All Student Success Letters

Peter J. Herzer

Dear Gotham,

I took Playwriting I and II with Kuros Charney back in 2009 and 2010, respectively. Kuros would ask us to do exercises to get our imaginations going and our writing flowing, like showing us a picture or offering a specific prompt to write a scene. One of the prompts in Playwriting I was to write a scene about two people in a room, while outside there was a major moment in history (real or imagined) happening. Then we would show the experience of those two characters in that scene.

As with many of the exercises that we worked on, I would go back later to edit or extend the piece. This particular piece was extended to a 10-minute play about a young Jewish couple hiding in an attic during Kristallnacht in 1938, and discussing their future wedding plans to take their minds off of the horror occurring outside. Last year, my play "Wedding Cake" was accepted for production by Downstage Left along with four other short plays. They were shown as “A Campfire of Playwriting” at the Badhuistheater in Amsterdam. It was such an exciting and amazing feeling to see one of my pieces produced and acted out on stage!

Kuros has always been very supportive and offered great advice on individual pieces. By sharing his own experience in the theater and playwriting, he has been extremely helpful and encouraging. I used to write only short fiction and some poetry, but since taking the Playwriting courses it has given me great pleasure to write in this form and has helped me immensely with writing dialogue for fiction. I am very thankful to Kuros and Gotham for this extremely valuable learning experience.

Best regards,

Peter J. Herzer