Here are the guidelines for your end-of-unit reflection:
- In your Reflection, I want you to discuss the following:
- What did you learn in this unit? Be sure to provide specific examples and page numbers.
- What did you find interesting/uninteresting in this unit?
- What challenged you in this unit? What came easy?
- After experiencing this unit, what do you look forward to trying out in your short fiction assignment?
- Reflections must be AT LEAST 200 words.
- Include your full name at the end of your reflection. Unnamed comments will be deleted.
- From the "Comment As" drop-down menu, choose Anonymous, then click "Publish."
- This Reflection is due by midnight on Thursday, 11/8, no exceptions.
During the playwriting unit, I learned that both playwriting and screenwriting are similar yet totally different genres. For example, their formats do differ and while performing a play, an actor can mess up and the performance still goes on while in a film, the director yells “CUT!” and the performance is halted abruptly.
ReplyDeleteAfter experiencing this unit, I did get intrigued for a brief amount of time on the creation and execution of a play. However, like I said before, it passed quickly as it came. I was just interested in the content (or story) of the play rather than the creation and execution of it. Additionally, on some readings, I felt that some play was too “unreal” for my tastes and sometimes “unnatural”.
Furthermore, I found the creation of a play quite tedious. Questioning on whether the characters are believable for my audience, the dialogue significant in the play, the story is engaging to the viewers and so forth. I do ask these questions while a story in the genres of flash fiction, short fiction, and novel, but it is different since I’m mildly experienced in one while the other is a total stranger. However, some things did come easy to me such as character creation and story idea development while creating my own ten-minute play myself.
After learning this unit, I do plan on incorporating some of the techniques from playwriting from the discussions and readings in my own assignment in playwriting as well as use those same techniques in my future screenwriting. Overall, I don’t playwriting isn’t for me and that I won’t be advancing toward the craft.
Jose Contreras | 271 words
Of all the sections covered in the course so far, playwriting has been my personal favorite, since I am studying and developing my skills to use for screenwriting and maybe even write a couple plays in my future as well. For what was brought to me as new lessons along my education towards my career, these include developing believable characters and ones that did not fit into a stereotype (Page 238), the difference it makes when writing a play versus a film, to allow whatever comes to mind to be put on my paper and mold it to its perfect form throughout the developing process and to use dialogue to help develop not only the personalities of my characters, but as well as their story through small pieces (Page 273). What was interesting about this unit was how the author of each story had a different way of telling it. Such as Dan Dietz’s Trash Anthem (Page 305-309), where the Woman and the boots of her dead husband spoke directly to the audience or in David Ives Sure Thing (Pages 240-248) had the presence of a bell that would have the interaction between Bill and Betty to restart at a certain point. Another aspect I took in was that what is written on paper may or may not transfer well enough to deliver the author’s vision when it comes to putting it on stage. An example would be Tina Howe’s The Divine Fallacy (Page 255-261), the scene where Victor and Dorothy are chasing each other seems a bit silly when I picture it on a stage in front of a live audience. Now as far as what was challenging about this was when I had to write my own characters because I felt as though they were too easily made as if they were a bit in my comfort zone as far as making characters go. But it does want me to go further out when developing the characters I put on paper. Typing out the stories was easy because I have written other stories before and I refer to place I have been to in my life for locations to use in my stories. With this lesson in the books, I look forward to developing my characters further, create unique conflicts and interactions and making more unique characters that will help me push myself on the creative bound.
ReplyDelete-Michael Lucio
In this unit, I learned that the stage is equally as important to the script. The unit showed me that having both elements successfully will make for a unique atmosphere for the audience. It was interesting watching the video of Proxima B being performed because it gave more insight on how the playwright is supposed to be performed. Even though we saw it in a class setting, it was still enjoyable to analyze. Since Proxima B was also created by our teacher, it also gave hope that any one of us can create something equally or even of greater quality. Writing a play, however, that was the challenging aspect of this unit. I found it difficult to come up with dialogue, characters, and overall theme for something that can be performed. My problem was mainly finding a theme that would be enjoyable for anyone attending. There was a lot of self-doubt in this unit, but I think trying to compile something creative is a good thing. Next time I write one, it will get better, and hopefully I will be able to create something greater for the play that I wrote for this class. I look forward to progress in my craft after being exposed to this unit.
ReplyDelete-Valerie Valentin
In this playwriting unit, I have a split opinion about it. The format is somewhat similar to screenwriting but also differs because there are certain aspects that while for me weren’t that difficult, did have me pondering a bit while I was writing my play. To me, creating characters, settings, choosing the type of dialogue and things of the sort comes easy once I have an idea of where I want to take it. However, I’m not sure if I’d like to pursue playwriting past this assignment as I feel it’s too technical and you have to be aware that at the end it is meant to be performed on a stage by actors and not something to be read, Trash Anthem being a good example. Though, I did very much enjoy reading the different plays and saw for myself how plays can approach all kinds of genres and subjects (Trying to Find Chinatown). When I think of plays or well actors performing in plays, the only real knowledge I have on it and prefer to watch are musicals. Yet, I found certain plays like Sure Thing and Love on the B-Line to be some of my favorites with their unique storyline (Sure Thing) or sweet meaning (Love on the B-Line), maybe because I’m a little bit of a romantic and even without it being designed as a play I can picture it easily. Overall, I am looking forward to seeing how my play will come out once it is completed and will continue to apply the guides given in the chapter if I have any trouble.
