Policy Sheet

Intro to Theater Arts: Text and Performance

Mr. Abel

Course Description: This course is intended to achieve the following objectives:

To provide the student with a history of the theater as an art form.
To provide the student with a wide and varied sampling of Western dramatic literature in order to illustrate its major changes.
To give the student the opportunity to reflect on and analyze those works through a variety of writing projects and acting assignments.
To explore how classical plays have been translated into a modern context.
To develop the student’s ability to convert her ideas about a text into a stage performance.
To introduce vocabulary related to theater and strengthen the student’s ability to use that vocabulary in writing and discussion.
To develop and/or strengthen the student’s skills as an actor, in the hope that those skills can be useful in other areas of the student’s personal and professional life.
To enthuse students about theater in the hope that they may become part of the theater’s audience.

Grading Policy:

Quizzes, brief writing assignments and homework make up 40% of the student’s quarterly grade.
Tests and projects, including scene and monologue work, make up the other 60%.
Attendance, attitude, effort and class participation will also be considered.
Please review the Preston Student Handbook regarding school policy on absences and tardiness.
Students are expected to take responsibility for the quality of their work. Points will be deducted for work handed in late.

Expectations: You are expected to:

come equipped to class with the requisite handouts, notebooks and writing tools.
check the website daily to keep up with any changes to assignments or due dates.
keep your cellphone OFF and in your bag.
arrive for class on time and prepared to work.
maintain a RESPECTFUL ATTITUDE toward your fellow classmates and the teacher with the intent of building a positive learning environment for all.

Discipline: A parent or guardian will be notified if a student has not completed her assignments, if a student is consistently unprepared for class, or if a student’s behavior interferes with the learning environment. The teacher will issue demerits when deemed necessary.

Syllabus:

Quarter one –

Medea by Euripides - the origins and development of tragedy

http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/euripides/medea.htm

Excerpt from Aristotle's Poetics

http://www2.hn.psu.edu/faculty/jmanis/aristotl/poetics.pdf

Article by Margaret Visser, "Medea: Daughter, Sister, Wife and Mother"

Lysistrata by Aristophenes - the origins and development of comedy

http://drama.eserver.org/plays/classical/aristophanes/lysistrata.txt

Everyman by Anonymous - Medieval theater

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/everyman.asp

Article by David Wiles, "Theater in Roman and Christian Europe"