English 599
DOCUMENTING
HISTORICAL PERFORMANCE
Professor Mazer
Fall 2001
519 Annenberg Center, 8-7382 and 3-2659;
cmazer@english.upenn.edu
Office Hours: Tu
1:00-2:45; Th 10:30-11:45; and by appointment
September 6:
Text/Script/Performance/Production/Document
September 13:
Script(s) and Performance(s)
Readings: Steven Urkowitz, “Five Women Eleven
Ways: Changing Images of Shakespearean
Characters in the Earliest Texts” (handout).
September 20:
A) Script(s) and
Performance(s)
Short reports
on multiple-script early modern plays, and scholarly theories about them (e.g. King
Lear, Hamlet, The Taming of A/The Shrew, Doctor Faustus A and
B, King John/The Troublesome Reign, etc.)
B) Decoding
Conventions of Staging
Readings: TBA
[September 27: NO
CLASS]
October 4:
A) Decoding
Conventions of Staging
Short
reports on staging cruxes from individual plays
B) Decoding
Acting: Conventions, Aesthetics, and
Theories
Readings: TBA
October 11:
A) Decoding
Acting: Conventions, Aesthetics, and
Theories
Short
research reports on individual actors and performances
B)
Eyewitnesses: Reviews, Memoirs
Readings: TBA
October 18:
A)
Eyewitnesses: Reviews, Memoirs
Short
reports on individual critics or memoirists
B) Reading
Scenography
Readings: TBA
October 25:
A) Reading
Scenography
Short
research reports on individual nineteenth-century productions
B) Productions and
Directors: Reading Promptbooks
Readings: TBA
November 1:
A) Productions and
Directors:
Short book
reports on individual scholarly promptbook studies OR research reports on
individual promptbooks.
B) Film as Document,
Film as Version
Readings: TBA
November 8:
A) Film as Document,
Film as Version
Short
research reports on individual film versions or adaptations of stage
productions.
B) Video as Document
Readings: TBA
[November 15: NO
CLASS]
[Thanksgiving]
November 29:
A) Video as Document
Research
reports on individual archival videos in the Theatre on Film and Tape (TOFT)
Collection, New York Public Library.
B) Documenting the
Process: Dramaturgy and Rehearsals
Readings: TBA
December 6:
Documenting the Process:
Dramaturgy and Rehearsals
Short book
reports on individual eye-witness rehearsal memoirs.
Extra Class (?), TO BE SCHEDULED: Final Research Project Presentations
The course listserv is mazer599@english.upenn.edu
An electronic version of this syllabus is available on line at http://www.english.upenn.edu/˜cmazer/599f01.html. Make a bookmark for this site on your web browser. In addition, we will be using a web site for this course. Make a bookmark on your browser for http://courseweb.upenn.edu, and click on our course. If you are registered, you are automatically subscribed: your login will be your PennNet ID and your password is your PennNet password. CHECK THIS SITE DAILY. The web site will include daily announcements (including information about theatregoing assignments), and an electronic copy of the syllabus. The site also includes a discussion group, with access restricted to members of the course.