Dreamwork for Dramatic Writing: Dreamwrighting for Stage and Screen teaches you how to use your dreams, content, form, and structure, to write surprisingly unique new drama for film and stage. It is an exciting departure from traditional linear, dramatic technique, and addresses both playwriting and screenwriting, as the profession is increasingly populated by writers who work in both stage and screen. Developed through 25 years of teaching award-winning playwrights in the University of Missouris Writing for Performance Program, and based upon the phenomenological research of renowned performance theorist Bert O. States, this book offers a foundational, step-by-step organic guide to non-traditional, non-linear technique that will help writers beat clichéd, tired dramatic writing and provides stimulating new exercises to transform their work.
Introduction Dreamwork for Dramatic Writing
1An Organic Approach to Magic and Theatricality
2How to Use This Book
1The Dreamwright Workshop Relaxation, The Trance State, and
Daydreaming
1Building your Dream Cache: Keeping a Dream Journal
2A Dream Example
3A Dream, 8/27/22, Madrid, Spain, Titled: The Bearded Man
4Step 1 The Warm-Up Getting into the Flow
5Basic Writers Physical Warm-Up
6Shoulder Warm-Up
7Neck Warm-Up
8Back Warm-Up
9Breath Work
10Relaxation Exercise
11Step 2 Devising Your Dream Cache Gathering the Stuff of Your
Imagination
12Initial Dream Prompts
13Dramatic Element Prompts
14Desires
15Problems/Obstacles
16Feelings
17Questions
18People
19Events
20Places
21Animals
22Plants
23Objects
24The Next Step Creating with Dream Elements
25Step 3 Writing a Dream Freeing Your Natural Creativity
25.1Dream Tropes
26Step 4 Dream Dramatic Concept Outline Germinating the Dramatic Seed
27Step 5 Character Dreams Exploring the World within Your Character
28Write Your Characters Dream
29Step 6 Dream Adjacent Writing Exercises Giving over to the Magic of
Dreaming
30The
Chapters Ahead Exploring Dreamwright Styles
31Chapter by
Chapter Summary Dreamwright Styles
2Structure of the Dreamwork, Myth, Ceremony, and Ritual August
Strindbergs Dream Play and Orson Welles Citizen Kane
1Orson Welles and the Flashback Dream Structure
3Ancient Dream Structures: Myths and the Greek Chorus Sophocles Oedipus
the King, Paula Vogels How I Learned to Drive, Lanford Wilsons Book of
Days, and Marcel Camus Black Orpheus
1How I Learned to Drive Paul Vogels Contemporizing the Chorus
2How I Learned to Drive a Circular Structure of Revelation
3Lanford Wilsons Book of Days the Lyric Chorus
4Marcel Camus Black Orpheus the Liminality of Carnival
4African-American Dream Funhouse Creating Ritual Liminality Adrienne
Kennedys Funny House of a Negro and Julies Dashs Daughters of the
Dust
1Julie Dash and the Structure of the Griots Song
5Transfiguration of Gender and Identity Transformations, Mutability, and
Androgyny Jean Genets The Balcony and Sally Potters Orlando
1Jean Genet: Criminal Gender Illusionist
2Orlando Sally Potter a History of Gender Fluidity
6The Dreamers Heart Thinking Backwards First Character Dreams and
Storytelling McDonaghs The Pillowman and Christopher Nolans:
Memento
1Story Structure in McDonaghs The Pillowman
2Hairpin: The Structure of Christopher Nolans Memento
7Magic Plot Cards The Dreamwright as Storyteller Tony Kushners Angels
in America, Charlie Kaufmans Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,
Guillermo Arriagas 21 Grams
1Tony Kushners Angels in America A Reluctant Prophet and a Reformed
Sinner
2Guillermo Arriagas 21 Grams Daily Dreams and Time Jumps
2.1The Interweave Process
8The Snap of the Heartstring Symbolism and Romanticism Chekhovs The
Cherry Orchard, Jose Riveras Cloud Tectonics, Marguerite Duras
Hiroshima Mon Amour
1Snapping of a String the Essence of Chekhovs Symbolism
2Exercises in Chekhovs Symbolist Technique
3José Rivera Cloud Tectonics Latinx Realism Time Shift
4Unending Conversations: The Voice-Over Romance of Marguerite Durass
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
5Marguerite Duras Hiroshima Mon Amour Love in a Time of Nuclear
Holocaust
9Realms of Theatricality Surrealism and Waking Dreams Thornton
Wilders Pullman Car Hiawatha and David Lynchs Mulholland Drive
1Twisted Noir: The Mobius Detective in David Lynchs Mulholland Drive
2Muholland Drive Twisting the Noir Arouse Your Nocturnal Detective
10Inside out a Feminist Expressionism of Dreaming Sarah Ruhls
Eurydice and Karen Moncrieffs The Dead Girl
1Karen Moncrieff The Dead Girl Unpeeling the Onion of Grief
11Epic Theatre and The Lucid Dream Bertolt Brechts The Threepenny Opera
and Lucy Alibars Beasts of the Southern Wild
1Lucy Alibar Beasts of the Southern Wild The Lucidity of a Child
12Postmodernist Worlds of Slippage Pirandellos It Is So! (If You Think
So) and Eleanor Perrys The Swimmer
1Eleanor Perry The Swimmer Multiverse Pools of Desire
2Entering the Absurd Final Clarity of the Insane Vision Collapse of
Drama into Performance
13The Absurdist Nightmare and the Dramatic Wet Dream Ionescos The Bald
Soprano, Samuel Becketts Play, and Quentin Tarantinos Pulp Fiction
1Samuel Becketts Play Pushing On/Pushing Through I Cant Go on, Ill
Go On
2The Maw of Pop Culture: Pulp Fiction and the Structure of Story Threads
2.1Quentin Tarantinos Dramaturgical Essence the Cacophony of Scenic
Sequencing
3Pulp Fiction (Scenes in Chronological Order)
14The Breathing of a Play: Music and Ritualized Sacrifice Edward Albees
Tiny Alice and Agnčs Vardas Vagabond
1Agnes Varda Oneiric Cinécriture Writing Your Dreams in Film
15Comedy Shock: Rhythms of Menace and Joy Harold Pinters The Birthday
Party, Irene Fornes Conduct of Life, and Jean-Luc Godards Weekend
1Harold Pinter Playwright of Tension and Release the Comedy of Unease
2Marķa Irene Fornés: The Torturer and the Tortured Conducting Cruel
Comedy
3Jean-Luc Godards Weekend: The Horrible, Wonderful, Murderous Success of
Corinne and Roland
Conclusion The Work of a Dreamwright Transcending the Possible
1The Dream Cache
Index
David Crespy founded the University of Missouris Writing for Performance program which received the 2017 Gold Medallion from the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. Twice a Fulbright recipient, he wrote Off-Off-Broadway Explosion and Richard Barr: The Playwrights Producer both with a foreword by Edward Albee. He has taught workshops in dreamwork for dramatic writing across the US as well as in Spain and Greece.
