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Dreamwork for Dramatic Writing
Dreamwrighting for Stage and Screen
Series: - Consciousness, Literature and the Arts, Volume: 60
Author:
Dreamwork for Dramatic Writing: Dreamwrighting for Stage and Screen teaches you how to use your dreams, content, form, and structure, to write surprisingly unique new drama for film and stage. It is an exciting departure from traditional linear, dramatic technique, and addresses both playwriting and screenwriting, as the profession is increasingly populated by writers who work in both stage and screen. Developed through 25 years of teaching award-winning playwrights in the University of Missouri’s Writing for Performance Program, and based upon the phenomenological research of renowned performance theorist Bert O. States, this book offers a foundational, step-by-step organic guide to non-traditional, non-linear technique that will help writers beat clichéd, tired dramatic writing and provides stimulating new exercises to transform their work.
David Crespy founded the University of Missouri’s Writing for Performance program which received the 2017 Gold Medallion from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. Twice a Fulbright recipient, he wrote
Off-Off-Broadway Explosion and
Richard Barr: The Playwrights’ Producer both with a foreword by Edward Albee. He has taught workshops in dreamwork for dramatic writing across the US as well as in Spain and Greece.
Introduction
Dreamwork for Dramatic Writing
1 An Organic Approach to Magic and Theatricality
2 How to Use This Book
1 The Dreamwright Workshop Relaxation, The Trance State, and Daydreaming
1 Building your Dream Cache: Keeping a Dream Journal
2 A Dream Example
3 A Dream, 8/27/22, Madrid, Spain, Titled: The Bearded Man
4 Step 1 – The Warm-Up – Getting into the Flow
5 Basic Writer’s Physical Warm-Up
6 Shoulder Warm-Up
7 Neck Warm-Up
8 Back Warm-Up
9 Breath Work
10 Relaxation Exercise
11 Step 2 – Devising Your Dream Cache – Gathering the Stuff of Your Imagination
12 Initial Dream Prompts
13 Dramatic Element Prompts
14 Desires
15 Problems/Obstacles
16 Feelings
17 Questions
18 People
19 Events
20 Places
21 Animals
22 Plants
23 Objects
24 The Next Step – Creating with Dream Elements
25 Step 3– Writing a Dream – Freeing Your Natural Creativity
25.1 Dream Tropes
26 Step 4– Dream Dramatic Concept Outline – Germinating the Dramatic Seed
27 Step 5 – Character Dreams – Exploring the World within Your Character
28 Write Your Character’s Dream
29 Step 6 – Dream Adjacent Writing Exercises – Giving over to the Magic of Dreaming
30 The Chapters Ahead – Exploring Dreamwright Styles
31 Chapter by Chapter Summary – Dreamwright Styles
2 Structure of the Dreamwork, Myth, Ceremony, and Ritual August Strindberg’s Dream Play and Orson Welles Citizen Kane
1 Orson Welles and the Flashback Dream Structure
3 Ancient Dream Structures: Myths and the Greek Chorus Sophocles’ Oedipus the King , Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive , Lanford Wilson’s Book of Days , and Marcel Camus ’ Black Orpheus
1 How I Learned to Drive – Paul Vogel’s Contemporizing the Chorus
2 How I Learned to Drive – a Circular Structure of Revelation
3 Lanford Wilson’s Book of Days – the Lyric Chorus
4 Marcel Camus’ Black Orpheus – the Liminality of Carnival
4 African-American Dream Funhouse – Creating Ritual Liminality Adrienne Kennedy’s Funny House of a Negro and Julie’s Dash’s Daughters of the Dust
1 Julie Dash and the Structure of the Griot’s Song
5 Transfiguration of Gender and Identity – Transformations, Mutability, and Androgyny Jean Genet’s The Balcony and Sally Potter’s Orlando
1 Jean Genet: Criminal Gender Illusionist
2 Orlando – Sally Potter – a History of Gender Fluidity
6 The Dreamer’s Heart – Thinking Backwards First Character Dreams and Storytelling – McDonagh’s The Pillowman and Christopher Nolan’s: Memento
1 Story Structure in McDonagh’s The Pillowman
2 Hairpin: The Structure of Christopher Nolan’s Memento
7 Magic Plot Cards – The Dreamwright as Storyteller Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Charlie Kaufman’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Guillermo Arriaga’s 21 Grams
1 Tony Kushner’s Angels in America – A Reluctant Prophet and a Reformed Sinner
