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Introducing Drama

Introducing Drama. Reading, Responding, and Writing About Plays. Drama, written to be performed. Unlike poems and novels, which are typically experienced and enjoyed alone, directly from the page, plays are written primarily to be performed—by actors, on a stage, for an audience.

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Introducing Drama

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  1. Introducing Drama Reading, Responding, and Writing About Plays

  2. Drama, written to be performed • Unlike poems and novels, which are typically experienced and enjoyed alone, directly from the page, plays are written primarily to be performed—by actors, on a stage, for an audience.

  3. Seeing a play • When you attend a play, you may experience a much different interpretation of the piece than you might if you read it alone directly from the page.

  4. What different interpretations might arise from seeing a live play with others versus reading it alone from the page?

  5. How is reading drama different from reading fiction? • Plays usually don’t have a narrator • Instead, plays utilize stage directions— italicized descriptions of the set, characters, and actions and • Dialogue to provide exposition—the explanation of the past and current situation

  6. Reading plays requires imagination

  7. Questions to ask when reading a play • Expectations: • What does the title suggest the play might be about? • When was the play written? How does the time period impact your reading of the play? • After reading the first scene, what do you think the themes of this play might be? What might the conflict involve?

  8. Characterization • Who are the characters? What do you notice about their names or any identification of their roles, character types, or relationships? • Who is/are the protagonists? • Who is/are the antagonists? • Who are the other characters? • What are the character’s expectations?

  9. Plot • What is happening in the play? • Do the characters or situations change during the play? • What are the differences between the beginning, middle, and end of the play? Is it divided into acts? • Can you summarize the plot? Is it a recognizable kind of genre such as comedy, farce, tragedy, or mystery?

  10. Setting • What is the setting of the play? When does the action occur? Is it contemporary (occurring now), or has it happened in the past? Do the stage directions specify a day of the week, a season, or a time of day? • Are there any time changes during the play? Are the scenes in linear order, or does it move around in time?

  11. Setting, continued • Where does the play take place? Is it in the United States, or another country? What specific city or region? • Do the stage directions describe the scene that an audience would see on stage, and does this remain the same or does it change during the play?

  12. Style

  13. Style • What do you notice about how the play is written, i.e. the writing style? • Are the sentences and speeches short or long? Is the vocabulary simple or complex? Do characters ever speak over one another, or do they take turns? Does the play have actors that are silent for a long period of time? • Are there any images or figures of speech? • What is the tone of the mood (sad, amused, worried, curious)?

  14. Theme • What does the play mean? Can you express its themes?

  15. Other elements • Besides trying to understand the characters, you should also consider ways the play could be produced, designed, staged, and acted.

  16. A Streetcar Named Desire • How might a set designer for this play create the house in which most of the play takes place in? What would the audience be seeing through the windows of this house? • How would lighting be used? How could it give the effect of the season or the time of day?

  17. A Streetcar Named Desire • What sound effects or music can you imagine would be appropriate in this play? • What sort of costumes be used to help establish characterization, as well as to establish the time period? • What essential props must be provided for the actors to use?

  18. Describe the characters • Use four words each to describe: • Stanley • Stella • Blanche • Eunice • Mitch

  19. Casting and directing • If you could choose contemporary working actors for this play, who might make a good fit? Why? • How about for directing?

  20. Epigraph And so it was I entered the broken worldTo trace the visionary company of love, its voice An instant in the wind (I know not whither hurled) But not for long to hold each desperate choice --"The Broken Tower" by Hart Crane

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