ENG 30.6 Shakespeare 2: Shakespeare in Performance
instructor: prof. julia hirsch
Studying Shakespeare in London in the summer offers unique theatrical opportunities, and emphasis in this course will be placed on Shakespeare's texts in production. This course will survey the full range of Shakespeare's plays (chronicle, tragedy, comedy, romance, "problem"), with five or six plays assigned for reading over the four-week course. We will attend performances of at least four of the plays we are reading at a variety of venues, including at least one at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, a recreation of the theater for which many of the plays were originally written. In addition to attending the four theater productions, we will try to arrange visits to the Globe Theatre Exhibition and the Rose Theatre excavation site. Also, if time permits, we may visit the production archives at the RNT (Royal National Theatre) and the Theatre Museum of London to view some of the material in their collections.
Course requirements: Students must be prepared for all classes and actively participate in the class discussion. Students are required to attend all performances. Four short (two to three-page) response papers related to the productions we are seeing will be assigned. The lowest grade of the four will be dropped, and students will be given the opportunity to rewrite. In addition, there will be either a final exam or a final group project, to be decided after the reading schedule has been set.
