THEA 255
Performing Shakespeare Fall 2018
Division I
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

This tutorial course will challenge students to interpret and perform characters and scenes from a considerable variety of Shakespeare’s work for the stage. Working in pairs, students will function as both directors and actors, bringing scene-work-in-progress first to the instructor for critique/revision, and subsequently to other members of the class for more general discussion. Written assignments, explicating and contextualizing artistic choices, will accompany presentations. Over the course of the semester, assignments will ask students to grapple with particular challenges of Shakespeare’s drama (including, for instance, the technical aspects of speaking the verse, and the accompanying challenge of performing in the Elizabethan tradition of “open space”). Other assignments will ask students to consider specific interpretive traditions (feminist, phenomenological, queer studies, post-modern) in preparing their work for presentation. Plays studied will include tragedies (Macbeth, Anthony and Cleopatra, Othello), comedies (The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night), and histories (Richard II, Richard III); theorists assigned for additional readings may include Shirley Nelson Garner, Alan Sinfield, Harry Berger Jr., Arthur Little, Jr., Janet Adelman, William Worthen, Laurence Senelick, Bert States, and Stephen Greenblatt.
The Class: Format: tutorial and lab; in addition to weekly tutorial meetings, several group "lab" sessions will bring all course members together for larger collaborative work
Limit: 10
Expected: 10
Class#: 1847
Grading: no pass/fail option, no fifth course option
Requirements/Evaluation: weekly performance presentations, weekly 3-page analytical papers, active participation in oral critique
Prerequisites: one college level acting class or significant comparable experience (permission of instructor)
Enrollment Preferences: Theatre majors, or those expressing possible interest in Theatre major
Distributions: Division I

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