Classes for Adults and Seniors

Learn to write a 10-minute play for the stage with, professional playwright, Michael Bernard. This course will cover the fundamentals of playwriting, character development, structure, dialogue, stage directions, punctuation, and formatting. Students will complete a 10-minute play that will be read by actors on the New Vic stage for the public. 

MICHAEL BERNARD spent 10 years as the Associate Artistic Director of The 52nd Street Project, a nationally recognized theater company that creates original theater with kids from Hell’s Kitchen New York City and theater professionals. Michael wrote, directed, and performed in many original plays at The Project. He also directed Twelfth Night, A Midsummer’s Nights Dream and As You Like It featuring teenagers and adult actors which toured to London and France. At UCB NYC Michael directed shows including The Chipperton Family Vocal-Tainers’ Shooby Dooby Dooby Hour which was an official selection of The HBO Comedy Festival in Aspen. In Santa Barbara he spent four years as the Artistic Director of Elements Theater Collective where he played King Charles/William Scott/Lady Davenant in Or, Richard Nixon in, Nixon’s Nixon, and Sorn in Stupid F-ing Bird. He also directed In a Word and ran their annual “Play in a Day” theater festival. As a Continuing Lecturer in the UCSB Theater Department he has directed Hookman, Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, and The Government Inspector. He played Stephano in The Tempest, Gayev in The Cherry Orchard, and Cassius in Julius Caesar with the LitMoon Theater Company (toured to Albania, Armenia, Georgia and Macedonia for International Festivals). He played Francis Henshall in One Man Two Guvnors at SBCC and Howard in Death of a Salesman at the Ensemble Theatre Company. He is a company member of Immediate Theater, an LA improv company dedicated to the creation improvised one act plays and is featured in their film “The Long Isolation” as the evil Dr. Simon Farley. His play Diamond to Dust: A Flying A Fantasy will premiere at Westmont College in February 2023. He wrote the script for the musical revue Baseball Swing at the Wallis Annenberg Center in Los Angeles and his play A-Li-En the Family was featured in Sci-Fest, LA’s first Science Fiction Theater Festival. He was then commissioned to adapt two Neil Gaiman stories “The Case of Four and Twenty Blackbirds” and “The Secret of Innsmouth” for the second and third Sci-Fests. Michael co-write the original web series “Ashes to Ashes” which was an official selection of The Hollyweb festival and can be seen at ashestoashestheseries.com. He has also written for Disney, Nickelodeon, Henson Productions, Nick at Nite, DC Comics, Showtime, Spike TV, The Sundance Channel, Noggin, WE, MTV, VH1 and some commercials. In addition to UCSB Michael has taught in the Theater Program at SBCC, as well as for the Young Actors Conservatory and The Young Playwrights Festival at ETC, and at The Creative Arts Workshop.