Announcing PlayPenn's Seven New Classes for Spring 2026 Staring February 26!
- PlayPenn
- Feb 1
- 5 min read
Updated: Feb 18
What if your voice could shape the stories the world can’t stop talking about? Your voice is not a hobby. It’s the spark that moves an audience from silence to standing ovation. Are you ready to sharpen it?
PlayPenn’s Continuing Education classes are laboratories for big ideas, fearless craft, and training for artists who want more than inspiration. It is rigorous, hands on, artist-centered training that strengthens structure, character, dialogue, and dramatic tension. You’ll write. You’ll revise. You’ll discover what your work is truly capable of becoming.
All levels are welcome!
Emerging writers.
Working actors.
Musical storytellers.
Professional playwrights.
Creators who have an idea they cannot ignore.
Scholarships, payment plans, and reduced rates for returning PlayPenn and DGI students are available.
Thursdays and Mondays Online
Starts 2/26
Have you written a killer opening number for your new musical, but you can’t figure out what comes next? Did your first act close brilliantly, but are you're now struggling to open act two? Study with Daniel Lazour, co-writer of Night Side Songs currently at Lincoln Center, and learn new strategies and techniques to help get you past the sticking place.
Tuesdays Online
Starts 3/3
Discover the story of your play, how it works, and the ways in which your play moves forward through moment-to-moment analysis.
Wednesdays Online
Starts 3/4
Learn to write fearless plays that face the world through story and character. This class explores political playwriting as an act of human reflection and response with a strong emphasis on craft.
Mondays Online
Starts 3/23
Are you a playwright wondering how far your skills can take you in television and what tools you’ll need once they reach their limits? Learn how to adapt your craft to write compelling TV and streaming shows.
Wednesdays Online
Starts 3/25
Learn to master the musical theatre book through bold case study and hands-on creative work with Patrick Lazour, co-writer of Night Side Songs currently at Lincoln Center.
Tuesdays Online and In-Person July 18, 19, 20
Starts 4/14
A new offering for actors and writers of all levels who want to develop, refine, and ultimately present an original solo show. The program includes 13 weeks of online instruction, and a required three-day in-person rehearsal and presentation as part of our 2026 New Play Development Conference in Philadelphia.
Wednesdays Online
Starts 4/15
BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND! Develop stage and screen projects, get feedback, and join a supportive community of women 50+.
About Our 2026 Spring Instructors
Daniel Lazour is a musical theater composer. Projects include: We Live in Cairo (American Repertory Theater/New York Theatre Workshop - Directed by Taibi Magar), Night Side Songs (LCT3 at Lincoln Center Theatre 2026 - Directed by Taibi Magar), a stage adaptation of the Ritesh Batra's film The Lunchbox (Berkeley Repertory Theater 2026 - Directed by Rachel Chavkin), and a movie musical Challenger: An American Dream. He received a B.A. in music from Columbia University. He plays guitar, piano, and tin whistle and releases music regularly with his brother, Patrick under the name ofThe Lazours. @frereslazour
Pandora Scooter is an award-winning playwright, performer, and producer who has dedicated the last 25 years to producing new plays by marginalized playwrights. She is the founder of Playwright’s Circle @ Speranza, The American Theatre Group’s BIPOC PlayLab, and a co-founder of the Hallie Flanigan Women’s Play Series, which she created with the late Rosemary McLaughlin (1999–2002). For 30+ years, Pandora has been teaching script analysis, theatre history, playwriting, along with other writing courses. She has taught for Terry Knickerbocker Studio, Maggie Flanagan Studio, AMDA, Rider University, Drew University, and Rutgers University, the Dramatists Guild Institute, PlayPenn, and NYU. In 2021, she finished writing a book on her script analysis methodology called “The Bunsenki Method.”
winter miller is a founding member of 13Playwrights. winter makes and champions art to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Recent projects include: When Monica Met Hillary, the children’s book for Not A Cat, and the libretto for the opera No One Is Forgotten adapted from her play. Select work includes: Spare Rib, The Penetration Play, and Colored. Her play In Darfur premiered at The Public Theatre. A former journalist, winter wrote 70+ articles for The New York Times, and is profiled in The New Yorker, Bomb, New York Magazine, and NPR. Eartha Kitt once held her left hand for five minutes.
John Yearley wrote The Unrepeatable Moment (“Yearley is a master” – Huffington Post). His latest play, Triptych, had an extended run at The Barrow Group in New York City in fall 2024. 8 Minutes, 20 Seconds was workshopped by LABryinth Theatre Company and is published by TRW Plays. He is also the author of Leap (Mickey Kaplan New American Play Prize, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park), Ephemera (John Gassner Award), and Another Girl (PlayPenn). His works for young audiences include The Last Wish (Macy’s New Play Prize for Young Audiences). Short plays All in Little Pieces and A Low-Lying Fog are available through Samuel French. He has written for PBS Kids’ Arthur. He teaches playwriting, television writing, and screenwriting at Temple University, Drexel University, and the Barrow Group.
Patrick Lazour is an award-winning musical theater writer, working mostly with his brother Daniel. His original musicals have appeared at Philadelphia Theater Company, American Repertory Theater, New York Theater Workshop, and Lincoln Center. He has taught as part of PlayPenn, the Dramatists Guild Institute, and Lincoln Center Theater's Songwriter in the School Program.
Drawing on decades of experience in new play development, Che'Rae Adams, brings the same clarity and intention she discovered while working in the room with Luis Alfaro, Jon Bastian, Lee Blessing, Patricia Cardosa, Anthony Clarvoe, John DiFusco, Ken Hanes, Tony Kushner, Oliver Mayer, Ellen McLaughlin, Abi Morgan, Han Ong, Peter Parnell, Tim Toyoma, Alice Tuan, and Mac Wellman. Che’Rae has been the Producing Artistic Director of the LA Writers Center since 2006 where she develops new work with local writers. She was the Director of Operations and Programming for the Moss Theater in Santa Monica for seven years and has been the Development Executive for Playhouse Pictures Studios, Co-Artistic Director of the Road Theatre Company, and Managing Producer for the LA Women’s Theatre Festival. Che'Rae joined PlayPenn's staff as its second Artistic Director in 2023.
Angeline Larimer, MFA, MA, GCMH, is a playwright, dramaturg and the Executive Director of Propel New Works, a nonprofit organization that provides a variety of support for story development. Angeline is also a public health bioethicist, and an applied theatre professional who works at the intersection of health humanities, community, and theatre. Angeline incorporates applied theatre and ethics into health and medical education and community outreach, helping individuals share their stories while ensuring they retain ownership of their narratives. She utilizes methods and principles borrowed from verbatim theatre, narrative medicine, critical fabulation, and ethnodrama.
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