Special Topics in Dramatic Writing

Fall 2025

Special Topics in Dramatic Writing:

Writing Memoir & Solo Performance

Professor Jody McAuliffe

Mondays, Wednesdays 1:25 - 2:40 p.m.

Page 106

ALP, W, CE, WR

Cross-Lists ENGLISH 290S-4, SES 290S

No consent required or pre-requisites

Writing personal narrative is a process of creative personal presentation through journal writing, memory exploration, research, excavation, reflection, and intention.  How do we find our voice? What story do we want to tell? Explore the art of short memoir, one person play, and stand-up. Dig deep into writing prompts to cultivate experimentation, clarify burgeoning ideas, and generate new ones. We’ll discuss traditional elements of the craft (imagery, scene, stakes, characterization, conflict, dialogue, resolution, and manipulation of time), and venture into ways of storytelling for the page and stage. For guidance and inspiration we’ll sample and discuss significant memoirs, one-person plays and stand-up performances. Participants will share, revise, and present their work. We will study and analyze Fleabag by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Shimmer by John O’Keefe, Better than Sane by Alison Rose, Trapped in the Present Tense: Meditations on American Memory by Colette Brooks, Liudmila Petrushevskaia’s The Girl from the Metropol Hotel: Growing up in Communist Russia, Simon Stephens's one-man version of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, Sergei Dovlatov’s The Suitcase, and Varlam Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales.  Students will produce 30 pages of original material.