Decentered Playwriting: Alternative Techniques for the Stage, Book Launch Panel

The Drama Book Shop presents, in association with Jay Michaels Global Communications and the Dramatists Guild of America, Decentered Playwriting: Alternative Techniques for the Stage Book Launch Panel, with Carolyn Dunn, Eric Micha Holmes, and Les Hunter, moderated by Hunter College MFA Playwriting Professor Christine Scarfuto.

Decentered Playwriting is an attempt to both reach back to underrepresented story-creating techniques, as well as investigate exciting new methods to writing works for the stage. It offers practical advice, historical analysis, theoretical context, and writing exercises from an array of theatrical methods. Contributors to the book span five continents, curated from a diverse spectrum of artistic and academic perspectives, and unified by a craft forward approach. Decentered Playwriting is a gentle primer to the infinite ways one can approach the craft of writing plays and teaching playwriting. It aims to amplify and diversify a conversation about what playwriting is by presenting suppressed and novel tools for all to use. The approach of this text does not focus on what plays should do, but on what they can do.

Bios:

Carolyn M. Dunn, MFA, PhD, is an Indigenous playwright, dramaturg, actor and director whose plays have been Equity produced on stages in Los Angeles and New York. Her academic work engages across disciplines including theatre, literature, ethnohistory, ethnomusicology, landscape, language, and cultural studies. She is an Associate Professor of Theatre and Dance and is the Director of Playwriting and Dramaturgy at California State University, Los Angeles. Dr. Dunn also serves as an advisor for the low-residency MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts (Decolonial and Indigenous Arts concentration) at Goddard College in Washington State and is the Artistic director of Oklahoma Indigenous Theatre Company in Oklahoma City. www.carolyndunn.org

Les Hunter is an award-winning playwright and theatre scholar whose academic work focuses on early twentieth century American theatre. He is a recipient of the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award and was an inaugural Premiere Fellow at Cleveland Public Theatre. Dr. Hunter is an associate professor of English and Creative Writing at Baldwin Wallace University.

Eric Micha Holmes is an American dramatist whose work has been heard on Audible (Rapture Season: From a Glacier We Watch the World Burn), BBC (Care Inc.) and seen at the National Black Theatre (Mondo Tragic) and Guild Hall (Falls for Jodie). He’s an affiliated faculty member of Goddard College’s MFA Creative Writing Program. www.ericmichaholmes.com

About HowlRound TV

HowlRound TV is a global, commons-based, peer-produced, open-access livestreaming and video archive project stewarded by the nonprofit HowlRound. HowlRound TV is a free and shared resource for live conversations and performances relevant to the world’s performing arts and cultural fields. Its mission is to break geographic isolation, promote resource sharing, and develop our knowledge commons collectively. Anyone can participate in a community of peer organizations revolutionizing the flow of information, knowledge, and access in our field by becoming a producer and co-producing with us. Learn more by going to our participate page. For any other queries, email tv@howlround.com or call Vijay Mathew at +1 917.686.3185 Signal. View the video archive of past events.