Poking the Canon

Poking the Canon

Sep 10 - Oct 29
6:30pm - 9:30pm

Instructor: Emilio Williams

How can we adapt and subvert traditional plots and story-telling conventions to refresh the classics in a way that makes them relevant to our present day? In this generative workshop, award-winning playwright Emilio Williams will share best practices on ways to honor and question well-known stories and forms. From a content perspective, we will look at how other dramatists have probed the traditional narratives from a class, race and gender perspective. We will also look at classic story-telling structures and how we can play with them to generate alternative and unexpected theatrical experiences. The class will also review the mechanisms of comedy, drama and tragedy. We will conclude the workshop with a dramatized public reading of short pieces or fragments written by the students.

Emilio Williams is an award-winning writer and educator. His critically-acclaimed plays have been produced in Argentina, Estonia, France, Mexico, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States, including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington DC. As an international communications expert and journalist, he has worked for CNN, the Johns Hopkins University and the University of Chicago. He has been a visiting artist at the University of Portland, Georgia State University, Mary Washington University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He holds an MFA in Writing from theSchool of the Art Institute of Chicago where he is currently teaching creative writing.