Class Description

Instructor: winter miller Semester: Spring 2026 Sessions: 10 Sessions/10 Weeks New Students: $600 Returning PlayPenn or DGI Students: $525 Foundry or Entrepreneur Members: $480 DGI Certificate Students: $480 How do we respond to the world through story? This class explores political playwriting as an act of human reflection and response with a strong emphasis on craft. Students will focus on taking stories with political meaning and filling them with vivid, compelling characters who draw audiences in. Rather than leading with message or ideology, the class centers character as the engine of your play, allowing big ideas to emerge through action, desire, and conflict. The class examines how playwrights can engage what is happening in the world without falling into didacticism or feeling pressure to “get it right”. Through discussion, writing exercises, and regular page sharing, students will explore how to move beneath the surface of an issue to uncover the personal, emotional, and contradictory layers that make a play feel alive. Emphasis is placed on writing that is deeply human, theatrically engaging, and rooted in story rather than argument. Students will develop new or ongoing plays, working to clarify the central question of their work, deepen character and strengthen plot and structure so that political meaning arises organically from storytelling. This class is designed to support risk taking, curiosity and rigor helping writers create plays that invite audiences into a conversation while grappling with the urgent ideas of the present moment. Week 1: Beginnings Week 2: The World We Enter Week 3: What We Carry Week 4: Story and Myth Week 5: The Central Question Week 6: What We’re Afraid to Say Week 7: The Human Engine of Your Characters Week 8: Plot and Momentum Week 9: Listening to the Work Week 10: Writing Forward 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.