Raymond McAnally will lead a virtual writing workshop titled “Using Acting Techniques to Write Clear Characters.”
Have you ever had trouble differentiating one character’s voice or reactions from another on the page? Do characters with strong or surprising points of view seem to evade you? Then spend a workshop with writer/actor Raymond McAnally to learn how he uses his experience as an actor to write new characters and find the decisions and actions that draw us to them.
This workshop is open to writers of all skill levels and is a fun way to find inspiration from a new prompt or revise current work. It is hosted by the Friends of Carl Sandburg at Connemara and will use Microsoft Teams for the virtual connection. A link will be emailed to participants the day before the workshop.
Raymond McAnally is an award-winning actor, a produced writer, and university lecturer. Television acting credits include a supporting lead role in Black Mirror: San Junipero, winner of the 2017 Emmy for Best TV Movie; Guest starring roles on Better Call Saul, Modern Family, Chicago Fire, Rizzoli & Isles, Law & Order SVU, Royal Pains, and 30 Rock; as well as roles on Boardwalk Empire, Nurse Jackie, Mozart in the Jungle, among others. He has film credits too numerous to mention here.
As a playwright, Raymond’s full-length solo-play, “Size Matters,” received its world premiere at Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati in May of 2014. Directed by Tony Award-winning former Cincinnati Playhouse Artistic Director Ed Stern, the show ran for three weeks; garnering outstanding reviews, standing ovations, and sold-out performances. The show was filmed before a live audience in 2015 and is now a comedy special available for streaming on Amazon Prime. Raymond’s short plays, “The Odd Ball” and “Homeland”, have been produced at festivals on both coasts and his short play, “The Next”, will be published the Winter of 2019 in an anthology by New World Theatre. In 2018, Raymond completed a playwriting fellowship with New World Theatre in Concord, New Hampshire. In 2019, Raymond’s full-length play “The Cruelty of Children” was a semi-finalist at the O’Neill Center. From 2010 to 2014, Raymond was the head content writer for the online production company Daily Fiber Films, which produced and distributed over sixty online comedy shorts, written by Raymond, and featured by FunnyOrDie.com, Fullscreen, CNN, New Media Rockstars, and The Food Network. His short comedies also screened at festivals from coast to coast and earned “Best of the Fest” awards at L.A. Comedy Shorts Film Festival and the New York Friar’s Club. In 2017, Raymond’s independent pilot “DPW” was filmed on location in Tupelo, Mississippi.
Raymond is currently a part-time lecturer for the Rutgers Arts Online department, Mason Gross School of the Arts. He has been a lecturer at universities and guest artist at professional training programs since 2005. He holds an MFA in Acting from MGSA, Rutgers University and a BA in Philosophy from Sewanee.