Horse Trade Theater Group, “arguably the epicenter of the independent theatre world in New York” (Leonard Jacobs), is happy to announce its next series of playwriting workshops for 2010/2011.

All classes will be held at

The Red Room
at 85 East 4th Street
between 2nd and 3rd Avenue
third floor
 
Classes are $50.00 each.  20% discount when buying 3 or more classes.

Registration deadline is the first of the month for each month's class.

Early registration is recommended as each class will be capped at 6 people to insure that all writers' work gets significant time to be workshopped.

Contact submission@horsetrade.info or call 212-777-6088 to register.  

Horse Trade's plawriting workshops series is back! In 2009 Horse Trade Theatre Group launched it's first ever workshop series for playwrights at all stages of their career. These innovative monthly workshops were led by some of the most unique and up-and-coming talents in New York Theatre and designed to give aspiring playwrights a new perspective on their writing process. In addition, to further the growth of their own work, workshop attendees brought in a 10 minute piece or excerpt for critique.

This year Horse Trade has gathered another group of trail blazing, emerging voices to lead each workshop including Alena Smith ( Public Theatre's 2009 Emerging Writers Group), Pia Wilson(Public Theatre’s 2008 Emerging Writers Group), Derek Lee McPhatter (Freedom Train Productions 2009 Resident Playwright), Suzanne Dottino (Samuel French Short play finalist, curator of KGB's fiction reading series), and Paul David Young (Paula Vogel Playwriting Award winner). Anyone at any stage of their career will benefit from this vibrant, intimate setting.

Class information:

November 21, 2010
Lovers and Fighters: Playwriting Through Character
with Alena Smith

February 26, 2011
Writing Great Characters
with Pia Wilson

March 12, 2011
On the way from Page to Stage
with Derek Lee McPhatter

April 3, 2011
Aristotelean Poetics
with Paul David Young

May 1, 2011
Your Rewrite
with Suzanne Dottino

Workshop Leaders

Class Description: An intensive, generative playwriting course centered on the discovery and development of dramatic characters. Beginning from the premise that great plays emerge from great characters, we ask the question: Where do great characters come from? The course will guide students through a sequence of playwriting exercises designed to open up this problem in a number of fun and exciting ways.

Alena Smith’s plays have been seen/developed at the Public Theater, Playwrights Horizons, Joe’s Pub, the Summer Play Festival, A.R.T. Institute, the Ohio Theatre, P.S. 122, Chashama, the Foundry, and the Yale Cabaret. Outside of the U.S., her work has been seen at the Southwark Playhouse in London, and at Theater Bielefeld in Bielefeld, Germany. She was a member of the Public’s 2009 Emerging Writers Group, and was a 2008-09 Artist Fellow in Playwriting with the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA). MFA, Yale School of Drama; ASCAP Cole Porter Prize in Playwriting.

Class Description: Oedipus Rex, Medea, Hamlet, Willy Loman, Blanche DuBois. Complex characters drive good plays, and strong characterization lends a richness to dialogue. This workshop will help writers develop the skills they need to create three-dimensional, authentic characters that are engaging and provocative

Pia Wilson received a 2009 Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. She is a member of the 2009 Project Footlight team of composers and librettists and a member of the 2008 inaugural Emerging Writers Group at The Public Theater. Pia is also a 2009 resident in the Women's Work Lab at New Perspectives Theatre. Her full-length drama, Red Rooster, was a part of the Emerging Writers Spotlight Series at The Public Theater. All the Pretty Girls was featured in The Looking Glass Theatre's Spring 2009 Writer/Director Forum. The River Pure for Healing was part of the 2008 Resilience of the Spirit play festival. Her play, Tree of Life, received a 2007 workshop production at The Red Room Theater. Short plays and one-acts: The Things Tom Left Behind (The Drafts 10 Minute Play Festival: Six Plays About Hope); End of the World (New Perspectives Theatre's "By Popular Demand" festival); Dressed In Your Dreams (Stagecrafter's New Works Play Festival); Do You Proud (Eclectic Theater Company's "Got a Minute?" play festival); Whatever and Delicately (Groove Mama Ink; The Looking Glass Theatre's Spring 2008 Writer/Director Forum); The Rooster Never Crows (OneHeart Productions).

Class Description: Dramatic Writer and Producer Derek Lee McPhatter will lead this course focused on the drafting and revision process for works-in-progress. The emphasis of this class is on TEXT, with an understanding that material is already written with the hope of eventually making it to the stage in a live performance environment. Please come to this class with something written down on paper that you can share. By the way, this is Drafting Drama for the STAGE. Please do not bring in film or TV scripts.

Class Description: Paul David Young’s Balcony Scene 2010 was performed at MoMA PS1 September 11, 16, and 23, 2010, as part of the museum’sGreater New York exhibition. He won the Kennedy Center’s 2009 Paula Vogel Playwriting Award. His work has been developed or produced at the Alliance Theater of Atlanta, the Kennedy Center, the Kraine Theater, La Mama E.T.C., the Lion’s Theater on Theater Row, the Living Theatre, LMAK Projects, New York Theater Workshop, Primary Stages, Philadelphia University of the Arts, the Red Room, and, in Icelandic, at the Kaffileikhusid in Reykjavik, Iceland. He is a Djerassi resident artist in October/November 2010. In 2008, he co-curated with Franklin Evans the exhibition Perverted by Theater at apexart. He is a regular contributor to PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art (MIT Press).

Class Description: Hallelujah! You’ve finished a first draft of your play. Now what? Rewriting is a necessary part of the playwriting process and yet it can be one of the most frustrating experiences. Your mind is racing with new ideas and yet you don’t know where or how to (yet again) begin. This three-hour workshop offers a supportive environment where we will discuss each student’s work with a focus on how to breathe life into your characters, build dramatic tension and examine your structure. Depending on class size, in-class exercises will be assigned to address each issue. Come to class with your first fifteen pages.

Suzanne Dottino is a graduate of Columbia MFA in Writing. She is a Samuel French Short play finalist. Her plays have been performed at the Artists of Tomorrow Festival, The Culture Project: Women Center Stage, two seasons of Horsetrade's Ten-Minute Play Festival and an evening of her three one-act plays have been performed by the Drafts at Under St. Marks Theater. She is fiction director of Sunday Night Fiction Reading Series at KGB Bar as well as editor of KGB Bar Lit.