Check out opportunities at NHSI to hone your craft all year long!

What makes a scene active instead of passive? What differentiates dynamic dialogue from banter? How can you create theatre that compels an audience to lean forward instead of sit back? In this course lead by Laura Schellhardt, head of the undergraduate playwriting program at Northwestern, writers will pull techniques for creating active theatre from plays, literature, and everyday conversations, and apply those techniques to scenes, one act plays and monologues of their own.

This workshop is open to all high school students, freshmen through seniors.

NHSI Playwriting Faculty Ian Merrigan will guide students through a fast paced, online playwriting process. Email correspondence will begin about a week before the workshop with guided brainstorming assignments and material to read.  We will then hit the ground writing and finish our 5-day intensive with a first draft of a 10-minute play.  Schedule will include one 60 to 90-minute group Zoom session per day, optional office hours with the instructor for additional feedback and notes, and committed, personal writing time.

This workshop is open to all high school students, freshmen through seniors.

This winter Playwriting Faculty Member John Corwin will offer a unique online experience for students interested in television and writing! Ever had have an idea for a TV series? That’s great! Here’s where you can learn how to turn that idea into a script and long-running series. Email correspondence with your instructor will begin two weeks before programming starts with guided brainstorming assignments, shows to watch and materials to read in order to learn the industry standards of genre, format and structure. Over the six session workshop, students watch and discuss pilots from popular, acclaimed shows, analyze the scripts, and discover what makes the show work, how they succeed and how they fail. Students will then take what they’ve learned and apply that to their own ideas, assembling an outline for the pilot and even writing the teaser and first act. This program is open to all high school students, freshmen through seniors

“I will never watch TV in the same way again. I gained further understanding in structure of TV storylines, how to pitch an idea concisely and effectively, and tried my hand at screenwriting for the first time.” – 2022 Student