Your Memoir as Monologue - with Showcase: Writing Monologues for Healing and Transformation // with Kelly DuMar

UPDATED DESCRIPTION!

A SIX WEEK PLAY LAB & PERFORMANCE SHOWCASE (Oct. 12, 2022, 6:30 p.m. ET) ON ZOOM 

This six-week webinar is designed for new & experienced writers to write dynamic short monologues for the stage. Participants will generate & polish new monologues that are ready to be performed as staged readings in showcase, (online with audience) and submitted to play festivals and publishers. PLEASE NOTE: The WEEKLY ZOOM PLAY LABS WILL BE SCHEDULED ACCORDING TO PARTICIPANTs WHO REGISTER.

Our primary way of working will be a weekly LIVE ZOOM WEBINAR PLAY LAB experience. Writers will bring DRAFTS of new monologues to be read out loud (by guest actors) and discussed for feedback & revision. Additionally, in Wet.Ink, the course includes six learning modules delivered weekly (including writing prompts for those who need them). In Wet.lnk, you can upload drafts of writing you are working on for comments by instructor & peers. The course culminates in a Showcase of works in process, performed by actors, via Zoom on Wednesday, October 12, 2022, 6:30 p.m. ET

OVERVIEW:

There’s beauty and meaning to mine from your life story, and this workshop will help you artistically express what you’ve overcome and achieved, and creatively share your experience to benefit others through the medium of theatre. You’ll learn how to write successful dramatic monologues based on your life that are personally meaningful, emotionally satisfying, and relevant and engaging for an audience. In class, through thematic writing prompts and creative exploration, you’ll develop your ordinary and extraordinary life experiences into powerful, dramatic monologues that can be performed – by you or an actor – with universal appeal. In class meetings will present elements of dramatic structure and explore the artistic qualities necessary for an effective dramatic monologue.

We’ll explore the role of conflict, plot, communicating subtext, voice, narrative, and the importance of set-up. New writing will be generated in and out of class, shared in class and aspects of revision will be presented and practiced.

SPECIAL FEATURE: The course will culminate in an online SHOWCASE of works in progress generated by participants, featuring readings by actors, on WEDNESDAY, October 12, 2022, 6:30 p.m. ET

“Memoir as Monologue taught me the power of my own story. Kelly’s guidance on creating effective drama, her concrete feedback on improving my work, the nurturing environment she created for participants and the excellent resources she brought to the table opened a whole new world for me. This was one of the most effective online classes I’ve taken.” — Diane Glass, 2016 class member.

Read an interview here with Kelly on this dynamic class. 

Week by Week 

Week One: Memoir vs. Monologue: How Dramatic Writing Makes the Leap from Page to Stage

All kinds of expressive writing, from diary/journal writing to memoir to poetry, foster healing and personal growth. Writing for the stage offers a uniquely imaginative process for healing and transformation as well. We’ll explore how writing for the stage differs from writing a memoir or personal essay. You’ll learn tools for adapting personal story for dramatic writing as a theatrical experience that engages an audience. Elements of dramatic structure will be introduced.

Week Two: The Art of Crafting Set-Up

We’ll explore taking a short piece of memoir and shaping it theatrically, focusing on developing an effective dramatic set-up. Crafting an effective monologue  set up involves imagination and immediacy, a distinctive voice, cohesive narrative structure, meaningful theme, and cohesive plot. We’ll explore personal themes of life choices, mistakes, roads taken and not taken, encountering internal and external obstacles, new beginnings, thresholds, rites of passage as the source for crafting dramatic monologues.

Week Three: Conflict – Experiencing Obstacles, Crafting Resilience

Conflict is a universal experience, a fact of life, and a necessary element of dramatic writing. How we meet it, how we shape it, how we share it is the stuff of wise living and great storytelling. We’ll experiment and explore conflict as a personal encounter and literary device and as a necessary stage of any journey toward wholeness. This session will explore how to artistically construct compelling narratives from personal conflicts, shaping the experience of resilience to involve and inspire an audience.

Week Four: Showing Versus Telling – Voice as a Vehicle for Dramatic Action

The memoir writer uses written description and authorial narration to illustrate setting, character, internal thoughts, external actions, feelings, motivations, needs, conflicts and consequences. The dramatic writer of monologue must craft, from the voice of a single character/speaker, compelling speech and gesture to show, rather than tell a story. We’ll explore how monologue presents a speaker’s needs, motivation and conflict in a way that involves the audience by establishing a “willing suspension of disbelief.”

