This is a two day intensive workshop to give students a crash course in everything they must consider when responsibly financing their work, whether it is in the independent film or theatre world. I will cover all of the various types of ways you can acquire funding and build partnerships for your projects. I will also cover a wide variety of scales of projects such as staged readings, workshops, and productions and how to properly budget for them.

Olivia Lilley is a screenwriter/playwright, director, and producer based in Chicago and New Orleans. She came up in Chicago’s Storefront Scene and is Artistic Director of Prop Thtr. She’s the founding Artistic Director of “The Runaways Lab Theatre” (Voted Best New Theatre Company in the Chicago Reader 2014) and was named one of NewCity Mag’s Chicago’s 50 Players Who Play 2019 Edition. She teaches at The Playwright’s Center, DePaul Theatre School, Phoenix Theatre in Indianapolis, and Chicago Dramatists. 
She holds a BFA in Directing from Carnegie Mellon School of Drama. She’s an MFA Candidate in Screenwriting at The University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Writer’s Workshop. 

In this class students will write or revise a full length play. Using a workshop class approach, students will have multiple opportunities to share their work for in-class feedback facilitated by the instructor. Students are welcome to bring plays at any stage of development. We will take a holistic approach to examining each other’s work—not only focusing on plot, but on all the theatrical elements that can be utilized for storytelling (i.e. imagery, metaphor, structure, etc.). Not only will students deepen their writing craft, they will also develop their ability to give feedback to peers.

Eric Micha Holmes is a playwright and audio-dramatist whose work has been heard on Audible (“Rapture Season”), the BBC (“Care Inc.”), and seen at The National Black Theatre (“Mondo Tragic”),  The New Black Fest (“Pornplay; or, Blessèd Are The Meek”), New York Theatre Workshop (“Nimpsey Pink”), and Guild Hall (“Falls For Jodie”). Residencies and fellowships include Djerassi Artist Residency, The Dramatist Guild Fellowship, Space At Ryder Farm, and the ‘I Am Soul’ Playwright’s Residency at The National Black Theatre. “Walking Next To Michael Brown: Confessions Of A Tragic Mulatto,” was commissioned by The New Black Fest and has toured with Kennedy Center’s Civic Artist Award winning “Hands Up: 7 Playwrights / 7 Testaments” to theaters across the country including The Alliance Theatre, The Brooklyn Museum Of Art, Red Door Theatre, Crowded Fire Theatre, The Museum Of The Moving Image, The Hansberry Project, and Flashpoint Theatre.

Designed as an ongoing resource for experienced playwrights and now in its 15th 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.

Get on stage! This workshop is for actors, playwrights and storytellers of all levels who want to work on the development of a one-person show or long-form narrative. Each week offers an opportunity to develop your work with the goal of advancing to production readiness with a 15-minute solo piece and public reading. The class offers supportive feedback, structure, and cheerleading. It is designed to serve you and your personal creative goals.  This class consists of: 
– Five Writing sessions. 
– One Performance Skills class. 
– A Rehearsal session with a director
– A public performance and feedback session on Zoom and (optional on the stage) at Chicago Dramatists Saturday Series. In every class, we employ materials and concepts for development. Each week you have the opportunity to work in front of the class. You will give and get supportive feedback.  Every week you will get assignments to push their work forward.

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.

This generative/workshop-based class is dedicated to empowering emerging dramatists to hone the timbre of their voice, and deepen their understanding of the craft of playwriting. Sessions will be an even mix of generating/workshopping student material, dissecting the work of great dramatists, open discussion, and a variety of writing exercises and prompts all dedicated towards sparking students’ creative impulse. Writers will be led on an in-depth exploration of character development, the essence of plot structure, the importance of theatricality, and how to write dynamic and vibrant action between characters, in order to propel their play forward. All students will have the option to bring in work they’ve developed previously to be workshopped within class, or can develop pieces during the course of the class itself. The course will culminate in an online reading of student work, read by professional actors and performed for an invited audience.

Ean Miles Kessler is a playwright, theater educator, storyteller, and horse trainer. His jobs have run the gamut: he’s processed poultry, worked briefly at Fedex loading trucks, bartended in New Orleans for Mardi Gras, and is currently a ranch hand in Montana, where he gentles mustangs. A Rutgers BFA Acting graduate, Ean studied at Shakespeare’s Globe in England under esteemed director and Tony nominee Tim Carroll. His plays have been produced nationally and internationally, and his work has been published by Vintage Books. His plays have been developed with a variety of companies, including: The Playwrights’ Center, Chicago Dramatists Saturday Series, and Naked Angels among others. Previously, Ean was the Network Director at Chicago Dramatists, where he taught “Deconstructing the American West,” and “Thieves of Shakespeare.” He is thrilled to be back working with his Chicago family.

The third Golden Age of Television is upon us and the opportunities have never been greater. This class is for anyone who has an idea (any genre) that could make a great series and who wants to learn the crucial basics of how to write it.  We will study and analyze successful pilots to learn the form and craft of writing for television. We will tease out/explore the inherent possibilities in your idea, where it fits in the web, television and streaming landscape, how to position the idea, what makes for great TV characters, visual storytelling, budgetary considerations, proper story structure, and proper formatting.  And you’ll write and rewrite.  Leave this workshop with the makings of a pitch document, a deeper understanding of the the process of creation that optioned shows go through, a stronger grasp of the language that writers/producers/agents speak when talking business, and the beginnings of a rough draft of your very own TV pilot.

Mary Ruth Clarke co-wrote and starred in the original Meet the Parents and co-adapted it into the blockbuster version, starring Robert De Niro. Her dramedy teleplay Broadway, Ohio is a finalist in the Chicago Screenplay Awards, Page Turner Awards, and a semi finalist at Sundance Labs. Her comedy screenplay Alice and Celia and Whatever It Takes is a finalist for the Lit Laughs Comedy Film Festival and the Chicago Comedy Film Festival, and a is a semi finalist in the Chicago Screenplay Awards. Mary Ruth’s students are staffed on the TV shows Queens, Woke, and Family Reunion. She consults for clients in LA and Chicago, and she has critiqued about a gazillion plays and screenplays. She’s a regular guest lecturer at the Chicago Screenwriter’s Network and the Off Campus Writer’s Group. She is a member of the Writer’s Guide of America East and the Dramatists Guild.

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.

For over a decade, Michael Bassett has taught playwriting, screenwriting, and dramatic structure & theatrical process at Loyola University Chicago. As an actor & playwright, Michael was a member of the celebrated Circle Rep Lab (Circle East) in New York. His plays have been produced in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. He is a two-time Hawthorndon Fellowship recipient, received a Sloan Science and Technology Commission, and was a keynote speaker for the Arts/Science International Conference at the Museum of Natural History in New York City. He has won honors at the Hiroshima, Athens and Rochester Film and Video festivals respectively for his experimental film, The Other. He was one of the film editors for Hyperbaric Productions award-winning documentary, By the People. He has written and directed a number of projects through 13Carat Productions, (13carat.com) including Theatre, Dance, Film, Photography, and Multi-Media installations.