Kung Fu Playwriting Workshop on September 24, 2025.

Kung Fu helped me be a better writer. It’s an art—a martial art. I practiced the same Kung Fu as Bruce Lee—Jeet Kune Do. That practice is all about the fact that there is no one way. It’s about being open to possibilities and getting out of your brain and letting your body be open to whatever device can be used. That’s how I arrived at how the story tells you how it wants to be told.

The Department of Theatre & Dance will host a playwriting workshop featuring Philip Dawkins, whose work Failure: A Love Story is currently on our Tedford Stage. The workshop will be held Wednesday, September 24 from 3:30-5:00 pm in the Ring Theatre of the Scales Fine Arts Center.

In this workshop, Playwright and Novice Black Belt Philip Dawkins will take you through the teaching of Bruce Lee and show you how to apply the tenets of Jeet Kun Do and Mixed Martial Arts to your playwriting. Come prepared to move. Appropriate for all ages and all physical ability levels.

Philip Dawkins’s plays include Failure: A Love Story, Le Switch, The Homosexuals,and Dr. Seuss’s The Sneetches, the Musical with composer David Mallamud, as well as many plays for young audiences and performers. He received the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best New Work for his plays Charm and Miss Marx: Or The Involuntary Side Effect of Living, as well as the Joseph Jefferson Award for Best Solo Performance for his play, The Happiest Place on Earth.

Space is limited. WFU students should sign up on the Google sheet linked HERE.