SCRIPTED: Pearls of Wisdom & How to Write a Short Play Summer Workshop

Scripted: Pearls of Wisdom & How to Write a Short Play

Five weekly sessions on Mondays begins on July 27 at 1:30 PM with a final performance of selected works on Sunday, August 30 at 2:30 PM

OVERVIEW

In fulfilling our mission to create opportunities for all ages to learn, explore and benefit from all aspects of theater arts while keeping the theater arts alive and highly accessible to all, The Sieminski Theater will collaborate with American Theater Group to offer a Summer Theater Workshop for adults and high school or college students to use their own “lived experiences” to inspire a new short play that they will write. The workshops will be made possible thanks to the Somerset County 2026 Local Arts Program Grant. These funds will also expand the Theater’s programming and access while also fulfilling our long-range plan to establish the Sieminski Theater as a co-presenting house developing original works.

Led by actor, playwright and Emmy Award nominee Jason Odell Williams, these workshops will be free of charge, open to the public, accessible to all and teach the craft of playwriting as well as the fundamentals of producing your own show.

These workshops will foster intergenerational learning by transforming the lived experiences of the students into 10 minute plays, culminating in a staged reading of their original pieces performed by other members of the workshop.

This six-week interactive workshop series offers students a unique hands-on guide to the art of playwriting, character creation, and stagecraft through group writing exercises, along with reading and discussing the work with each other. Participants gain a deeper understanding how theatre works and by the end of the workshop they will all have written their own short play.

SCHEDULE

The workshop meets once a week on Mondays from 1:30 – 3:30 at the Sieminski Theater.

Mondays: July 27, August 3, 10, 17, and 24

Final Performance, Sunday, August 30 at 2:30 PM. 

From the outset, students will learn about format and structure through in-class writing prompts and exercises. By week three each student will have an idea for their final scene. It can be something they’ve written in class or be a new idea. Weeks 4 and 5 will primarily be about developing and reading those scenes out loud to get a final version ready for the Aug 30th presentations. (NOTE: Final scenes can be anywhere between 5 and 10 minutes each.)