Week Five: Creative Tools for Revising & Fine-Tuning

Focus on how the process of revision moves from page to stage - and stage back to page; additional thematic writing prompts for use with writing already generated in class; discussing strategies for going deeper; dealing with creative blocks and putting it all together – theme, arc, voice, stagecraft.

Week Six: The Art of Collaboration – Presenting Your Monologue

Whether or not you plan on personally performing your dramatic monologue or putting it in the hands of an actor, your writing will take on additional dimension in the journey toward sharing it with an audience. We’ll explore aspects of collaborating with a director, an actor, a designer, producer or publisher in the process of reaching an audience as well as resources for finding potential collaborators.

Whether or not you plan on personally performing your dramatic monologue or putting it in the hands of an actor, your writing will take on additional dimension in the journey toward sharing it with an audience. We’ll explore aspects of collaborating with a director, an actor, a designer, producer or publisher in the process of reaching an audience as well as resources for finding potential collaborators.

Who Should Take This Class

This class is ideal for people who do word arts–writing, storytelling, spoken word, theater, and other forms of TLA–and are ready to put themselves out there more in the world and in their work. Because of the innovate exercises and engaging discussions, this class would be very appropriate for both new and seasoned word artists who want to learn more, and find greater community together.

This is an online class with weekly assignments in Wet Ink, including three, bi-weekly, webinars on Zoom (scheduled during the first week according to best availability of participants).

PLEASE NOTE: THERE IS AN ADDITIONAL ONLINE SHOWCASE where works in progress will be presented as readings, and performed by trained actors, on October 12, 2022.

PLAY LAB FEE: This Webinar charges a small additional fee for actor stipends. Guest actors are in attendance at the three Play Labs and final Showcase to perform works in process for the writers. 

Format

Each week will consist of engaging content designed to spark personal reflection, discussion and dynamic writing to be shared via the online teaching platform, Wet Ink. The Wet Ink platform allows writers to log in on their own time to post comments and critiques directly to authors’ works. You can also view deadlines, track revisions, and watch video or listen to audio. At the end of the class, each student will receive an email that contains an archive of all their content and interactions. 

The day before class begins, you’ll receive an invitation to join Wet Ink. There are no browser requirements, and Wet Ink is mobile-friendly. If you have any questions about the technical requirements, please email  tlan.coordinator@gmail.com.

Each week will consist of engaging content designed to spark personal reflection, discussion and dynamic writing to be shared in Wet Ink. Each week will also include various texts to help us explore disability and creative modalities that can help us deal with and manage chronic illness and disability, and will include discussions of the readings and our personal experiences, as well as creative writing prompts. Students should plan to spend 3-4 hours per week on the class. However, because our spoons vary day to day, the class will be formatted in a way that is flexible for working when you can and resting when you need.

Participants should expect to spend no more than 2 hours or so on the weekly writing prompt, revisions, reading and commenting on the work of others, viewing and participating in live discussion, and sharing works in progress live. We’ll create a safe and supportive environment, offering respectful support that inspires the development of every writer’s voice.

About the Teacher

Kelly DuMar, M.Ed. is a poet, playwright, and workshop leader who generates enlivening writing experiences for new and experienced writers. This is the fifth time Kelly has offered this monologue class for TLAN. Author of three poetry collections, girl in tree bark, Tree of the Apple, and All These Cures, Kelly is also author of Before You Forget— The Wisdom of Writing Diaries for Your Children. Kelly’s award winning plays have been produced around the US and Canada, and are published by dramatic publishers. She founded and produced the Our Voices Festival of Women Playwrights at Wellesley College for twelve years, and she is a past president of Playwright's Platform, Boston. For the past five years, Kelly has led the week-long Play Lab Intensive at the annual conference of the International Women's Writing Guild. Kelly is a certified psychodramatist, former psychotherapist, and Fellow in the American Society for Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama. She founded Let’s Talk TLA, a bi-monthly tele-conference and poetry open mic for members of the Transformative Language Arts Association. Currently, Kelly serves on the board & faculty of The International Women’s Writing Guild. Kelly inspires readers of #NewThisDay - her daily photo-inspired blog - with her mindful reflections on a writing life. You can learn more about Kelly, at www.kellydumar.com.