Topics in Performance Studies (330-0-31)

Instructors

Mary Alice Zimmerman

Meeting Info

Wirtz Center SOUTH: Fri 1:00PM - 4:00PM

Overview of class

This is a course devoted to exploring imaginative ways of staging images, texts or dreams that might seem impossible to embody in live performance. How do we bring the entirety of the world into the confines of the theatre? When a text was not originally intended for the stage, how do we make the audience see what a text allows a reader to see? What are the tricks of the trade and what new theatrical tricks might we invent? How do we develop images that are complex, apt and beautiful? Weekly or bi-weekly performance assignments will draw from both dramatic and non-dramatic texts and may include such exercises as staging the same literary moment in multiple ways; staging an "epic" event such as a natural disaster or battle; staging animals, monsters and dreams; and assignments and discussions on handling narrative and internal thought, compression of text, etc. Note: Professor will be out of town for three classes this spring, so two assignments or classes will be remote.