Paul E. Turtola
This course, through a number of projects, will strengthen students’ powers of observation and, in time, they will think more critically about many things they see and hear. This will apply not only to drama, but to other problems they face in life outside school as well.
To think critically and know what to look for and listen to, students must be attentive to the scripts covered in the course. The course will be a fun way to learn about the worlds of theater, literature, acting and film, and will help young people develop a sense of personal growth along the way. It will attempt to reach young peoples’ desires to know more about themselves and learn about new, interesting things in the theater and film world that they couldn’t learn in any other class at school. Throughout the unit, students will express themselves in a knowledgeable and articulate manner, using the vocabulary and terms found in the class, as well as data they will acquire in their own study.
By explaining drama to students through three important theater artists, the playwright, actor and director, it will be possible to teach teenagers respect for the work that these artists contribute to their craft. Rather than studying just the text of a play for its content, the course will allow students to study the people who make the play happen. Instead of the conventional English class treatment of a play as text, the course will go a step further in its treatment by showing how the text becomes a live, theatrical event.
The course offers three approaches to drama: the literary work of the playwright, the theatrical work of the actor, and the cinematic work of the director. It will delve into the reasons why a play is written by spending time understanding the writer’s personal experiences and beliefs. It will explore the work of the actor, challenged to portray a character from the play and, finally, it will give students insight into how a director interprets and presents the drama as a living theatrical or film event.
In an academic setting, students are often tested on a play’s meaning, or they write papers that deal with various themes contained in the work. These methods are valid educational concepts, for they teach students how to analyze literature and develop their writing skills, but the original intent of the play, as theater, is often overlooked. By teaching students the role that artists play in an artistic event first, they can better appreciate the merits of plays and enjoy reading them more than they had in the past. By taking outside approaches to a drama, i.e.-the literary, theatrical and cinematic ones-reading a play becomes a prerequisite for their writing, acting or directing work, and if students enjoy what they are doing in the course (performing scenes, interviewing artists, watching and reviewing films), reading plays will become less work and more fun.
