Nancy Geyer Speaks on…The Joy of Reading a Play
What a joy it is to sit in an audience, the lights dimming and a play – the scene set – opening to be seen and heard.
Such an ideal!
But there is a second way to enjoy, to breathe in, a play… and that is to hold the writer’s script in your hands. Then on page one, the play launches and becomes yours to visualize and imagine, perhaps even fall in love with, time after time. The playwright’s plot, dialogue, characters, symbolism, and the words themselves take the reader on a journey right up until the magical spell is broken with two little words conveying so much: THE END.
What is being said here?
Whether sitting in an audience or in your favorite “reading chair” in your own home, a play is a gift to be enjoyed, appreciated, and cherished.
The four plays I have selected for this course are classics that I believe you will enjoy spending time with and discussing in class each week. Conversations will include the play’s content, the make-up, the motivations of its characters, and the wheels that turn and drive the plot over both smooth and rocky terrain.
In addition, if you are a student of writing, no matter if your interest is in novels or short stories, I believe there is no better place to begin your intense personal study than in reading plays – both the classics and modern works. Why? It’s simple: they are the best way to study dialogue and to match words with characters. One can glean ideas from how characters speak or don’t speak. There is much to learn from a playwright’s conveyance of what a character is thinking or feeling only through actions, gestures, and body language.
I hope you will join us as we read these plays for enjoyment, entertainment, learning, and, finally, for love of the written words on the printed page.
~Nancy
Register for “Four Plays for the Ages” beginning Tuesday, June 4, 2024.