July 25–26 6 to 9:30 p.m. $225 per person – registrants must attend both nights Call Theresa at (970) 259-2606 to register! Writer/Director Sydney Sidner will present a special 2-day Introduction to Narrative Screenwriting Workshop at the Durango Arts Center. This intensive workshop is for anyone interested in learning to write a character- or plot-driven story for the big screen. Students will arrive having written a five-sentence story that describes a character on a mission, who encounters an obstacle. That story, or another of the student’s choosing, will be used in exercises that explore outlining, creating plot and structure, defining characters through actions, evaluating scene structure and sharpening dialogue. In each class, students will share the work as basic tenets of screenwriting. Syd Sidner received a BFA in acting from Carnegie-Mellon University and began directing at venues that include Manhattan Class Company, The West Bank Café, Circle Repertory, Lincoln Center, The B Street Theater, Northwestern’s NHSI, The Spoleto Festival and The Williamstown Theater Festival, where she was awarded the Boris Sagal Directing Fellowships, both Jr. and Sr. She was also awarded a special interest residency grant from the Drama League of New York that included a stay at the National Theater in London, and a grant from Circle Repertory to work with members of the Royal Dramatic Theater of Stockholm. She went on to earn an MFA in screenwriting from Columbia Film School, where she also taught screenwriting. Her first short, The Rite, was awarded Best Film at the Columbia Film Festival while another short she directed, Gravity, was selected by both Slamdance and Williamstown Film Festivals. Her feature-length screenplay Adelaide was awarded a MacDowell Colony screenwriting residency. Having signed this spring with CAA, a famous Los Angeles agency, Syd recently completed the feature, Adventurine, along with two TV pilots, Roachdale and Meridian Hill,s as well as Indisposed, a short produced by Warner Bros. for RADA. She also recently consulted for Peter Hedges on Disney’s The Odd Life of Timothy Green, which opens this August, and for A.M. Homes on May We Be Forgive, a novel for Penguin, due out this fall. Don’t miss this screenwriting workshop led by a working professional!