Kennedy Center & Cat in the Hat

Just got back from The Kennedy Center... it was fantastic. I spent two weeks as a Guest Artist in their Playwriting Intensive program. There was a small group of us who were lucky enough to have classes with members from the A-List in American Theater, including: the always wonderful Gary Garrison, whose class in structure and character development rocked; Marsha Norman did this amazing thing with us, using The Cat in The Hat as a template for story structure and subject exploration; Steven Dietz’s class on playwriting was priceless. I love his work and his approach to process. Cathy Norgren gave a dynamic workshop focusing on design as a starting point to enhance writing; Mark Bly, Melanie Marnich, and Heather McDonald all used guided writing exercises that opened up the storytelling process in a magical way; Caleen Jennings worked with us on freeing up the creative process by providing an exercise that guarantees you can always overcome writer’s block; Robert Aguirre-Sacasa had us write deleted scenes from our plays. This was revealing in the most amazing way; Christopher Bayes’ acting workshop was phenomenal; Rebecca Taichman gave us great insight into the writer-director relationship; Lenora Brown’s dramaturgy workshop is a must for any playwright; Carlyle Brown gave a workshop and candid discussion about playwriting; and we had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with the extremely talented actors Rick Foucheux and Jennifer Mendenhall.