What is the point of literature?
We live in a complex world, and what it requires — imagination, a willingness to listen, to take in new information — sits at the heart of the finest literature.
Final Monologues
Graduate Thesis Presentation on Final Monologues
We all know that one monologue word for word from our favorite narrative. As writers, we also know what it can feel like when a monologue falls flat. In our own work, how do we know when the time is right to express a character's want or pain? We often wonder if it's too soon or if the reader will feel anything. When carefully placed and done effectively, emotionally devastating your audience or reader can be good (rather than manipulative.) Let’s discuss how monologues function as beats of narrative catharsis to express the speaker’s wants and how to portray that in your work.
The Power of God and Gossip with John Patrick Shanley
Through this play, Shanley paints an intricate tale of falsity and drama, grounding each turn in Father Flynn’s sermons.
When the title of the play is the worst line to say…
Marsha Norman already informs us what will happen; the entirety of the play has been preparing us for this line, but what happens next?
Dance Nation or Internal Exposition?
Out of context, the monologues in this world feel disconnected, perhaps abstract—too poetic. Read too fast, and you may miss how Barron unveils each desire and the characters’ attempts to fulfill them.
Anger: A Result of Misunderstood Pain
Lisbeth writes a compelling memoir about how her time in and out of orphanages, foster care, and home developed her mental illnesses growing up.
The Play I Wish I Wrote
Boo Killebrew writes a love letter to families everywhere to be kinder, dig deeper, and love harder.
Sanctuary City;
Martyna captures the cycles of hope and hopelessness we go through in life. But especially the humanity and profound nature of simply wanting to belong.
God is a Woman
and she’s been laying in a hospital bed. Going beyond realism and bending Greek tragedy elements with an American Western feel, Alesha Harris’, Is God Is, successfully uses blood relationships in correlation to upbringing to approach violence against people of color.
“poor old Mary Jane”
Mary Jane by playwright Amy Herzog constructs a world in which Mary Jane physically struggles just as her son does with his health. Herzog explores the profoundness of the love a mother has for her child.
Anxiety and Cell Phones
Sarah Ruhl creatively tackles the two themes that seem to define this generation’s way of living. Anxiety and cell phones. Ruhl successfully constructs a dynamic between our fear of dying, our reliance on technology, and their association with anxiety. The audience ventures into an avant-garde satire created purely off Jean’s inability to disconnect from technology and admit the truth.
Body Work: In the Text and Under the Flesh
Body Work by Melissa Febos deconstructs the ideals that eat away a writer's mind as they begin their creative process. She effortlessly creates a unique take on a book of crafting a body of work by recounting successful writing moments paired with missteps in business.