ReplyDelete- Savannah Lopez
I learned that writing plays forces you to create variety of too many dialogues sentences of the same length and rhythm will put an audience to sleep--and at the same time, it's great practice in capturing the rhythm of how characters speak. And equally important, writing plays means valuable practice in creating subtext through dialogue. Then, when you go back to your screenplay and have only a few lines with which to work, each one will have that crispness, sparkle and meaning. Also settings play an important role in writing a play. You can jump from one setting to another, in another word you don’t have the luxury of being able to change sets at the drop of a hat. The playwright is forced to select a place in time carefully, and maximize the action that can take place there. Characters are important too. When writing a play you should focus on the context and at the same time think about the audience because you don’t want your play to be boring. The easy part of a play is when you are seating and watching a real play with characters on a stage playing. My favorite plays were the Proxima-B and Love on the B-Line by Adam Kraar.
ReplyDelete-Fatimata Traore
During this unit I learned that writing a play is a lot more difficult than it might seem. I learned how valuable dialogue can be for plays and screenwriting and how there's a huge difference in reading a play and seeing it performed. In "Proxima B" for example, the dialogue in it was really well included and made the play really interesting and immersive. However, though, I also realized by reading this play that sometimes just reading might not be enough as it might leave you confused and leaving you wanting to see it performed. Prior to this unit, I never really thought about the impact well written dialogue could have in a work. In "Trying to find Chinatown" I enjoyed how it depicted the concept of stereotypes and felt that if it were to be performed it would be a treat for the eyes. I found the whole process of writing a play difficult. I don't consider myself to be creative so to come up with dialogue or any deep concepts that had deeper meaning within it was challenging for me. However, now that I know how impactful dialogue can be I plan to incorporate it in my future short story assignments. And hopefully use the dialogue to further enhance the development of my characters and give them more depth.
ReplyDeleteAdrian Martinez
The main thing that I learned in this unit was how to structure a play. Page 262 in the Starkey book specifically was extremely helpful in showing me how to do so. Even if it seems a little forced or impersonal to be following what’s essentially a formula for writing it helped me to get a good grasp on what it was I supposed to be doing. In fact, the entire section of “Structuring the ten-minute play” was extremely helpful to me; even just simple words of advice like “Never work with children or dogs” made me better aware of some of the realities of play-writing that I hadn’t considered before.
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting part of this unit for me was being able to meet with the directors for Proxima B and actually see what goes on behind the scene of actually putting on a play. I know that in reading a script or watching a performance there’s a lot that goes into personal analysis and interpretation and the sorts, but I didn’t realize how much also went into actual directing. It was fascinating to hear all these different interpretations and how they decided to apply them to the actual production. It makes feel as though being a director is like being a direct extension of the writer himself, which is something I never really considered.
I found reading and discussing plays in this unit to be easier than writing them. While I did have several ideas for what to write about, for some reason they all fell short when I actually went to write them out. Part of the reason might be that I’m not used to writing this genre, but I also feel that for this unit we were given more requirements but less guidance on how to actually incorporate them. I had mixed feelings about it at the time, but now I’m actually grateful that we had to draw a complication/flaw and setting for the short fiction unit. I think that would have been even more beneficial for this unit given how unfamiliar writing drama is to most of us. I do look forward, however, to toying around with things like the setting or the sounds, objects, etc. Even if I probably won’t be putting on any of my work I like to think about how the sensory aspects might affect it, since so much of one’s response to a play depends on how all these different little details are brought to life.
Elizabeth Garza
The use of characters as a means to carry your play, that is, to center the theme of your play and message around the interaction of two or more characters, was something I wasn't expecting to be such a monumental factor in the ten-minute play. This unit focused on having at the least 2 characters for the sole reason of keeping the play focused on the theme and for time restraints but it goes deeper than that. Having a ten-minute cap means having to, akin to the short story segment, choose your words wisely and make every sentence count, to flesh out your characters but also giving the reader’s enough room to make their own conclusions. In Halvorson’s “Now We're Really Getting Somewhere”, Kristina chooses her words carefully. Every line further adds to the plot and rise of conflict and enough to both cause reactions and leave room for ambiguity (e.g. Jen, the cynist’s “I'm doing the best I can” to reveal her struggle). Ambiguities are also another player in the drama unit. Moreira and Kraar both employ this feature in Proxima B’s hopeful but open-ended conclusion (i.e. Judy’s ending monologue and singing together) and Love on the B-Line’s ambiguous close for Robbie and Marie (“it's okay” “it's okay?” “Yeah”). The atmosphere, setting, props, stage directions, and dialogue are the face of the play, so it's important to get these right or risk not having the impact you desire when writing is over (e.g. the performance for Love on a B-Line was received with mixed reviews and this affected the analysis of the play alone). These building blocks are what I find interesting for this section. Having never truly pondered in the playwright section of literature, I had never really thought of what went into the making of a play and later production. Having a successful production warrants a solid foundation of a play and the act of seeing your work performed is very important, seeing as how the interpretation of a work holds the chance to experience the play in a very different way to simply reading it. What i didn't find interesting was the way the format is used. It's an almost minimalistic view and relies heavily on dialogue and while I can see the success in that (e.g. Shakespeare), i still prefer the descriptive writing that goes into fiction work. Having the dialogue be on point with the message I was trying to deliver is one way I was challenged in this unit. It's not so simple to churn out a few pages of dialogue and call it a play. After this unit, I really look forward to playing with dialogue and truly leaving an impact on anyone who reads my work or if it ever gets the chance to be performed.
