Writing The Play That Only You Can Write with Sarah Mantel (Zoom)

What is your favorite play? Does it feel like it arrived fully formed from the brain of its author? Does reading it make you feel like you know that person even if you’ve never met? That’s because the best plays are created when writers are honest about what makes them scared, and joyful, and ashamed, and excited (often all at the same time.) The best plays are created when we excavate our brains and write honestly about the wild things we find there. In this workshop, I will lead you through a series of exercises–list making, free writing, and world building–until you you find yourself writing the play that only you can write. 

This is a 6-week course meeting on Monday nights, from 6:30-8:30 p.m., on September 8, 15, 22, 29, October 6, and October 20. (Zoom)

Bio: Sarah Mantell (they/them) is the recipient of the 2023 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for In the Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot (Playwrights Horizons), longlisted for the Bruntwood Prize for The Good Guys (Second Stage), and first-runner up for the Leah Ryan Award for Everything That Never Happened (Baltimore Center Stage, Boston Court Pasadena, Oregon Shakespeare Festival). Their other plays include Tiny (Seven Devils, Seattle Rep), and Fight Call (Breaking the Binary, Artists Rep.) They have been awarded residencies with MacDowell, Yaddo, Wildacres, Hedgebrook, Fresh Ground Pepper, Jentel, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and SPACE on Ryder Farm, as well as a Toulmin grant, an Edgerton Foundation grant, and a Playwrights Realm Writing Fellowship. Teaching credits include Wesleyan University, SUNY Purchase, Occidental College, University of Vermont, and Worcester Polytechnic. BFA Rhode Island School of Design. MFA Yale School of Drama.