Staci Swedeen, co-founder of Flying Anvil Theatre, is teaching the workshop. Swedeen is an award-winning playwright and veteran workshop teacher.

KNOXVILLE -- Everyone’s got a story, but they don't always have the best tools to tell it. Flying Anvil Theatre, in partnership with Knox County Public Library, is pleased to announce Grand Entrances: Writing for the Stage, an 8 week play writing workshop that gives potential playwrights the basic elements of play writing as well as a “behind the scenes” look at play production.

The workshop runs October 9 through November 27 from 2-4 p.m. at Lawson McGhee Library in downtown Knoxville. The workshop is free and open to all adults. No formal writing experience is necessary. Participants may sign up online at www.knoxlib.org or by calling (865) 215-8729.

Staci Swedeen, co-founder of Flying Anvil Theatre, is teaching the workshop. Swedeen is an award-winning playwright and veteran workshop teacher. She moved to Knoxville in 2011 to co-found Flying Anvil Theatre with Jayne Morgan, her longtime friend and one of Knoxville’s favorite actors. Swedeen’s play, The Goldman Project, was produced Off Broadway and published by Samuel French. Her one-woman show Pardon Me For Living: a Biting Comedy was featured at the 2013 Piccolo Spoleteo Festival in Charleston, South Carolina. She was also one of 12 artists in the state to be awarded the Tennessee Arts Fellowship for 2014 by the Tennessee Arts Commission.

Grand Entrances brings together Swedeen’s knowledge and experience of theatre craft in an organized yet accessible series that leads participants through the creative process from wild idea to hearing their words on stage. She employs the various methods writers use to germinate ideas, get them down on paper, develop characters and plot, and discuss their work with other writers. The culmination of the workshop is a staged reading in which playwrights will hear their words read aloud by other people.

Grand Entrances is funded through an Arts Builds Communities grant from the Tennessee Arts Commission administered by the Arts and Culture Alliance of Knoxville.

For more information visit www.flyinganviltheatre.com or www.knoxlib.org.

Published October 6, 2013