First-Year Studies: Power Plays, Theatre in Action

Catalog description

Theatre is about social change. This course will look at how theatre responds to the events and movements that shape our lives and how theatre and theatre artists engage and inform the discourse. Students will study a dynamic collection of plays and musicals written as a means of protest and activism and stage their own group performances, of both published and original work, in response to the tremendous forces at play upon all of us right now. Building upon the tenets of mid-20th century playwrights such as Bertolt Brecht and Samuel Beckett, whose activism and form-bending works paved the way for a large number of contemporary playwrights and theatre makers, students will study a number of plays that address a range of sociopolitical issues. We will also look at a history of theatre companies—such as The Group Theatre, The Federal Theatre Project, El Teatro Campesino, and The Public Theatre—whose landmark productions helped frame the cultural landscape. Students will read works by playwrights such as Eugene O’Neill and Clifford Odets, whose plays deal with issues of immigration and union busting, and Arthur Miller, whose plays capture the struggles of working people caught in overwhelming circumstances. We will look at Hair, the first rock musical, written in response to the Vietnam War, and the plays Angels in America and The Normal Heart and the musical RENT, written in the 1980s and 1990s about the AIDS crisis. We will discuss how theatre responds to events happening right now by looking at compelling new plays by playwrights Anna Deavere Smith, Dominique Morisseau, Antoinette Nwandu, and Branden Jacobs Jenkins, among others. The course will look at a collection of plays that address concerns of LGBT communities by playwrights and theatre makers such as Taylor Mac, Paula Vogel, and Moisés Kaufman. Students will read aloud from plays in class, examine a range of…