STRUCTURE
This is the exercise Kent Nicholson gave us at the February 1998 meeting (reprinted here with permission from Kent).

Spend about 5-10 minutes on each of these four parts:
1. Create an awkward situation with two characters.
2. Now introduce a new character talking to one of the two characters from part one. Dialog can be related to the situation in part one.
3. You now have three characters. Now, create a monologue for one of the three characters. This can be an inner thoughts monologue, or perhaps the character is addressing another character, but you only hear the one character (for example, the character is talking on the phone).
4. Now a two character scene between any of the three characters.

At this point you have four small scenes. You can now play with the structure of your short play by arranging how these four scenes unfold. Four example, part one presents an awkward situation. By fiddling with the presentation of the four scenes, can you heighten that awkward situation?