Short and Sweet: Writing the Ten-Minute Play

Wednesdays, November 3 & November 10, 2021

6:30 PM – 8:30 PM AKDT

Via Zoom

This class takes place on more than one date (November 3 & November 10) but must be registered for as a single class. Registration information is available by selecting the first date of the class in this events calendar.

Join Alaskan playwrights Anne Hanley and Tom Moran for engaging, fun exercises to activate your inner playwright. We’ll help you find ideas for ten-minute plays in places you never thought to look before. The ten-minute form is a great way to jump into playwriting. You’ll grapple with all the biggies: conflict, character, dialogue, etc., but on a much more manageable scale. We’ll hold a two-hour session talking about the basics and helping to germinate ideas and then have a second one to see what students have come up with – whether it be the vaguest of outlines or a polished ten-pager. We’ll also talk about opportunities to have ten-minute plays read and produced. Our goal is to have fun. Come play with us!

Bios

Anne Hanley is, so far, the only playwright to be named Alaska State Writer Laureate. She has an MFA in Theatre & Film Writing from UCLA and is a Lifetime Member of the Dramatists Guild. In Alaska, her plays have been produced at UAA, UAF, Cyrano’s, Fairbanks Drama Association, Perseverance Theatre and the Last Frontier Theatre Conference. Her play, The Winter Bear, has toured to 50 communities all over the State. It was recently re-imagined as a digital production and streamed to communities in Northwestern Alaska. Since 2002, when Hanley and two friends launched the annual 8X10 Festival, they have produced staged readings of 160 ten-minute plays by Alaskan playwrights.

Tom Moran’s plays have been produced in 19 states and four foreign countries, and his short plays “Duo” and “Breakout” have been published by Smith & Kraus. His plays have also been featured 19 times in the aforementioned 8×10 Festival. He holds a Bachelor’s from Notre Dame and an MFA from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he was the first student to focus on playwriting. He also teaches playwriting at the Fairbanks Drama Association’s Young Playwrights Institute. He lives in Fairbanks, where he spends inordinate amounts of time on bicycles.

Please note: registration will close 72 hours before the first class session and no late registrations will be accepted.

49 Writers dedicates our 2021-2022 programming season to the memory of Frank Soos (1950-2021), our 2021 Program Chair.