Now that you have a group What’s Next?

First, keep in mind all the way through the process: Everything happens on the stage! But, actions speak as loud as words and that’s a good thing In general, focus on a single event—most likely how characters respond to the inciting incident Don’t try to do too much!

Details: No drug or alcohol references in the one-act play Play must be typed using drama format (You have a sample in your handout) Play should be 6-10 pages No more than 5-6 characters (probably fewer)

Today: Determine some sort of scenario for your One-Act Play. Ideas are suggested on the One-Act Play handout. Let’s look at it for a few minutes.

Scenario Possibilities: Dream up five dramatic inciting incidents. Choose the best one… Choose a scene from the news, from popular culture, from one of the stories we read this fall…

More Scenario Possibilities: Use one of the story patterns we’ve already discussed in class –Romeo and Juliet (Star-Crossed Lovers): fate keeps them apart –Achilles: a hero with a tragic flaw –Faust: characters who “sell their souls to the devil” for quick riches (or fame or love or power…), but who lose it all when the devil comes to collect –Cinderella: the underdog wins! –Pandora: Curiosity leads to disaster… –Etc., Etc.,

Today’s Work: Block out your concept/scenario on paper. Include the inciting incident, conflict that results (could be somewhat undeveloped at this point), and how you think (at least at this point) you plan to resolve the situation. I’ll show you how to block out your scenario in just a few minutes

More Work for Today: Develop character sketches for each one in your play (background, personality) Turn in your “blocked scenario” and character sketches today!

How to “Block out” your scenario into scenes: Block out scenes using short descriptive sentences/fragments Tip: Generally scenes change when characters enter/exit the stage

Example of inciting incident followed by briefly blocked scenes: Sally, who has dropped out of school, and her friend Tom have been hired to clean houses for Mrs. Smith, but they chose to go to the movies the night before rather than get the job done. When the play opens it’s the next morning. The realtor is on her way to show the house.

Here’s how I would begin to “block the scenes” 1.(scene 1)Morning: Tom and Sally are in a frenzy to clean up the kitchen, urging each other to hurry. Tension is in the air. Include dialogue that references inciting incident. 2.(scene 2)Doorbell rings. Mrs. Smith enters. Looks around disapproving. Tom and Sally apologize for the mess. Conflict and Character development through dialogue.

“Blocking” continued: 3.Sally excuses herself. She must catch the el to make it to ______. (we’ll figure out what later). Exits. 4.(scene 3) Mrs. Smith launches into a tirade against the bad influence of Sally on Tom. 5. Tom tries to defend Sally. It comes out that Sally has_________ (we’ll figure out what later).

Plans for blocking the rest of this One-Act Scenario: Through subsequent dialogue/scenes, we’ll see that Tom also plans to drop out of school in order to help Sally with whatever trauma we decide she’s suffered. But rather than help her, she ends up pulling him down. We’re still working on how to get from what we have to the downfall of Tom. We’re also working on how to further Mrs. Smith’s role—will she help or harm?

By the end of the class period: Turn in list of characters with descriptions for each Turn in scenario (include the inciting incident) and blocking for the scenes in your play. –(Actual scenes may turn out differently than your original blocking…That’s the power of creativity!)