting course (Theatre/English 348) taught in the Theatre Studies area of the School of Theatre.
The philosophy underlying the Playwrights’ Workshop is that all plays written in the Playwriting class, regardless of their content, should be produced before a live audience. To help realize this goal, directors are recruited from the Theatre faculty, staff and graduate students as well as from the community.
In recent years, these original, student-written plays have shown great diversity in both tone and subject matter. Some plays are funny, some are creepy, and some are simply riveting. All are thought-provoking. Topics covered include romance, marriage, violence, the impact of popular culture, war, communication, betrayal, revenge and broken dreams.
For more information contact Dr. Leslie Sloan Orr, Associate Professor, Playwriting: (309) 438-2895 or var _u = “lsorr”; var _d = “ilstu.edu.”; var _l = “lsorr@ilstu.edu.”; var _c = “”; document.write(”lsorr@ilstu.edu.“); lsorr@ilstu.edu. <a href=’http://www.telecom.ilstu.edu/directory/’>Please visit the Illinois State Phonebook or call (309) 438-2111 for contact information</a>
The Chair of the Theatre Studies program is Dr. Ann Haugo, Associate Professor: var _u = “ahaugo”; var _d = “ilstu.edu”; var _l = “ahaugo@ilstu.edu”; var _c = “”; document.write(”ahaugo@ilstu.edu“); ahaugo@ilstu.edu <a href=’http://www.telecom.ilstu.edu/directory/’>Please visit the Illinois State Phonebook or call (309) 438-2111 for contact information</a>.
