Postgraduate Course: The Craft of the Playwright II (ENLI11177)
Course Outline
| School | School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures |
College | College of Humanities and Social Science |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Not available to visiting students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Credits | 40 |
| Home subject area | English Literature |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | This 40 credit course builds on The Craft of the Playwright I: Through seminars and workshops on students own developing folio, it develops students knowledge of the theory and practice of writing different genres such as tragedy and comedy, the uses of politics, history, music and ritual in dramatic writing, and to working in different contexts such as writing for children and devising theatre. As with The Craft of the Playwright I, this course will develop students to write, clear, informed and perceptive criticism of writing for performance through engagement with critical texts, theatre history, philosophy and visits to the theatre. These seminars are much more interactive, with students encouraged to respond to provocations on each seminar topic and to engage in discussion and debate. Input from established professional theatre-makers into the workshop element of the course will introduce students into the role of the writer in the process of developing script for live performance. |
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | None |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
Students will:
¿ deepen their knowledge and understanding of different techniques for writing text for live performance in relation to specific genres
¿ explore writing for performance as a social and political act through looking at specific play texts within a range of historical and socio-political contexts
¿ develop a greater ability to critically reflect upon their own and others¿ work within a particular theatrical tradition and socio-political context
¿ enhance their understanding of their own unique ¿voice¿ as a playwright
¿ further develop their ability to give and receive critical feedback on their own and others¿ work, and how to evaluate, and respond to that feedback in the future development of their writing for the stage
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Assessment Information
| Folio comprising of writing for performance of 50 minutes |
Special Arrangements
| None |
Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
Not entered |
| Transferable skills |
Not entered |
| Reading list |
TRAGEDY
Albee, Edward, The Goat or Who is Sylvia?
Sophocles, Oedipus Rex,
Euripides, Medea & Trojan Women,
Locchead, Liz, Thebans,
Shakespeare, King Lear, Hamlet, Coriolanus,
Miller, Arthur, Death of a Salesman,
McCartney, Nicola, Heritage, Faber & Faber, 2010.
Poole, Adrian, Tragedy: a very short introduction, OUP, Oxford, 2005
Wallace, Jennifer, The Cambridge Introduction to Tragedy, Cambridge Introductions to Literature 2007.
Eagleton, Terry, Sweet Violence: the idea of the Tragic, Wiley-Blackwell, 2002.
Tremblay, Michel, Solemn Mass For a Full Moon in Summer,
COMEDY
Aristophanes & Sommerstein, Alan H., Lysistrata and Other Plays (Penguin Classics), Penguin Classic 2003
Jonson, Ben, Volpone,
The Bald Primadonna, Eugene Ionesco
Simonh, Neil, The Collected Plays of Neil Simon: Vol 1, P Putnam's Sons; Reprint edition (30 Nov 1986)
Neilson, Anthony, Neilson Plays: 2 Edward Gant's Amazing Feats of Loneliness!, The Lying Kind, The Wonderful World of Dissocia, Realism (Contemporary Dramatists), Methuen, 2008.
Gogol, Nikolai, The Government Inspector,
Malarcher, Jay (Ed.), Theatre Symposium: Comedy Tonight! Vol 16, The University of Alabama Press; New edition 2008
Gerould, Daniel C. & Duffy, Meghan, Comedy: A Bibliography of Critical Studies in English on the Theory and Practice of Comedy in Drama, Theatre and Performance, Theatre Communications Group 2006
POLITICS
Brecht, Berthold, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Mother Courage,
Greig, David, The American Pilot
Friel, Brian, Translations,
Burke, Gregory, Blackwatch
McGrath, John, Six Pack: 6 of the Best from John McGrath, Polygon, 1996.
McGrath, John, A Good Night Out
Thomson, Peter & Sacks, Glendyr, The Cambridge Companion to Brecht (Cambridge Companions to Literature), Cambridge, 2006.
HISTORY
The Crucible, Arthur Miller
The Crucible in History, Arthur Miller
The Cheviot, The Stag and The Black, Black Oil, John McGrath
The History Plays, David Hare
Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off, Liz Lochhead
The Contemporary British History Play, Richard H Palmer, Greenwood Press 1998
VERBATIM THEATRE
Talking to Terrorists, Robin Soanes
The Permanent Way, David Hare
My Name is Rachel Corrie,
DEFYING GENRE
Measure for Measure, Shakespeare
Howard Barker Plays Five: Hated Nightfall; Seven Lears; Wounds to the Face; The Last Supper , Oberon 2009
Homebody/ Kabul, Tony Kushner
Plays: "Glengarry Glen Ross", "Prairie Du Chien", the "Shawl", "Speed-the-Plow" Vol 3 (Methuen World Classics), David Mamet, 1996
General
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare
Poetics, Aristotle
The Hidden Plot, Edward Bond
State of Play, various,
Death, the One and the Art of Theatre, Howard Barker
Theatre Histories: An Introduction, Phillip B. Zarrilli, Bruce McConachie, Gary Jay Williams, Carol Fisher Sorgenfrei
In-yer-face Theatre: British Drama Today, Aleks Sierz, 2001
The Cambridge Introduction to Modern British Theatre (Cambridge Introductions to Literature), Simon Shepherd , 2009
There Are No Secrets, Peter Brook
The Presence of the Actor, Joseph Chaikin
True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor, David Mamet, Faber and Faber, 1998.
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| Study Abroad |
Not entered |
| Study Pattern |
The course will consist of nine two-hour seminars accompanied by Autonomous Learning Groups, four class workshops and one extended workshop with professional actors and directors on the students work. Students will also have an extended one to one session with the course Convenor on their Folio in week 8. |
| Keywords | CotP2 |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Ms Nicola Mccartney
Tel: (0131 6)50 3629
Email: |
Course secretary | Miss Natalie Carthy
Tel: (0131 6)50 3030
Email: |
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