Theatre Arts 236
ACTING
SHAKESPEARE
Professor Mazer
Fall 2016
519 Annenberg Center, 3-2659;
cmazer@english.upenn.edu
Office Hours: Tu, Th 1:30-2:30, and by appointment
I. Language, objectives, action: Sonnets; Chorus and scenes from Romeo
and Juliet.
John Barton, Playing Shakespeare
(links to Youtube clips on Canvas).
II. ShakespeareÕs Stage and Stagecraft: Romeo and Juliet and Richard
II..
Essays and chapters by Alan C.
Dessen:
"Linking Analogue" (from Elizabethan
Drama and the ViewerÕs Eye); ÒElizabethan Darkness and Modern Lighting,Ó
and "Theatrical Metaphor: Seeing
and Not-Seeing" (from Elizabethan Stage Conventions and Modern Interpreters); "Much virtue in As," "The
Vocabulary of 'Place,'" and "'Romeo opens the tomb'" (from Recovering
ShakespeareÕs Theatrical Vocabulary).
(Canvas)
III. Text and Performance.
Examples
from Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet.
IV. Playing the Scene/Building a Play: Richard II.
V. The Director: Conceiving a Production:
Richard
II..
Requirements/Grading:
There will be two take-home
assignments, at dates to be announced, and a final term paper/project on The
Merchant of Venice. ATTENDANCE
IS REQUIRED AT ALL CLASSES, as is scene-work as assigned. ABSENCE FROM ANY CLASS AT WHICH YOU ARE
SCHEDULED TO PRESENT A SCENE, ESPECIALLY IF IT IS WITH A PARTNER WILL AUTOMATICALLY
BE REFLECTED IN YOUR GRADE. You are
responsible for scheduling your own rehearsal time for assignments that require
it. Lateness to class impedes our
collective work, and is a discourtesy to your fellow students, and will be
reflected in your grade.
Potential
theatregoing/film viewing: HD screenings of Richard III
(Almedia Theatre, with Ralph Fiennes), Sept.8 and 11, Bryn Mawr Film Institute;
Cymbeline (Royal Shakespeare Company), BMFI, Oct. 27, 30, Ritz, Nov. 6; King
Lear (RSC, with Antony Sher), BMFI, Nov. 6, 10, Ritz, Dec. 5; Hamlet (Barbican, with Benedict
Cumberbatch), Riverview, Nov. 15; Ambler, Dec. 4; AND POSSIBLY a trip to the
Brooklyn Academy of Music for The WinterÕs Tale (Cheek by Jowl), Dec.
6-11. Other possibilities TBA.
Books: find your own modern single-volume
editions of the sonnets and Richard II.
All other readings are available for
download on Canvas. An electronic
version of this syllabus is at http://www.english.upenn.edu/~cmazer/236f16.htm. The listserv for this course is
THAR236-401-16C@lists.upenn.edu.