Response Assignment 5: Final Paper Topics (Due 4/21)

Now that you have chosen a play to write your final paper on, read it, and had a chance to discuss your ideas in class; your fifth (and last) response paper assignment is to articulate your final paper topic in writing.  This response should be at least one paragraph long, typed, printed, and turned in at class next week. 

Note: If you for any reason did not turn in Response 4, it is very important that you do choose a play, read it, and submit a final paper topic.  

To help you in drafting your final paper topic, here are some ingredients to consider in a thesis statement:  You can think of one as having 3 parts: Description, Argument, and Methology...

Thanks to Dice Thrown!

Thanks to the Dice Thrown team members for joining us for a great conversation in class today, as well as a chance to see some of scenic and costume designs, and hear about what to expect when the full opera premieres next week in the Mod Theater.

A reminder, everyone is invited to the preview performance NEXT WEDNESDAY, April 21.

Article on the Premiere of Dice Thrown

Interview with John King

John King's Site

Speaking of upcoming work, John Jasperse Company with ICE will be at REDCAT this weekend, and next weekend is Carl Hancock Rux's Poesia Negra: Race, Sex and the Myth of the American Mytopia.

Response Assignment 4 (Due 4/14)

For your final papers, you will have the option to write about one of the following three plays you have seen/will be seeing this semester: Adam and Eve (Bulgakov), Henry V (Shakespeare), or The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant (Fassbinder).

In preparation for your final paper, your assignment this week is to choose which of those three plays you are going to write your final paper on. Read the whole play, and write about why you chose that play, and what specific elements of it (ideas, themes, questions, etc.) you may want to write about.

Your response should cite specific examples from the text. The response should be at least 300 words. Please type, print out, and hand in at the top of class next week.

Copies of these plays have been put on reserve in the library. Because there are limited copies available, we recommend that you consider xeroxing personal copies for yourself, or purchasing your own copies from local or online booksellers.

As mentioned in class, Zoe is using a custom translation of Bitter Tears in her production. There is also a published edition of that play available in the library. Both versions are acceptable to us. Zoe's version can be downloaded here: BitterTearsScript.pdf

Note: This response doesn't need to be your exact paper topic. We are more interested in hearing about what interests you in the text. This assignment should generate possible topics/ideas that you can later refine into a formal thesis.

If you end up having a very specific topic that you wish to write on, that's fine too. Use this response to discuss that topic and related ideas.

P.S. - As mentioned in class, Douglas Sirk's melodramas are not to be missed and available in the library here or at most quality video stores. Written On the Wind is exceptional. Here's an article on his work:

http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/04/sirk.html

Spring Readings: Embarrassment, Eroticism, Memory, Resistance, Stereotype, Terror, Violence

In case you have any difficulty with your emails, here are links to each of spring readings.  As mentioned in class, please read the word/s you signed up for in class before our next class: Embarrassment, Eroticism, Memory, Resistance, Stereotype, Terror, Violence

Notes Before Spring Break

Thanks again to Alice and company for allowing us to come and visit the work in the Playwrights Lab!

As stated in class today, based upon the word/s that you selected (memory, violence, eroticism, terror, stereotype, embarrassment, resistance), we will email you a PDF of a reading.  Have this read by our next class and be ready to discuss (no written response is assigned).

Also, since we have passed the halfway mark on the semester, we will be email you each status reports of where you stand with work and attendance.

Writing Assignment (Due 3/17)

Write a perfect sentence.

After you do that, proceed to http://theatercalarts.blogspot.com/p/step-2.html

Guest Artists: The Poor Dog Group (3/3)

 

Poor Dog Group is a Los Angeles based collective of like-minded performance and media artists committed to nurturing a distinctive aesthetic through adventurous collaboration. Our mission is to develop original theatrical expression through the creation of new work and radical reexaminations of existing texts; to redefine, educate and expand our own perceptions of performance and theatrical form; to have an accessibility for a new audience; to use experimental methods of the body, text and technology; to craft new American theater; and to develop the cultivation of a limitless and periodic space.

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