New Book TALK THE TALK Teaches The Art Of Scriptwriting

"Dialogue puts conversation in motion. Great dialogue moves like a great athlete; it is nimble, precise, and powerful. It commands attention, yet it feels effortless in its execution...If we want our dialogue to move like an athlete, then we must train like an athlete," says Penny Penniston, author of TALK THE TALK: A Dialogue Workshop for Scriptwriters (Michael Wiese Productions, March 2010, paperback). Penniston, an award-winning playwright, offers fun and engaging exercises that will help you write dialogue like the greats.

Penniston has taught playwriting at Northwestern University. Her play, The Roaring Girl, garnered a Joseph Jefferson nomination for "Best Adaptation;" and her screenplay Love Is Brilliant won the Sloan Award at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival. Her newest play, Spin, makes its world premiere at Chicago's Theater Wit in April 2010.

Penniston is available for interview. Here is just some of what she can discuss.

· The physics principle that every scriptwriter should know about

· How she rates the dialogue in popular recent films, Up in the Air, Inglourious Basterds, and It's Complicated

· An analysis of how the dialogue in classic films like The Godfather, The Graduate, andHis Girl Friday made for great movies

· How to use dialogue to illustrate differing status among characters

· How to use dialogue to build tension and shift power between characters

· What scriptwriters should learn from spies

· Examples of good and bad dialogue from film and stage history

· How the conversation between politicians and the public is a form of theater, and what everyone should look for in the dialogue between the media and public figures

· What Barak Obama understands about great dialogue, and how it makes him a great speaker

· Why your fourth-grade teacher should be appalled by your dialogue writing

· How she uses dialogue in her newest play, Spin, to create farce and convey cultural criticism

· Why she recommends that every scriptwriter re-write dialogue from a great script

· How to teach the trickiest aspects of dialog writing, such as status, subtext, and the creation of big moments.

"Hollywood wants great scripts. Great scripts must have great dialogue. Great dialogue writing begins with this book."-Brantley M. Dunaway, Producer of Love in the Time of Cholera

ABOUT PENNY PENNISTON
Penny Penniston is a Chicago-area playwright and screenwriter. Her newest play, Spin, will have its world premiere with Chicago's Theater Wit during the 2009-2010 season.

Previous stage plays include now then again and The Roaring Girl. now then again had its world premiere in Chicago at the Bailiwick Repertory Theater on February 17, 2000. The show ran for seventeen weeks, received wide critical acclaim, and was awarded Chicago's Joseph Jefferson Citation for "Best New Work." In 2002 now then again was published by Broadway Play Publishing.

Penniston coauthored The Roaring Girl with her husband, director Jeremy Wechsler. This adaptation of the 1611 comedy by Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker had its world premiere in Chicago with Shakespeare's Motley Crew. It received a Joseph Jefferson nomination for "Best Adaptation."

Penniston's screenplays include Love Is Brilliant (an adaptation of her stage play, now then again), Going Out of the Box, and Gay Pride & Prejudice, Love Is Brilliant received the Sloan Award at the 2005 Tribeca Film Festival.

Penniston has written short plays for Chicago's Collaboraction Theater Company and Shakespeare's Motley Crew. From 2002-2007, she taught playwriting as an adjunct professor in the Theater Department of Northwestern University. She has also guest lectured at DePaul University. Visit Penniston at: www.penninkent.com.

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