ReplyDeleteSandra Martinez
In drama, dialogue is the most important factor in making a good play. Stage directions are important, but from the discussions I see that it can be subjective, left up to interpretation for the director so long as the script has enough to work with. My fiction stories usually have too much of dialogue or description at a time, so for me playwrighting would be the ideal way to vent the dialogue writing out all at once. “Love on the B-Line” had to be one of my favorite plays in this section, for writing in realistic dialogue but also being very heavy in its own tone. My main problem with drama is the rants, most people in real life do not go on poetic rants, even when pushed to the edge such as in “Proxima B”. In my own play, characters that go on rants are legitimately unstable, and large portions of dialogues coming from normal individuals has to be limited and not overbearing. I think that maybe it is an element of style in this section, to represent humanity but spice it up. More interesting, wild dialogue will impress the audience, as how movies from the 70’s and 80’s had dramatic, corny acting that still evoked stronger emotions than today’s cinematic experience. I believe that I will try to be more subtle, and take those elements from the play’s we’ve read, but also give myself the liberty of spicing up the worlds I create in playwrighting.
ReplyDelete-Kedrick Wyatt
During this unit, I learned mostly about formatting for plays. I learned that plays cannot be read like a short story or novel, but once you learn how to read the formatting (not brushing off any random paragraph!), then it can set a picture just like any other fiction or nonfiction creative piece. Formatting, overall, seemed key.
ReplyDeleteGoing into the unit, I didn’t know about plays at all except what I’d seen from the UTRGV’s rendition of Bonnie and Clyde and listening to the audios of Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen. With only this, the actual formatting for the screenplay writing was a mystery at first. I had to begin by copying the provided example exactly, then cutting out bits and pieces and adding in my own information.
Something that is still difficult for me is understanding the “On Stage” section of this chapter, where the book diagrams the different directions of the stage for a play. I’ve only ever seen one play, so it seems understandable to me why this would be easy to brush off. However, if I actually am interested in screenplay writing in the future, I know I’ll have to learn these.
What came easy was dialogue. I love dialogue. I’m an English major for dialogue.
I will definitely write more screenplays in the future, and maybe even look into writing for the big screen (or a small one). By far the most interesting and fun unit.
Raquel Williams
This was easy for me due to the fact I'm taking scriptwriting so I been writing in this format since August. And it also help when you (our professor) were using the "beat" in your play. So yeah, I learned most of it due to my scriptwriting teacher so thanks professor. I liked love in the b line the most out of it because I'm sucker for couple story and the way they use the location. My least favorite is Promixe B. I have yet to find out what it was talking about. I actually read it again and yeah my opinion hasn't changed. For my play I use the location to help set the mood and how the character doesn't seem to fit and it help tell a story where it's set in one place expect of multiple places. So yeah this subject kinda felt like refresher course so yeah that's about it.
ReplyDeleteJuan Carlos Guerra
Through this unit of playwriting, I've come to experience what it is like to read a play in which I am not only able to grasp a fair understanding of, but I have also been able to see what it is like to feel something from what I have read. Although, I cannot say that this case is the same for some of the other plays that I have read, since I have often felt nothing other than the mere sense of confusion by the end of reading certain works. However, one of my favorite things about this unit was being able to visually see some of the plays that we covered, acted out and performed by not only classmates but other people as well. I found it to be quite interesting in recognizing the ways in which my interpretations of the plays differed from the experience I had watching them as compared to what I understood them to be like through reading them. For example, when I read "Love on the B-Line" by Adam Kraar, I imagined there to be a much more serious tone existing between the characters of Marie and Robbie, but when I saw the play being acted out by people, I was immediately able to spot a difference in how their interactions with one another on the stage were unlike how it seemed to be in my head. After having learned more about playwriting and experienced what it is like to actually enjoy this form of writing, I look forward to trying to create a play that is engaging. So far, I've found it difficult to bring the dialogue in my play up from being one-dimensional, to becoming something more insightful and more than an ordinary conversation. In doing such, I plan to work on creating a short play that can hopefully exemplify something more intricate.
ReplyDeleteKimberly Cervantes