2 Guillermo Arriaga’s 21 Grams – Daily Dreams and Time Jumps
2.1 The Interweave Process
8 The Snap of the Heartstring – Symbolism and Romanticism Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, Jose Rivera’s Cloud Tectonics, Marguerite Duras’ Hiroshima Mon Amour
1 Snapping of a String – the Essence of Chekhov’s Symbolism
2 Exercises in Chekhov’s Symbolist Technique
3 José Rivera
–
Cloud Tectonics – Latinx Realism Time Shift
4 Unending Conversations: The Voice-Over Romance of Marguerite Duras’s Hiroshima, Mon Amour
5 Marguerite Duras
–
Hiroshima Mon Amour – Love in a Time of Nuclear Holocaust
9 Realms of Theatricality – Surrealism and Waking Dreams Thornton Wilder’s Pullman Car Hiawatha and David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive
1 Twisted Noir: The Mobius Detective in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive
2 Muholland Drive – Twisting the Noir – Arouse Your Nocturnal Detective
10 Inside out – a Feminist Expressionism of Dreaming Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice and Karen Moncrieff’s The Dead Girl
1 Karen Moncrieff – The Dead Girl – Unpeeling the Onion of Grief
11 Epic Theatre and The Lucid Dream Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera and Lucy Alibar’s Beasts of the Southern Wild
1 Lucy Alibar – Beasts of the Southern Wild – The Lucidity of a Child
12 Postmodernist Worlds of Slippage Pirandello’s It Is So! (If You Think So) and Eleanor Perry’s The Swimmer
1 Eleanor Perry – The Swimmer – Multiverse Pools of Desire
2 Entering the Absurd – Final Clarity of the Insane Vision – Collapse of Drama into Performance
13 The Absurdist Nightmare and the Dramatic Wet Dream Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano , Samuel Beckett’s Play , and Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction
1 Samuel Beckett’s Play – Pushing On/Pushing Through – I Can’t Go on, I’ll Go On
2 The Maw of Pop Culture: Pulp Fiction and the Structure of Story Threads
2.1 Quentin Tarantino’s Dramaturgical Essence – the Cacophony of Scenic Sequencing
3 Pulp Fiction (Scenes in Chronological Order)
14 The Breathing of a Play: Music and Ritualized Sacrifice Edward Albee’s Tiny Alice and Agnès Varda’s Vagabond
1 Agnes Varda – Oneiric Cinécriture – Writing Your Dreams in Film
15 Comedy Shock: Rhythms of Menace and Joy Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party, Irene Fornes’ Conduct of Life , and Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend
1 Harold Pinter – Playwright of Tension and Release – the Comedy of Unease
2 María Irene Fornés: The Torturer and the Tortured – Conducting Cruel Comedy
3 Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend: The Horrible, Wonderful, Murderous Success of Corinne and Roland
Conclusion The Work of a Dreamwright – Transcending the Possible
1 The Dream Cache
Index
1 An Organic Approach to Magic and Theatricality
2 How to Use This Book
1 The Dreamwright Workshop Relaxation, The Trance State, and Daydreaming
1 Building your Dream Cache: Keeping a Dream Journal
2 A Dream Example
3 A Dream, 8/27/22, Madrid, Spain, Titled: The Bearded Man
4 Step 1 – The Warm-Up – Getting into the Flow
5 Basic Writer’s Physical Warm-Up
6 Shoulder Warm-Up
7 Neck Warm-Up
8 Back Warm-Up
9 Breath Work
10 Relaxation Exercise
11 Step 2 – Devising Your Dream Cache – Gathering the Stuff of Your Imagination
12 Initial Dream Prompts
13 Dramatic Element Prompts
14 Desires
15 Problems/Obstacles
16 Feelings
17 Questions
18 People
19 Events
20 Places
21 Animals
22 Plants
23 Objects
24 The Next Step – Creating with Dream Elements
25 Step 3– Writing a Dream – Freeing Your Natural Creativity
25.1 Dream Tropes
26 Step 4– Dream Dramatic Concept Outline – Germinating the Dramatic Seed
27 Step 5 – Character Dreams – Exploring the World within Your Character
28 Write Your Character’s Dream
29 Step 6 – Dream Adjacent Writing Exercises – Giving over to the Magic of Dreaming
30 The Chapters Ahead – Exploring Dreamwright Styles
31 Chapter by Chapter Summary – Dreamwright Styles
2 Structure of the Dreamwork, Myth, Ceremony, and Ritual August Strindberg’s Dream Play and Orson Welles Citizen Kane
1 Orson Welles and the Flashback Dream Structure
3 Ancient Dream Structures: Myths and the Greek Chorus Sophocles’ Oedipus the King , Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive , Lanford Wilson’s Book of Days , and Marcel Camus ’ Black Orpheus
