**REGISTRATION IS NOW CLOSED**

CLASS DESCRIPTION

Less can mean more with powerful storytelling. You can watch the span of someone’s lifetime—moments of joy and sadness, love and loss—in 10 minutes or less. Writing a short play is a great way to challenge your storytelling skills in a format that requires fully developed and recognizable characters, lean dialogue, and going straight to the heart of the play. Christin Eve Cato will share key components of writing an excellent short play, encouraging students to experiment and take creative risks. Students will study and explore elements of strong short plays to apply to their own work.

This class is for you if you:

• Have a short play you want to write or revise.
• Are searching for ways to challenge your writing skills.
• Want to look deeper into short play structure.
• Are interested in learning more about Christin Eve Cato’s work and approach to writing.

• Read, discuss, and examine existing short plays.
• Exercises to use when writing a short play. 
• Sharing work and giving feedback to your creative peers.
• Learning how to identify your writing process. 
• Walk out of the class with a short play you are proud of.

Important Things to Note:

• When you sign up, you will receive an auto-confirmation email. About a week before the first session you will receive a detailed confirmation email with important information about the seminar including (1) Membership Programs Participation Form (2) The Zoom link (3) Pre-assignments from the instructor and (4) Information about the PWC Membership and Education Team.
• If you have not received this email within a week of the first session, please check your spam folder or reach out to Alayna and she will make sure you have the information you need for the seminar or class.
• All participants must complete and submit a Membership Programs Participation Form for each seminar or class they want to attend. A link to this form is included in the detailed confirmation email.
• This class will be using Google Classroom. Therefore, you must have or create a Gmail account to fully participate in the class.
• Payment plans are available as needed. Please contact the Membership Programs Manager, Alayna Jacqueline Barnes, to discuss payment options.

Class Modality: Synchronous - Meeting online once every week.

Class Type: Playwriting craft, generative writing class                    

Class Level: All levels are welcomed

Class Dates: Tuesdays, September 26th through November 7th

September 26th, October 3rd, 10th, 17th, 24th, and November 7th (6 "in-person" online sessions total)

Class Time: 6:30pm - 8:30pm CT 

(4:30pm PT, 5:30pm MT, 7:30pm ET)

Where: Online via Zoom, check out this quick video on the process.

Structure: Lecture/presentation, Discussion, Writing prompts, Exercises, Breakout groups, Q&A

Questions: Email Alayna, Membership Programs Manager at alaynab@pwcenter.org

Captioning: For all sessions, we enable Zoom's auto-generated captioning. However, live captioning can be requested (with 2-weeks' notice) via the Membership Programs Participation Form shared in the detailed confirmation email.

Recordings: If you cannot attend a portion of the seminar, we have a Teaching Assistant and/or PWC facilitator taking in-depth notes. These written notes will be shared with all participants at the end of each session. (We record all of our sessions for internal use only. We do not share recordings with participants.)

Participants must register to join this class, Sign Up at the bottom of the page.

NOTE FROM CHRISTIN

Writing short plays is how I began my playwriting journey. If I had a question or theme I wanted to start a conversation about, I would approach those topics through the structure of a short play- this allowed me to understand my stance on the given topic and explore it in a narrative form. I use this same model today- not all stories need to be told in full length. Sometimes we just need a fresh perspective- and that's the power of storytelling. Short plays can also be used as concept pieces for larger projects and can be used as IP samples.

INSTRUCTOR BIO

Christin Eve Cato is a playwright, dramaturg, and performing artist from the Bronx. She holds an MFA in Playwriting from Indiana University and completed her BA in Political Science and Philosophy at Fordham University. Cato is also a graduate of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School for Music and Art and the Performing Arts. She is affiliated with NYC theater companies, Pregones/PRTT (ensemble member & former Resident Dramaturg), INTAR Theatre (UNIT 52 ensemble member), and the Latinx Playwrights Circle. She is also a playwright in the WP Theater 2022-2024 Pipeline Lab. Cato's artistic style is expressed through Caribbean culture and the Afro-Latinx diaspora, honoring her Puerto Rican and Jamaican roots. Her recent play productions include the Off-Broadway sensation, Sancocho (co-produced by The Latinx Playwrights Circle, The Sol Project and WP Theatre), and The Diamond (The Peoples Theatre Project/Pregones Theatre). Recent dramaturgy credits include: Somewhere (Geva Theatre Center), Torched (PRTT), The Comedy of Errors (The Public), Hamlet (Classical Theatre of Harlem/ The Folger Theatre). Publication/Contributor credits include: We Are Not Neutral (Amazon Books) and, Latinx Actor Training (Routledge). She is repped by WME Agency and 3 Arts Entertainment. www.christinevecato.com