Today's session was a first reading of Sam Graber's script, "Driving Herd." The dialogue in this script could be used to teach students about giving each character their own voice! This two-character script brings to life two very different characters, joined through place, and the dialogue couldn't be more fun to listen to.
John Byrne and Aaron Leventman read the script, and then helped to workshop it. The workshop focused on the power of using a sense of the abstract to convey meaning, instead of a forthright thematic approach. Hidden in the dialogue of Graber's script is a telling of loss and gain, responsibility and frustration.
I learned during this workshop that allowing the discussion to wander where it will is often the most powerful thing I can do as a facilitator. Aaron and John offered strong suggestions to avoid distraction and to focus the theme, even through the abstract approach. I found my question about the title to be shallow, so I may drop that in the future. I also heard in Aaron's response to the stock question about story progression that it didn't apply to this script, as the story progression is not the important element. Perhaps I'll focus on theme progression and the effective delivery of it, regardless of the type of script it is.
My thanks to Sam for his script and to John and Aaron for reading and offering critique. You can listen to the audio recording of the session.