Module: DRA5004-20 Writing for Performance 1

Level: 5

Credit Value: 20

Module Tutor: Olivia Turnbull

Module Tutor Contact Details: O.Turnbull@bathspa.ac.uk

This module is a pre-requisite for DRA5005-20 Writing for Performance 2.

1. Brief description and aims of module:

This module introduces you to the fundamentals of writing for performance.

This module aims to provide you with:

• An understanding of the elements fundamental to writing for live performance, as well as their contexts and underlying principles.

• An appreciation of the wider dramaturgical issues intrinsic to the writing and shaping of a play or performance text, and the ability to consider those when developing your own work

• A chance to develop your own writing skills for live performance

2. Outline syllabus:

Through a combination of lectures, seminars and practical workshops, this module focuses on different key areas of writing each week. Starting with an introduction to the “rules” of playwriting and the “well-made play”, the module moves on to consider a range of elements fundamental to writing for performance. These include relationships between text and other elements of performance and their effect on the writing's formal and structural composition; dramaturgical issues (including context) and their importance to the development of text in performance; how to build character and the importance of theme as an organizing principle. Over the course of the module, students are asked to undertake a number of associated writing assessments that together inform the development and submission of a short play. The module culminates in a “scratch night” in which the short plays are presented in the form of rehearsed readings.

3. Teaching and learning activities:

Seminar discussion and practical workshops build on the ideas introduced in the lectures and critical readings and give students an opportunity to explore their writing and develop their works-in-progress. A sequence of smaller writing tasks related to the development of their short plays will be set over the course of the module. These will be evaluated through practical workshops, individual tutorials, and mediated group discussion and feedback. Students will be asked to provide paper copies of their drafts to workshops to help facilitate the readings.

Assessment Item 1:

• Assessment Type: Course Work

• Description: Portfolio of playwriting assignments

• % Weighting: 100%