Playwriting Classes
Jack's writing workshop gave me the confidence to complete the first draft of my play. I felt comfortable and safe sharing my work in the atmosphere he created, and I got a ton of insightful feedback from him and the other students
– Hannah
My online playwriting classes are open to adult writers of all experience levels and geographies. If you are interested in dramatic writing and you can get online (and if you’re reading this, I’m guessing that’s you) then I’d love to work with you.
There are as many ways to write a play as there are plays.
I strive to help you unlock a voice that is authentic to you, serves the work you’re creating, and is effective for an audience.
My classes all include a combination of reading, discussion, writing, reflecting, and workshopping. These are all essential practices for your growth as an artist. I also offer direct feedback on all work submitted in my classes. Since we hold the classes online, via Zoom, I am able to record workshop sessions and share them with students. In some of my classes, I hire professional actors to participate in workshops, so you can have the benefit of their skilled voice applied to an important role.
My recurring Seminar is a chance for beginning and experienced playwrights to learn from the important and diverse voices of contemporary theater. I offer additional classes occasionally, which focus on specific topics or on workshopping. I also work with playwrights one-on-one to offer feedback and guidance in their revision process. All of my classes are designed to be welcoming to new and returning students alike. Below you’ll find information on all these offerings. You can also join my mailing list for updates when I add new classes.
I look forward to reading your work!
The seminars are an efficient and effective productivity tool for me. Jack provides the right combination of guidance, inspiration, and focused writing time to help writers hone their craft. The participants are well-rounded and respectful, creating an open and constructive environment to help me explore my creative potential.
– Former student
Note: All classes are held online via Zoom. A link will be provided to all registered students.
I am currently on a hiatus from my online playwriting classes. All remaining classes and workshops I had planned for 2024 are now canceled. I am still available for one-on-one script review.
When more classes are scheduled, I will announce them on my mailing list, so please join!
Keep writing, friends.
– Jack
Oct. 5, 2024 Free Playwriting Workshop
This free workshop will consist of a brief intro to a dramatic writing concept, followed by an exercise, in which everyone will participate simultaneously during the class. Afterwards, we'll have a short reflection discussion and some closing thoughts from me, and any remaining time will be open for further questions.
Free or Pay What You Want. Registration is required for this workshop.
1-2pm Pacific/4-5pm Eastern.
Seminar: "The Christians" by Lucas Hnath/"Heroes of the Fourth Turning" by Will Arbery
Building off last session's focus on commentary (and an examination of whiteness) we'll look at two plays (this time by white playwrights) that glimpse into conservative Christian culture. The Christians, by Lucas Hnath, uses the presentational style of a church service, with long monologues in the style of sermons, while Will Arbery's Heroes of the Fourth Turning is a (mostly) naturalistic fishbowl. Both plays unfold without the introduction of an "outside agitator", built solely around Christian-on-Christian clashes, which allow for unique sources of conflict.
In my monthly playwriting seminar, we take a look at a different contemporary play each four-week session, discussing its craft and using it as inspiration for a number of writing exercises. At the end of each month, we workshop a short selection of material from each playwright.
Saturdays, Sep 28–Oct 19; 10am-12pm Pacific Time/1-3pm Eastern Time (The final, workshop session may run until 3:30pm and is recorded for students’ personal use)
Maximum enrollment is 10.
Tuition for one session is $175. For $450 you can get credit for three sessions (they do not need to be contiguous).
Seminar: "Thanksgiving Play" by Larissa FastHorse/"Straight White Men" by Young Jean Lee
Throughout the majority of American theater history, white artists have represented Black and other marginalized identities onstage/screen with varyingly nauseating degrees of racial bias, while whiteness itself has been left mostly unexamined. Now, diverse writers are leading many breakthroughs in the American theater, among which is a lens on whiteness that is unsettling in a unique way. Larissa FastHorse's Thanksgiving Play (one of the most-produced plays in the country) and Young Jean Lee's Straight White Men exemplify this technique, among others. We'll discuss the dramatic construction of satire (if that's what this is) and commentary, and discover how to tell a story when the true protagonist, perhaps, is never seen onstage.
