Scenario!
A Playwriting Workshop & Showcase
Scenario! Introduction to Playwriting and Stage
Presented by PDX Playwrights [Rescheduled]
Workshop: January 8-11, 2024 from 6-9 PM
Final performances: Jan. 27, 2024 @ 1:00 PM,
2:30 PM & 4:00 PM
The Workshop
In this seven-day workshop at CoHo Theater from January 8 -14, with evening classes and staged readings on the weekend, we’ll examine the art and craft of playwriting and ask the BIG question: How does one uniquely create a compelling storytelling experience for the stage? In this workshop, together we’ll actively explore how to build a world; develop distinct characters that change; incite a cause-and-effect story arch; and visually manifest a story with props, body gesture, and minimal lighting and sound effects, oftentimes more effective than words.
Specifically, we’ll focus on the script: setting, stage directions, dialog, subtext, beats, the use of symbols and motifs, rhythm and repetition, and finally, the all-important role of the audience and the theatrical context. Participants may be new to the craft, or experienced playwrights aiming to take a work-in-progress to the next level. With diverse backgrounds, ideas and experiences, Scenario writers will learn as much from one another as from the faculty coaches, contributing their comments as well as their questions to this collaborative experiment. On the weekend, Scenario writers will have the chance to invite friends and family to view their piece and offer feedback. This workshop provides writers with the opportunity to develop an ongoing working relationship with CoHo Theater, as well as the potential to produce a show at Fertile Ground with PDX Playwrights.
The Playwriting Workshop Showcase
On the weekend, culminating the week of writing workshops, each of the Scenario playwrights will present a short piece of their work, followed by a feedback session with the audience. These final presentations will take place from 7 – 9 PM on Saturday, Jan. 13, and on Sunday, Jan. 14th, with a matinee from 2 – 4 PM and an evening show from 7 – 9 PM. The exact line-up, along with the showtime for each writer, will be posted here on Tuesday, Jan. 9th.
Be part of the collaboration! Come celebrate the work of the emerging playwrights of Scenario 2024 in its debut year – Book your FREE tickets to the playwriting showcase today!
Book tickets to the Scenario! Playwriting Showcase
Meet the Facilitators
Ajai Tripathi is an actor, director, playwright, screenwriter and educator. At Teatro Milagro in Portland he worked as Education Director and wrote three plays for young audiences that toured regionally in schools: ¡Corre!¡Corre!, Sueños de Fútbol, and Mijita Fridita. He worked as an education consultant and acting coach at Northwest Children’s Theatre & School, and served on PDX Playwright’s administrative team and produced his one person show Osho Returns and shadow plays: The Madness of Dionysus and Cosmogonos. He received an MFA in Screenwriting from the David Lynch Graduate School of Cinematic Arts at Maharishi International University. His screenplay The Pooka was named a quarterfinalist in the ScreenCraft Horror Film Competition. The script for The Rainbow Passage won Best Feature at the Geneva International Science in Fiction Awards, and the play version received a reading at Desert Island Studios and the PNMC Festival. His two person show Great White Gets Off also played at the PNMC Festival and will receive a full production with Fuse Theatre Ensemble this winter. He is currently working on his MAT with an endorsement in Drama at Pacific University, and is very excited to work with Coho Productions.
Olga Kravtsova (she/her) is passionate about physical acting, movement, and original work development. She enjoys creating worlds for the characters using simple design, lights, and sounds to invite the audience into a tender conversation. In addition, Olga is an intimacy choreographer with recent violence and movement work in In-Between, Monologues of Woman, and Two Gold Fish Who Become Heroes by Yun Theatre in Seattle. Olga is in her third year in the MFA Acting program at UW. She moved from Moscow, Russia, in 2013, where she worked in film and on stage. She graduated from Ustinova College with a degree in Russian Folk Dance Ensemble and received her degree in Acting from the Russian Academy of Theater Arts. Some credits (included UW productions) include The Old Man (based on The Old Man and the Sea), In the Blood, Jack and Jill, Bull in the China Shop, The Saint Plays, Tragedians Anonymous (Alpha NYC Theater Company), Breathe the Rawness (Whisper Skin Theater), Fly Away, Breath (by Karen Polinsky for the Fertile Ground Festival), A Company of Wayward Saints (Rising Phoenix Theater). She was also the lead producer for Heart of Stone, performed at CoHo.
Karen Polinsky (she/her) is a Portland writer, director, and teacher. She serves on the leadership team of PDX Playwrights. In the past several years, a half dozen of her scripts have been featured in the Fertile Ground Festival, including two full-length plays: Fly Away, Breath, and The Bad Hour. Her script for Alisher Khasanov’s dance piece Heart of Stone was performed at CoHo last fall. Karen has also published a 19th-century mystery set on the Olympic Peninsula, Dungeness. A non-fiction work, Ian’s Ride, about an environmentalist and quadriplegic who has defied all limits, will be published next year. In the past, she was a community college and high school English teacher, as well as a high school theater director. She is thrilled about the chance to work with CoHo Theater, and Ajai and Olga, encouraging and honing future talent.
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