First-Year Writing Seminar: Contemporary U.S. Playwriting

Catalog description

This first-year writing seminar combines the artistic study of some of the most important recent dramatic works in the United States with a detailed exploration of the basic tools of academic writing. This is not a playwriting course (though students may write a short play or two), and this is not a "thumbs-up/thumbs-down" theater criticism course. Students will read, view, and discuss plays written by some of today's most exciting contemporary dramatists, analyzing each play as both appreciative audience and fellow artists. How do these writers structure their plays? What themes loom large in these works, and how does each playwright dramatize/illustrate/complicate those big ideas? How can these big ideas then be placed into larger cultural contexts? How can these plays be placed in conversation with other works, theatrical or otherwise? The class may include a trip to an Off-Broadway show, viewings of streaming/digital media productions, and/or visits from some of the assigned playwrights or other theater artists. Readings may include plays and/or essays by Sarah Ruhl, Jose Rivera, Martina Majok, and Jordan Cooper, among others.