Director Guild Workshop - STEPHEN JEFFREYS - STORY & TREATMENT - Saturday 8th May 2010
Shaw Theatre, London NW1
How do you work up a story? What should be in a treatment? Are there really only nine different story structures?
Work with experienced screenwriter and playwright Stephen Jeffreys (The Libertine, Lost Land, Backbeat) on how to improve your craft skills in analysing scripts and developing your own treatments.
• Develop new approaches to story through the use of story themes and templates.
• Examine the strengths and pitfalls of different story structures.
• Work up your own treatment.
THE DAY
During the morning session (10.30 – 1 pm) Stephen will introduce story structures, develop the nine kinds of story and examine how a story idea can move to treatment.
In the afternoon (2 - 5 pm) we will work on treatment examples brought by Stephen and by participants, examining in detail the strengths and challenges of different stories and how to present them.
Requirements: please bring a short (one page (A4) treatment to discuss.
Stephen Jeffreys: Stephen Jeffreys was born in London. His play, Like Dolls or Angels (1977), won the Sunday Times Playwriting Award at the National Student Drama Festival. He helped to set up Pocket Theatre Cumbria, for whom he wrote a number of plays, including an adaptation of Dickens' Hard Times in 1982. Other plays include The Clink (1999), The Libertine (1994) about the 17th-century poet John Wilmot, second Earl of Rochester, first staged at the Royal Court Theatre. The Libertine was released as a film starring Johnny Depp, for which Stephen Jeffreys wrote the screenplay. A Going Concern (1993) was first staged at the Hampstead Theatre in London. He adapted Richard Brome's A Jovial Crew (1992) for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1992. I Just Stopped By to See The Man (2000) was first staged at the Royal Court Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, and subsequently at Steppenwolf, Chicago. Interruptions premiered at UC Davis, California, in 2001. Lost Land premiered in the Steppenwolf, Chicago, in 2005. The Convict's Opera (2009) has been adapted from John Gay's The Beggar's Opera and Backbeat, the story of Stuart Sutcliffe, the “fifth Beatle”, based on the film of the same name,, has just opened at the Glasgow Citizens’ Theatre. Stephen Jeffreys is an experienced teacher and lecturer, and appeared in the Channel 4 documentary, The Play's the Thing, teaching playwrights.
Places for this workshop are limited and on a “first-come” basis
DAY WORKSHOP FEE (25 places max)
£45 for current Directors Guild members (2010 subscription required *)
& concessions (unwaged / OAP / student, proof required before payment, please)
£65 non-members
£30 Guild Student Members
• PAYPAL
• CHEQUE made payable to ‘The Directors Guild Trust’
posted to: Guild Workshops, DGGB, 4 Windmill Street, London W1T 2HZ
• CREDIT / DEBIT CARD phone Guild Office on 0207 580 9131
• BACS / INTERNET TRANSFER payable to:
Directors Guild Trust
Reference: TREATMENT_YourSurname
Sort Code: 56-00-14
Account Number: 00129518
NB - Please notify us of BACS, Internet or Paypal payments by email to directorsguild@dggb.org – thanks. If you have any special access or other requirements please advise the office. If you book for this event and are not a Guild member, we will place you on a mailing list so you can receive information on future events; please let us know if you want to be removed from this mailing list.
Date: Saturday 8th May 2010.
Time: 10.30 am – 5pm (with lunch break)
Venue: The Shaw Theatre, 100-110 Euston Road, London NW1 2AJ
Map: http://www.multimap.com/s/gYQ7apDU
Lunch break is from 1-2 pm; food is not provided but there are plenty of good places to eat, including the Euston & St. Pancras complexes and the Novotel Hotel and British Library cafe, both adjacent to the Shaw.
Photo: © Sheila Burnett
