Playwrighting With Bill Burford

Producer/director Bill Burford has produced and directed new plays, classics, musicals, reviews concerts and dance performances at several theaters, including the Strand Street Theater in Galveston, Texas, and Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor.

Beginning Monday, January 20, he will lead “Playwrighting: Process & Projects,” a seven-week workshop designed to unleash the playwright’s inner imaginings. The workshop will explore how stories emerge, and how they are prepared for production. Burford will help writers, actors, and other artists foster each other’s work through free-drafting, reading each participant’s new pages together, and mutually supportive feedback.

Artists are encouraged to work on any kind of character-based piece for stage: plays, operas, and new forms, as well as dance, musical, puppet, or physical theater. With the performative medium left to the writer, each workshop’s focus develops with the scripts themselves, addressing a variety of concepts, processes, and techniques as needed.

The workshop concludes with a final reading where the writers can hear excerpts from their latest pages to an invited audience in our John Drew Theater.

“Playwrighting: Process & Projects,” meets 6 to 9 p.m. on Mondays from January 20 to March 2. Writers and artists of various skill levels are welcome. The cost is $175, $125 for members of Guild Hall, for the seven-week course. Guild Hall is at 158 Main Street, East Hampton. Visit guildhall.org for more information.