This is the page for: English Through Drama

(Course-related content will appear here in reverse chronological order: the newest things at the top of the page, and older posts toward the bottom.)

Dress Rehearsal, Tickets, and Your Final

Your final exam is coming soon! We’ll have a dress rehearsal at N301 on Monday, December 4th. Everyone is expected to be there.I’ll be handing out tickets and posters for you to distribute at the dress rehearsal. If you need more, please feel free to download them and print them.

The performances at Mosaic were so outstanding that some of the other professors expressed an interest in coming to see the final exam performances, too! So keep practicing, everybody!

Plays Ready

I’ve spent the weekend editing your plays into shape, and now they’re ready. Here they are:

English Through Drama MW:

English Through Drama TTH:

Since I promised you that you would get a chance to see my one and only play written in Korean — written by myself, with only a little editing advice from others — I’ve decided to upload it here, so that you can download it and read it. HOWEVER, please do not upload it anywhere else. It’s MY play and I want to keep it until I decide to share it with the world. Please respect this. Thank you. By the way, yes, the jokes are really stupid. The play was written for foreigners to perform in front of elementary schoolchildren, so there’s a lot of slapstick humor.

Questions for Discussing “Recklessness”

Here are the questions I posed to the class, in order of discussion:

  1. Apply the “types” of characters and stories we discussed earlier this semester to the play.
  2. Who is the most sympathetic character?  Who is the least sympathetic character?
  3. Where are the “tension points” in this story — the moments when tension or anxiety for the audience grows or increases?

We’ll discuss this week a little bit, and continue the discussion next week (or, for TTH class, in two weeks).

Second Handout

Hi there. Sorry, I forgot to upload the second handout for you — the one dealing with types of stories and types of characters. Here it is.

A reminder: you are supposed to have read Eugene O’Neill’s play “Recklessness” by our next class, which is:

MW: Sept. 20th

TTH: Sept. 21st (following a short discussion of Character Types)
Be prepared to do some reading from the script, as well as to discuss the subjects we’ve studied before — what the structure of the play is, what type of story (or types of stories) it involves, and what types of characters are involved. I’ll have some other questions for you as well.

Student Info Sheet

Hi everyone. Some students still haven’t given me Student Information Sheets. I’ve run out, but some people still need the sheet. If you haven’t given me this sheet yet, please download it and print it out, and then fill it out and give it to me. Thanks!

Recklessness, by Eugene O’Neill

The first One-Act Play we will be studying is “Recklessness” by Eugene O’Neill. Please have this play read by Sept 18th (MW) / 19th (TTH). Print a copy for yourself, and make sure to bring it to class.
We will talk about plot arc, character types, and story type (as discussed in the handouts for Week 2). We will also discuss the concepts of motivation, dramatic conflict, and suspense.. I’ll introduce those ideas in the abstract and we’ll discuss the play in terms of these ideas. We’ll also do some dramatic reading of the play in-class, so you might as well practice reading it out loud.

Handout #1, Week 1

Here’s a copy of the handout I asked you to read before the first class on Week 2.

MW class was asked to watch Lost in Translation before next class.

TTH class will be asked to watch a movie by Week 3, due to the cancellation of class on Thursday for the University Festival.

Now It Begins

Welcome!

This is the page for my two English Through Drama courses. Because a lot of the material we will be working on, and assignments you will be performing, will be similar or the same, I’m using one page for both courses. I’ll differentiate between the two courses in this way:

MW is for classes on Monday and Wednesday, and

TTH is for classes on Tuesday-Thursday

For example:

Our class will meet twice a week:

MW: 8-45-10:30pm Monday, 7:50-8:40pm Wednesday

TTH: 2:00-2:50pm Tuesday, 1:00-1:50pm Thursday

Whenever there is a new assignment or work to be done in the class, I’ll post about it on this page.

Here is a copy of the syllabus for our course: English Through Drama Syllabus. If you would like to see my contact information, please follow this link.