In my monthly playwriting seminar, we take a look at a different contemporary play each four-week session, discussing its craft and using it as inspiration for a number of writing exercises. At the end of each month, we workshop a short selection of material from each playwright.
Saturdays, Aug 24–Sep 21 (no class 8/31); 10am-12pm Pacific Time/1-3pm Eastern Time (The final, workshop session may run until 3:30pm and is recorded for students’ personal use)
Maximum enrollment is 10.
Tuition for one session is $175. For $450 you can get credit for three sessions (they do not need to be contiguous).
The Workshop
Welcome to The Workshop! This class is designed to help playwrights of all levels write & revise an original script. Whether you're just starting with an idea for a play or you've completed a full draft, we'll read what you've got and help you nudge it towards its next stage of development.
In this class we will:
Read selections of students' work out loud.
Engage in guided verbal feedback following a structure based on Liz Lerner's Critical Response Process.
Offer additional offline feedback via comments on your document.
Participate in guided writing exercises geared towards exploring your work.
Workshop & feedback sessions will be recorded for students' use.
Saturdays, July 20–Sep 21 (no class 8/3 or 8/31) 1-3:30pm Pacific/3-5:30pm Eastern Time.
Maximum enrollment is 8 students.
Tuition is $500.
Seminar: "Sweat" by Lynn Nottage
Lynn Nottage is one of our greatest and most-produced living playwrights. Sweat (for which she won her second Pulitzer Prize) builds on the great American theatrical genre of what I'll call the "tragic ensemble dive bar play," in the tradition of O'Neill and Lanford Wilson and others. However, where O'Neill's bottomed-out drunks navigate existential sorrow, Sweat adds a layer of complex social and political tension which is both contemporary and timeless. Can we osmose some of Nottage's brilliant dramaturgical construction? Let's find out.
In my monthly playwriting seminar, we take a look at a different contemporary play each four-week session, discussing its craft and using it as inspiration for a number of writing exercises. At the end of each month, we workshop a short selection of material from each playwright.
Saturdays, July 20–Aug 17 (no class 8/10); 10am-12pm Pacific Time/1-3pm Eastern Time (The final, workshop session may run until 3:30pm and is recorded for students’ personal use)
Maximum enrollment is 10, and students in the prior session get first refusal for their spot. Minimum enrollment to run the session is 4.
Tuition for one session is $175. For $450 you can get credit for three sessions (they do not need to be contiguous).
July 18, 2024 Free Playwriting Workshop
This free workshop will consist of a brief intro to a dramatic writing concept, followed by an exercise, in which everyone will participate simultaneously during the class. Afterwards, we'll have a short reflection discussion and some closing thoughts from me, and any remaining time will be open for further questions.
Free or Pay What You Want. Registration is required for this workshop.
8-9pm Pacific/11-12pm Eastern.
June 29, 2024 Free Playwriting Workshop
This free workshop will consist of a brief intro to a dramatic writing concept, followed by an exercise, in which everyone will participate simultaneously during the class. Afterwards, we'll have a short reflection discussion and some closing thoughts from me, and any remaining time will be open for further questions.
Free or Pay What You Want. Registration is required for this workshop.
1-2pm Pacific/4-5pm Eastern.
Seminar: "Fat Ham" by James Ijames
In my monthly playwriting seminar, we take a look at a different contemporary play each four-week session, discussing its craft and using it as inspiration for a number of writing exercises. At the end of each month, we workshop a short selection of material from each playwright.
May ‘24 Free Playwriting Workshop
This free workshop will consist of a brief intro to a dramatic writing concept, followed by an exercise, in which everyone will participate simultaneously during the class. Afterwards, we'll have a short reflection discussion and some closing thoughts from me, and any remaining time will be open for further questions.
Free or Pay What You Want. Registration is required for this workshop. Time is 10-12pm Pacific/1-3pm Eastern.
The Playwright's Copilot
"What are you working on?"--the dreaded question. You started that thing a year ago but never finished, or you've had that idea running in your head for months, or you finished a first draft and haven't touched it. When you try to write--if you get around to it--you don't know where to begin. You end up staring out the window.
Let me be your copilot as we jumpstart your writing!
