Christopher Durang: Scene draft

You are welcome to read any of Durang's plays this period. I recommend St. Mary Ignatius Explains it All for You or the Actor's Nightmare. During the weekend, feel free to read any of the plays you haven't yet read from this collection, as we will be moving on to our last work when we get back from Memorial Day Break.

Writing Task:

If you are not reading today, or have finished reading, please write a Durang-esque scene, play. Your play may be a parody, dark comedy, or satire. You may work with up to one other author on this project. If you are working with another author as a collaboration, agree on plot points, a setting and characters, but assign the dialogue responsibility to one of you. That writer is then responsible for writing the dialogue of that specific character. Of course, you may help suggest and assist if your partner gets stuck, but move it along without the digression working with a partner might cause.

Here are a few tropes and ideas gleaned from Durang's work:

• a character with a psychological problem. For a list of psychological problems, look here.
• God being cruel or a religious issue examined (does not have to be Christian, or Catholic!)
• a family or couple in crisis
• a homosexual character
• absurd violence (over the top violence)
• a parody of a famous play, story, or author's work. The easiest thing to do is pick an author or genre of writing that makes you cringe and write about it, exposing the goofiness of the style or characters
• Pick a serious issue (homelessness, or substance abuse, or suicide, etc.) and poke fun at it  

Write a scene using any of the above or any other idea you can come up with based on Durang's work.

HOMEWORK: Complete your play draft, or finish reading Christopher Durang's collection of plays.