The 2021 Day by Day Conference Schedule

ALL CONFERENCE TIMES ARE CENTRAL TIME ZONE

SATURDAY, JUNE 5 2021

10:00AM-11:30AM
WORKSHOP SESSION 3

David Adjmi
A Play is a Pattern: When playwrights set about crafting plays, we think of
things like ‘action’ and ‘stakes’ as tools to generate dramatic interest. But
when we write with these explicitly in mind, our drafts can sometimes end
up a little too functional or deadened. By “looking awry” or thinking of
plays as aesthetic fields, we can tap into surprising fonts of emotional and
psychological depth in our writing. In this workshop, through exercises
and conversation, we will explore the notion of pattern—not as something
decorative or aesthetic—but as a generative force in dramatic composition.

Lisa D’Amour
What Do You Crave? In playwriting classes we are often asked “what does
your character want?” While certainly a valid question, it can keep us on the
surface, in the world of small desires. But what if we shift to the word crave?
Suddenly we are in the body, in the realm of appetite and deeper desires that
are beyond words. This workshop will allow you explore the cravings of the
current characters you are writing, and explore how they might relate to the
deeper craving of your play, and what you crave as an artist.

Christina Ham
Show Me: Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken
glass. -Anton Chekov: The beauty of live theater is its immediacy and the
transaction that takes place between the playwright and the audience. The
playwright presents a set of events arranged in such a way that gives the
audience the thrill of connecting the dots for themselves. However, even with
this tacit agreement sometimes we can fall short of dramatic writing that
shows us something that is immediate and digress into narrative writing
that is stuck in the past. This lecture will examine how to identify the most
important aspects of your story and how to get it on stage utilizing a writer’s
most powerful tools: dialogue and characterization. These tips can help the
playwright avoid having their play take place off-stage and move it center
stage—where it belongs. Please bring a couple of scenes from your play that
we will utilize in this workshop.

Anne Washburn
Good Politics Bad Art and Vice Versa – grappling with the idioms of civic
language: In this workshop we will engage in a number of extremely small and
ineffective but actual (non partisan) political activities, while exploring the
idiomatic barriers we create between expressing ourselves in our plays and
expressing ourselves as actors upon the public stage.

11:30AM-11:45PM
BREAK

11:45AM-12:30PM
GUEST ARTIST PANEL

Authenticity, Intimacy and Censorship – An open discussion of how the meanings and actions around these three ideas are changing, and how they are affecting our work and lives. Lisa D’Amour, Mashuq Mushtaq Deen, Michael John Garcés, and Tony Meneses

12:30PM-12:45PM
BREAK

12:45PM-3:45PM
and the meek
by natyna bean
PlayLab and Response Session

Though working in a liquor store is not what Gentry envisioned doing when
she prematurely returns home from school, she fights to adjust to the new
occupation along with the many changes in her neighborhood. However, when
a childhood friend appears in the midst of a blizzard, she discovers that she is
just as unsure about what has happened to the neighborhood as she is about
what happened to herself.

Director:
Levy Lee
Stage Directions:
Doriette Jordan

Cast:
GENTRY: Catie Zaleski
MANNY: Anthony Holmes
FREDO: Nikomeh Anderson

Responders:
Eliza Bent, Christina Ham
Dramaturg:
Martine Kei Green-Rogers
Designer:
Daricel Calcano