Where's the Play? Finding and Shaping Subject Matter

At the January meeting, playwright Karen Hartman shared a very fun excercise. She asked us to bring a magazine or newspaper article that could be the basis of a play.

Using the article, we then formed an idea for a play. To help form the play, she had us fill out the blanks in the following sentences. (The "fill in the blanks" idea she borrowed from playwright Adam Rapp, who borrowed it from someone else!)

This is a play about ____________________________ .
It starts when ___________________ .
The main character is _________________ , who wants ________________ .
But ____________________ .
It ends when _______________________________ .

We used the blanks, and progressively filled in more and more details. Try it!