March ‘24 Free Playwriting Workshop
This free workshop will consist of a brief intro to a dramatic writing concept, followed by an exercise, in which everyone will participate simultaneously during the class. Afterwards, we'll have a short reflection discussion and some closing thoughts from me, and any remaining time will be open for further questions.
Free or Pay What You Want. Registration is required for this workshop. Time is 10-12pm Pacific/1-3pm Eastern.
Seminar: "Cambodian Rock Band" by Lauren Yee
Lee's play is not only a moving drama of memory and survival, but a unique dialogue between rock music and theater. We'll study her use of non-chronological structure and tear down the barriers between drama and other forms of media and performance.
November Free Playwriting Workshop
This free workshop will consist of a brief intro to a dramatic writing concept, followed by an exercise, in which everyone will participate simultaneously during the class. Afterwards, we'll have a short reflection discussion and some closing thoughts from me, and any remaining time will be open for further questions.
Free or Pay What You Want. Registration is required for this workshop.
Seminar: "seven methods of killing kylie jenner" by Jasmine Lee-Jones
Lee-Jones’s play is revolutionary in form and content, telling a story that layers a complex commentary about race and racism with an intensely personal dialogue, wrapped in a script that employs internet idioms like memes, emojis, and twitter threads in its dialogue. We’ll see if we can take a cue from this incredible writer and break open the very concept of a script.
Fundamentals of Contemporary Playwriting
Many of the books and courses you can find on playwriting draw on classic plays—from the Greeks to Shakespeare to Arthur Miller—as the basis of their dramaturgy. But the Aristotelian unities and the tenets of Realism are ill-equipped to evaluate, let alone produce, many of the works being staged across the country and the globe in the last 30 or so years. If you want to learn to write like a contemporary playwright, you’re going to have to look beyond traditional, linear structure and conventional idioms.
Free Playwriting Workshop
This free workshop will consist of a brief intro to a dramatic writing concept, followed by an exercise, in which everyone will participate simultaneously during the class. Afterwards, we'll have a short reflection discussion and some closing thoughts from me, and any remaining time will be open for further questions.
Free or Pay What You Want. Registration is required for this workshop.
Seminar: "Middletown" by Will Eno
Eno’s use of language echoes Dylan Thomas with a kind of buoyant absurdity that is surprising, creative, and often delightfully amusing. We’ll learn from Eno and attempt to write our own “language plays.”
Seminar: "Is God Is" by Aleshea Harris
Harris’s play is full of blood, mythic tropes, and “adventures in typography.” We’ll try to figure out how to catch some of that fire in a bottle.
One-on-one Script Review
There are as many ways to write a play as there are plays. For every play, there are equally as many ways to revise it. The revision process can be overwhelming, murky, and frustrating, and there are very few resources out there to help you with it.
If you have a complete draft of a play, and you’d like guidance in your revision process, I can work with you one-on-one to help you get to the next draft.
With this service, I’ll review your work, send you notes, and hold a meeting with you to discus them in-depth. You can then send me your revised work and we’ll repeat the process at a discount.
Here’s a full breakdown of the process:
Phase One - $250
You send me your most current draft on or by an agreed-upon date.
Within two weeks, I send you your draft with some comments from me, as well as a page of notes.
You review the notes, then we schedule a 1 hour meeting.
If you want to continue working with me, we go on to...
Jack provides excellent, incisive, and supportive feedback. He's very open to different styles and writers. I enjoyed working with him.
– Former student
Phase Two - $125
You take my notes and do a revision of the script, marking revised sections by coloring the text red. (so I have a rough idea of what’s new, though I’ll still read the whole play)
Send me the revision within 6 months of our meeting so I can ensure that I will remember your script.
From there, it’s the same deal—I read and offer you comments, notes, and a 1 hr meeting.
If you want to do another revision together, we move on to…
Phase Three - $75
Same deal as Phase Two. This time, color the revised stuff in blue.
Obviously it’s up to you at each stage if you want to continue. If it’s been more than 6 months since our last meeting, we start back at Phase One, just because by that point I’ll need to do another close read to make sure I’m up to speed on the play.
If interested, email me at jack@jackjacknovak.com