1 How I Learned to Drive – Paul Vogel’s Contemporizing the Chorus
2 How I Learned to Drive – a Circular Structure of Revelation
3 Lanford Wilson’s Book of Days – the Lyric Chorus
4 Marcel Camus’ Black Orpheus – the Liminality of Carnival
4 African-American Dream Funhouse – Creating Ritual Liminality Adrienne Kennedy’s Funny House of a Negro and Julie’s Dash’s Daughters of the Dust
1 Julie Dash and the Structure of the Griot’s Song
5 Transfiguration of Gender and Identity – Transformations, Mutability, and Androgyny Jean Genet’s The Balcony and Sally Potter’s Orlando
1 Jean Genet: Criminal Gender Illusionist
2 Orlando – Sally Potter – a History of Gender Fluidity
6 The Dreamer’s Heart – Thinking Backwards First Character Dreams and Storytelling – McDonagh’s The Pillowman and Christopher Nolan’s: Memento
1 Story Structure in McDonagh’s The Pillowman
2 Hairpin: The Structure of Christopher Nolan’s Memento
7 Magic Plot Cards – The Dreamwright as Storyteller Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Charlie Kaufman’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Guillermo Arriaga’s 21 Grams
1 Tony Kushner’s Angels in America – A Reluctant Prophet and a Reformed Sinner
2 Guillermo Arriaga’s 21 Grams – Daily Dreams and Time Jumps
2.1 The Interweave Process
8 The Snap of the Heartstring – Symbolism and Romanticism Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, Jose Rivera’s Cloud Tectonics, Marguerite Duras’ Hiroshima Mon Amour
1 Snapping of a String – the Essence of Chekhov’s Symbolism
2 Exercises in Chekhov’s Symbolist Technique
3 José Rivera
4 Unending Conversations: The Voice-Over Romance of Marguerite Duras’s Hiroshima, Mon Amour
5 Marguerite Duras
9 Realms of Theatricality – Surrealism and Waking Dreams Thornton Wilder’s Pullman Car Hiawatha and David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive
1 Twisted Noir: The Mobius Detective in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive
2 Muholland Drive – Twisting the Noir – Arouse Your Nocturnal Detective
10 Inside out – a Feminist Expressionism of Dreaming Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice and Karen Moncrieff’s The Dead Girl
1 Karen Moncrieff – The Dead Girl – Unpeeling the Onion of Grief
11 Epic Theatre and The Lucid Dream Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera and Lucy Alibar’s Beasts of the Southern Wild
1 Lucy Alibar – Beasts of the Southern Wild – The Lucidity of a Child
12 Postmodernist Worlds of Slippage Pirandello’s It Is So! (If You Think So) and Eleanor Perry’s The Swimmer
1 Eleanor Perry – The Swimmer – Multiverse Pools of Desire
2 Entering the Absurd – Final Clarity of the Insane Vision – Collapse of Drama into Performance
13 The Absurdist Nightmare and the Dramatic Wet Dream Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano , Samuel Beckett’s Play , and Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction
1 Samuel Beckett’s Play – Pushing On/Pushing Through – I Can’t Go on, I’ll Go On
2 The Maw of Pop Culture: Pulp Fiction and the Structure of Story Threads
2.1 Quentin Tarantino’s Dramaturgical Essence – the Cacophony of Scenic Sequencing
3 Pulp Fiction (Scenes in Chronological Order)
14 The Breathing of a Play: Music and Ritualized Sacrifice Edward Albee’s Tiny Alice and Agnès Varda’s Vagabond
1 Agnes Varda – Oneiric Cinécriture – Writing Your Dreams in Film
15 Comedy Shock: Rhythms of Menace and Joy Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party, Irene Fornes’ Conduct of Life , and Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend
1 Harold Pinter – Playwright of Tension and Release – the Comedy of Unease
2 María Irene Fornés: The Torturer and the Tortured – Conducting Cruel Comedy
3 Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend: The Horrible, Wonderful, Murderous Success of Corinne and Roland
Conclusion The Work of a Dreamwright – Transcending the Possible
1 The Dream Cache
Index
Playwrights, screenwriters, television writers, showrunners, film and stage directors, dramatic literature and theatre history scholars, fiction-writers, story-tellers, actors, culture historians, theatre and performance studies professors and graduate students, film and theatre libraries.