Playwriting

Paula Vogel, Chair

M.F.A. and Certificate

Yale School of Drama’s playwriting department is designed to guide the writer in finding strategies, honest and astonishing, that articulate the personal and cultural impulses for writing and making theatre. Playwrights work alongside their fellow theatre artists as they write plays for production. The playwright creatively and critically employs character recipes, narrative strategies, organizing principles of form, poetic images, political and aesthetic manifestos, sinewy language, and the plasticity of the stage to convey and challenge our private and public dreams. The goal of the department is to encourage the widest range of work possible, in a variety of mediums, and to mentor each playwright’s evolving understanding and translation of their voice.

Although the playwright writes the script, collaborators together write the production. When we say that theatre is a collaborative art form, we mean precisely that. Not only do we explore a wide range of strategies on the page taken from all periods and parts of the globe, but we also must be open to a wide range of approaches as playwrights in the rehearsal room, for it is here that plays are made. When to articulate one’s intention, when to watch, when to listen, when to question, and when to hold one’s ground — all of the process is explored through three years of production and collaborative opportunities.

Yale School of Drama’s playwriting program believes that every voice is unique: by intense submersion into a spectrum of aesthetics, literature and theory, the writer’s singular voice is strengthened. Throughout the year, playwrights take part in Boot Camp, Workshop, How Things Work, and at least one play in production. By engaging in the annual boot camp with other artists in the School of Drama, playwrights are able to begin a life-long conversation with a common language; short exercises sharpen our writers’ muscles. Each year, in addition to productions, The Collaborative Process (DRAM 50A), and the Yale Cabaret, the program hosts at least two bake-offs — short plays on assigned themes with assigned elements written within 48 hours.

Chair Paula Vogel and Associate Chair Ken Prestininzi are joined by core faculty members Lisa Kron, Lynn Nottage, and John Guare. The faculty also includes guest teachers with expertise in musical theatre, film and television writing, and other forms of dramatic writing and performance. In 2009-10, Michael Korie and Frank Pugliese, with others to be announced, join the core faculty. The department encourages playwrights to expand their horizons through elected study of design, dramaturgy, performance and production management, and expects each playwright to take courses that challenge them as critical thinkers and creative artists in the other departments at the School of Drama.