Discover, Explore, Experiment, and write!
Discover the core principles of dramatic writing by reading established plays.
Explore your unique voice through writing exercises.

In Fundamentals, you will become familiar with the components of dramatic structure and format, receive tools to explore your unique voice and how to give and receive usable feedback, grasp the difference between dialog and conversation, and will write a 10-minute play or 1st 10 pages of a larger work by applying what you have learned.

Marsha Estell is a resident playwright alumna at Chicago Dramatists, 2010 3Arts/Ragdale Fellow, and recipient of the Illinois Arts Council Fellowship for Playwriting. Her plays include Heat, which had its world premiere at Chicago Dramatists and was nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award for Outstanding New Work and many other award-winning works. She teaches playwriting, and solo performance workshops around the country. She is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild, SAG/AFTRA and Actors Equity.

Designed as an ongoing resource for experienced playwrights and now in its 16th year, Scene Shop offers weekly character, scene, and story tools to help you develop your script, professional actors to read your work, and constructive group feedback to help you evaluate your progress. If you ever need to miss a session, you can always make it up in the other Scene Shop section that week. Workshop members are eligible to participate in the Scene Shop Showcase, a night of staged readings presented twice yearly in the Russ Tutterow Theatre.

Will Dunne is the author of THE DRAMATIC WRITER’S COMPANION (2009, Second Edition 2017), THE ARCHITECTURE OF STORY (2016), and CHARACTER, SCENE, AND STORY (2017) all published internationally by the University of Chicago Press. His plays have been presented worldwide in three languages and earned numerous honors, including three selections by the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center for the U.S. National Playwrights Conference, a Charles MacArthur Fellowship awarded by the O’Neill for outstanding comedy, four Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Awards, two DramaLogue Playwriting Awards, and a Best-of-Year mention from the San Francisco Examiner. He also has been nominated for a Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Play and twice been named a finalist for the Heideman Award at the Actors Theatre of Louisville.

In this course, we will focus on generating new work and discovering the processes and methods that best support your ongoing writing practice. Each week, writing prompts and page count goals will be given. Everyone will share their work out loud and receive structured feedback from the instructor and fellow students. Students can expect to leave the class with at least 40 pages of new work.

Nina Morrison is a playwright, screenwriter and stage director. Her plays have been presented in New York City at Dixon Place, Fordham University, the HOT! Festival of Queer Performance, the NY International Fringe Festival, and the Little Theatre series, among others. She was a finalist for New Dramatists in 2018 and 2019, as well as a finalist for the Jerome in 2019. Nina was the Provost’s Postgraduate Visiting Writer in Playwriting 2019-2020 at the University of Iowa. She was also the recipient of an artist’s residency at Dixon Place and a WORKSPACE writer’s residency at the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. MFA Iowa Playwrights Workshop. ninamorrison.com

This workshop is designed for solo artists & storytellers, actors, playwrights and lovers of words of all levels – who want to work on the development of a one-person show or story for the stage. The class will focus on: 1. Cultivating your unique style and the voice of your story. 2- Rubrics for creating the world of the play. The universal truth, inciting incident and quest. 3- Designing structure, development of plot, characters and techniques to manipulate storyteller/audience relationship. This can include work at any stage of development from an idea to a finished piece. Each week offers an opportunity to develop material, class exercises and time to work individually to get personalized coaching with the goal of getting your work in the world. I am here to be your cheerleader and vision keeper. Bring your ideas, an open mind and your a sense of adventure!

Arlene Malinowski has been performing and teaching Solo & Story for over 25 years. Her award-winning solo works have been performed throughout the US and internationally. She views her solo work as an artistic expression of her social justice work in the area of Deafness and disability. Her plays include, A Little Bit Not Normal, Full Disclosure, Aiming for Sainthood, What Does the Sun Sound Like, Interrobang and It’s Whampo, Time. She is the recipient of 3Arts/UIC fellowship, LA Ovations award, LA Garland Award. Finalist in New Plays from Heartland, semi-finalist Blue Ink award, and the O’Neil. As an actor and storyteller, she has performed on stages in LA and Chicago including Goodman, Steppenwolf and Victory Gardens. She has taught at College of the Canyons and Master-classes nationwide. She is a Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists where she’s developed the Solo & Story curriculum.