This course will help students discover the power of research as a source of theatrical inspiration. We will research the techniques of playwrights such as Suzan-Lori Parks, Dario Fo, Doug Wright, Caryl Churchill, and Arthur Kopit (along with others you will choose on your own) to find out what can be learned by borrowing, adapting, transforming, rejecting, inverting, or reimagining elements of their work. We will also research historic and contemporary events as sources for the creation of effective theatrical characters and situations. To use Parks' metaphor, we will use research as a way to dig for the bones, hear the bones sing, and write it down. |