Skip to Content
  • Browse
  • Past Issues
  • Search

Arts and Letters

Wagner History

Wagner News

Inside Sports

Alumni Stories

Obituaries

Alumni Events

From the President

Feature Stories
Winter 2018–19
Summer 2018
Fall 2017
Summer 2017
Fall 2016
Winter 2015-16
Summer 2015
Fall 2014
Winter 2013-14
Summer 2013
Fall 2012
Summer 2012
Fall 2011
Summer 2011
Fall 2010
Summer 2010
Fall 2009
Summer 2009
Fall 2008
Summer 2008

How to Write a Great Play

SHARE
PRINT
BACK TO TOP
How to Write a Great Play
A photo of a doorknob with 'Wagner Memorial Lutheran College' embossed on the front.
‘Small Windows, Wide Views’: Seals in Antiquity and Today
Bill Murphy's face, wearing glasses and backward baseball cap, painting
For Bill Murphy, Art Never Ends

“What is water?” asked the professor.

“Life-giving,” answered one student.

“Refreshing,” added another. “And purifying. But you can also drown in it.”

And so, the playwriting class’s discussion of the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Water by the Spoonful was off and running.

At issue for Professor Ben Marshall and his students: What makes the script work? And why?

Playwright and professor Ben Marshall
Ben Marshall

Marshall should know. His play, Incident at Willow Creek, won the 2018 Stanley Drama Award. Given by Wagner College since 1957 to up-and-coming playwrights, the award has recognized the likes of Terrence McNally, Lonne Elder III, and Jonathan Larson (for Rent).

“We thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great, having a Stanley winner teaching our playwriting course?’” recalled theater department chair Felicia Ruff. “Ben, who’s an English professor at Middlesex County College, is on sabbatical this semester, and he said yes.”

The nine student playwrights enrolled in Marshall’s class will produce 10-minute scripts for submission to a new project, The Originals, which will be produced in April in Wagner’s Stage One theater.

Winter 2018–19

  • Arts and Letters
  • teaching
  • theater
SHARE
PRINT

Related Stories

image description

Why Anthropology Is Important

Aug 16, 2019 Recently retired Professor Gordon McEwan, an expert on the Incas and their predecessors, helped students thrive in our multicultural world.
image description

Maria Giura ’90: The Book That Changed My Life

Jul 31, 2019 It opened my eyes to the lives of others, including those of my own family.
image description

Of Her Theatrical Lineage

Jul 30, 2019 Pia Wilson ’93 finds her personal connection to Adrienne Kennedy, Wagner's 1963 Stanley Drama Award winner.
CLASS NOTES
OBITUARIES
CONTACT US

LATEST NEWS

image description

Almost a Century

Four faculty retirees collectively put in 99 years of dedicated teaching.

image description

A Term Paper for the Ages

How the biology department got its evolution mural.

image description

Connor Gibbs ’17: Composer

The high school chorus teacher creates new music for all kinds of instruments.

image description

What’s Inside: The Nursing Resource Center

Students get realistic hands-on experience in the Hi Fidelity Simulation Lab.

  • About the Magazine
  • Give to Wagner
  • Wagner Newsroom
  • Wagner Home
FOLLOW US

© 2021 All Rights Reserved