June 4, 2014 at 12:53 p.m.
Playwright to teach two classes at SOA
Playwright to teach two classes at SOA
By By Daryl Youngstrum-
Prompt Stomp! is scheduled for Saturday through Wednesday, July 19-23, from 8:30 to 10 a.m. You Can Write a Ten-Minute Play is an afternoon offering from 1:30 to 3 p.m. Saturday through Wednesday.
Sterkel is a co-author of the full-length play "Ten Thousand Moons from Here" which played at the Bartell Theatre in Madison in June 2013. A current project is a "how to" book with the working title Ten in 10 - How to Organize a 10-Minute Play in 10 Minutes. Her Prompt Stomp! class is a good jumping-off point for writers of any skill level, she says.
"Writing is both a process and a practice," Sterkel says. "It is my hope that students will begin to find ideas for their writing in places that they hadn't previously considered looking. In this class we will have no spell or grammar checks; we'll be together to experiment, enjoy, and have fun with writing."
"Writing for the joy of writing is a skill, too," she adds. "We often get caught up in perfecting a piece of writing we're working on and forget the spontaneous combustion of charm that writing has to offer. Being creative for a week without expectations can bring enjoyment, relaxation and surprises and, perhaps, the start of a new project which has begun as a response to a prompt."
Such a prompt may be the writing of a 10-minute play, the focus of Sterkel's second class You Can Write a Ten-Minute Play. "I see writing 10-minute plays as an extension of play - adding more character development and plot and utilizing a sense of theatrics. Every person has pretended when he or she was a child, created stories for dolls, puppets or toys or the neighbor kids and themselves," she says. "By focusing on basic elements, participants will have a place to start, a concept of how to beautify the middle, and suggestions for how to finish."
"A writer sometimes says that he or she has a great story for a play, which is a good jumping-off point. Successful plays are typically a combination, a balance, of both the creative and reality. As long as the writer provides the 'truth,' the play's impact will be greater. If there's a story that someone 'thinks will make a good play,' then he or she should certainly start there but not limit the direction the story can take. The ending might not be exactly as it happened in real life; it could be even better."
School of the Arts at Rhinelander, now in its 51st year, runs from July 19 - 23 at James Williams Middle School and Rhinelander High School. Registration information for these and all SOA 2014 classes is available at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Continuing Studies website, soawisconsin.org. Information is also available at the registration desk, (608) 262-2451.
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