About

The UK is unequivocally a frontrunner in producing outstanding dramatic writing for stage and screen. Our world-renowned contemporary playwrights and screenwriters are exported across the Globe, not least to the US. Despite this, it remains true "that the context for pedagogy is America" (Wright, 2004). There have been no substantial UK-based academic inquiries into the teaching of dramatic writers. This suggests the training of the scriptwriter is, to an extent, uninformed and disassociated from the work of the professional scriptwriter in industry. If we are not conducting pedagogical research, how can we conclude that the teaching of dramatic writing aligns with the demands of writing for stage and screen today? Here lies the inevitable gap between the practice and the pedagogy of dramatic writing.

This practice-led inquiry seeks to assess that gap by comparing the actual process of writing scripts with the ways we teach students to write them; as a means of developing a pedagogical approach that moves beyond the dramaturgical confines of ‘how do plays and screenplays work?’ and instead towards an interrogation of ‘how do we train good playwrights and screenwriters? The project will examine the scriptwriting process through the creation of a portfolio of new dramatic work. Subsequent analysis and evaluation of the creative process, compared and contrasted with an in-depth review of current British scriptwriting curricula, as well as embodied pedagogies from acting, devising and improvisation, will aim to critically inform the development of a cohesive and bespoke pedagogical approach to scriptwriting.