Writing for the Small Screen (Summer 2022) (Online)

Writing for the Small Screen (Summer 2022)

Jul 17 - Aug 28
10:00am - 1:00pm Central Time

Instructor: Mary Ruth Clarke

This class is for anyone who has an idea (comedy or drama, any genre) that could make a great episodic or limited series and who wants to learn the crucial basics of how to write it.  
We will study and analyze successful pilots. We will tease out/explore the inherent possibilities in your idea, where it fits in the vast TV landscape, how to position the idea, what makes a great TV characters, visual storytelling, budgetary considerations, proper story structure, and formatting. And you will write and rewrite. 
You will leave the workshop with:
• The makings of a pitch document
• A grasp of the show template, structure, core cast, and the ongoing character revelations as opposed to character development
• A grasp of the process of creation that optioned shows go through 
• A better grasp of the language that writers/producers/agents speak
• The beginnings of a rough draft of a television pilot 

Mary Ruth Clarke co-wrote and starred in the original Meet the Parents and co-adapted it into the blockbuster version, starring Robert De Niro. Her dramedy teleplay Broadway, Ohio is a finalist in the Chicago Screenplay Awards, Page Turner Awards, and a semi-finalist at Sundance Labs. Her comedy screenplay Alice and Celia and Whatever It Takes is a finalist for the Lit Laughs Comedy Film Festival and the Chicago Comedy Film Festival, and a is a semi-finalist in the Chicago Screenplay Awards. 

Mary Ruth’s students are staffed on Queens, Woke, and Family Reunion. 

She consults for clients in LA and Chicago, and she has critiqued about a gazillion plays and screenplays.  She’s a regular guest lecturer at the Chicago Screenwriter’s Network and the Off-Campus Writer’s Group.  

She is a member of the Writer’s Guide of America East and the Dramatists Guild.

Classes will be held via Zoom. Instructors will send out Zoom invites one day before class begins. We encourage students to setup a Zoom account for themselves before class if they have not already to ensure when class begins you are able to jump straight into the art!