The School of Social Playwrights

The School of Social Playwrights  is a several-month series of creative and training meetings for people who write and are interested in writing for socially engaged theatre. SSP is centred around the idea of community creation, drawing on the real stories of participants in artistic activities, inspiration from the biographies of people involved in creative processes. The starting point for the tools used in SSP is the long-standing experience of Strefa WolnoSłowa and Artur Pałyga in creating scenarios based on real stories, interviews, tales and biographies. The method of writing suspended between artistic work with the community, reportage and writing for theatre will be an opportunity for the participating artists to test themselves in writing on the basis of other people’s stories, in conducting interviews and in participating in a creative process lasting several months and involving people from different social groups, of different cultural backgrounds and of different ages.

During the meetings we will write, read and talk, for example about what social drama actually is – a way of telling about social problems? And what are these problems and why is it worth telling about them? How to do it in order to change something? How to build? Where to start? Which way to lead? We will talk about our texts – sometimes it will be inspiring and opening, and sometimes it can also be painful, like the experiences and events we will write about. It will depend on our group, our stories and our texts where these conversations will lead us.

Classes of the School of Social Playwrights will take place from August to December 2021 at the Zygmunt Hubner Powszechny Theatre and at the Powszechny Table on weekends from 11.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. Work within the SSp will be summed up by a reading with the participation of performers and performers of the Free Word Zone on the Small Stage of the Powszechny Theatre in December 2021.

The calendar:

7, 8 August
11, 12 September
25, 26 September
16, 17 October
30, 31 October
20, 21 November
4, 5 December – last meeting and performative reading summing up the work

Leading the class: Artur Pałyga 

TEXTS BY PARTICIPANTS
I EDITION OF THE 2020 SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL PLAYWRIGHTS:

Social Dramaturgies is a continuation of cooperation between Teatr Powszechny and Strefa WolnoSłowa Foundation. The idea of the project is to create artistic events which are the result of joint work of artists with the local community – people not professionally connected with art, of various ages and cultural backgrounds.