OUTLINING LAB

ANMT's sixth annual MUSICAL THEATRE BOOT CAMP presents:

OUTLINING ANYWHERE!

Instructor: Elise Dewsberry

Six Wednesday evenings from 7pm to 10pm

July 6, 13, 20, 27, August 3, 10

Course Fee: $495 (Early Bird/ANMT Member Fee: $395)

The Outlining Lab is available in-person OR online (or a combination of the two!) Video lectures, exercises, handouts, and tests are all available online. Attend the live sessions for feedback on your homework assignments - or attend those sessions by Skype.

An outline can be an invaluable writer's tool for clarifying the structure and story arc of a musical idea. It can then serve as a blueprint for the rough draft that the collaborators will use to develop the new musical. Writers who skip this important step in the development process are likely to find themselves bogged down with a partially written new show that is riddled with logical inconsistencies, and does not compellingly deliver the intentions of the creative team.

In the Outlining Lab, you will be lead step-by-step through the process of developing a musical idea from concept through to a working outline, with detailed constructive feedback along the way. By the end of this ten-unit course, you should have a well-developed and detailed outline that will solidly prepare you for the collaborative task of writing your new musical.

Along with the basic six steps to an outline, other topics dealt with will include:
Types of Conflict
20 Questions for your Outline
Language of an Outline
Dealing with Feedback
Pitch and Synopsis
One-Liner and Logline

Don't start writing until your outline is rock solid!

To register (or for more info) - CLICK HERE

INSTRUCTOR INFO:
Elise Dewsberry
Currently the Artistic Director of ANMT, Elise has been involved in the development of new works for over fifteen years: as an actor/singer, as a director, as a dramaturge, and as a writer. At ANMT, Elise co-teaches the Core Curriculum, runs the Full Length Curriculum and Book Lab, and is the dramaturge for the annual Search for New Musicals. Elise is also on the New Works Committee of the National Alliance for Musical Theatre, and is the co-ordinator of the SoCal New Musicals Network. While living in Toronto, Elise served as the Assistant Artistic Director of the Muskoka Festival; the Co-Ordinator of the festival's annual Musical Theatre Writer's Colony, the Associate Dramaturge of the Canadian Stage Company; the Resident Dramaturge of the Smile Theatre Company; and was the co-founder of Toronto's ScriptLab. Elise spent many years touring Canada with NINE MONTHS - a one-woman musical which she commissioned from writers Carl Ritchie and Stephen Woodjetts. Elise and Carl also co-wrote ANY BODY HOME?, which has been published by Dramatic Publishing and has had multiple productions around the world.

'I recently had the pleasure of working with The Academy for New Musical Theatre on a reading of THE GROUCH'S DAUGHTER, my new musical co-written with Jack Helbig. ANMT staff member Elise Dewsberry served as both dramaturg and director, and in our years of working on this show, no one person has been as helpful to us as she was. Prior to the reading, we received a set of notes that were as thoughtful as they were thorough. ANMT's suggestions led to a rewrite that greatly helped me shape the show and refine its style. I'm deeply impressed with the care and intelligence of their creative input, and would not hesitate to work with ANMT again.'
-Mark Hollmann, Tony award-winning composer, Urinetown

'We ...feel as if a nurturing dramaturgical Mary Poppins has visited us with wonderful insightful nourishment. It appeared to us that you seemed to really relate to the characters we've established and are caught up with their plight and have come up with ways to strengthen them ... Your suggestions are invaluable to us ...'
--Ron Yatter

'Elise Dewsberry's rare gift for analyzing plot and character is enormously helpful to writers. Her story sense is phenomenal.'
- Stephen Oles, bookwriter, Seattle

'Wow!! ... It's as though you were reading our minds ... What's particularly brilliant is that you are having us work through the process in manageable stages. What a gift you have, that you can lead us so that we need to climb out of only puddles of quicksand of our own making, rather than oceans of it! We both hold you in the absolute highest esteem imaginable.'
- Roger Love and Ann McNamee