Class Description

Instructor: Mathilde Dratwa (Playwright) Semester: Winter 2026 10-Week Session PlayPenn Foundry or Cohort Members: $480 Returning PlayPenn or DGI Students: $525 New Students: $600 What makes a play theatre? This class is an invitation to think beyond story and into the uniquely live, communal magic of the stage. We’ll investigate how theatricality shows up on the page—in form, in style, in the way a script calls on actors, designers, and audiences to co-create an experience. Together, we’ll experiment with everything from minimalism to spectacle, metatheatrical games to stage magic, discovering how each choice can amplify meaning. The entry point is curiosity—whether you’re starting something new or reshaping an existing draft, you’ll leave with pages that fully embrace the stage as your medium. Week 1: What Makes It Theatre? — Distinguishing plays from fiction, film, and TV. In-class exercise: reimagine a prose scene as a theatrical moment. Week 2: Space as Stage Partner — How environment, architecture, and absence of scenery shape storytelling. Week 3: The Audience as Collaborator — Direct address, complicity, and theatrical conventions. Week 4: Spectacle vs. Minimalism — Exploring scale: bold stagecraft versus radical simplicity. Week 5: Playing with Form — Nonlinear structures, repetition, chorus, and fragmentation. Week 6: Magical Realism & Metatheatricality — Breaking realism, breaking the fourth wall. Week 7: Style & Genre as Theatrical Lens — Comedy, tragedy, absurdism, farce, documentary. Week 8: Character & Theatrical Voice — How characters embody theme through gesture, rhythm, silence. Week 9: Revision for the Stage — Moving from page to stage-readiness. Peer workshop of selected scenes. Week 10: Building Toward a Draft — Sustaining theatricality across a full play. Mathilde Dratwa (playwright) is a Belgian playwright and screenwriter based in Brooklyn. Her plays include "Dirty Laundry" (WP Theater, Audible, Henley Rose Award, Kernodle Award), "Milk & Gall" (Theatre503, London), and "A Play about David Mamet Writing a Play about Harvey Weinstein". Her work has been developed and presented by the Ground Floor at Berkeley Rep, the Ojai Playwrights Conference, Roundabout Theatre Company, Rattlestick, Berkshire Theatre Group, American Players Theatre, LAByrinth Theater Company, Cape Cod Theatre Project, and the Young Vic.