A writer is a reader moved to imitation.
Appropriation, repurpose, pastiche, hybrid, sampling, remix, in conversation, mash up. Everyone knows that when you steal, steal from the best. When we write we may borrow the structure of a sonata, the plot from a story, the tang and tone of a novel, and characters from our own lives. Is everything we write adaptation?
We will look at Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl, Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson, Amadeus by Peter Shaffer and its film adaptation by Shaffer and Milos Forman, Ruined by Lynn Nottage and its inspiration Mother Courage by Bertolt Brecht, Mr. Burns, A Post-Electric Play by Anne Washburn and the episodes of The Simpsons used by the play, An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs Jenkins and The Octoroon by Dion Boucicault. We will spend time with the multitude of adaptations of Romeo and Juliet, including the adaptation of an adaptation, Steven Spielberg/Tony Kushner/Justin Peck’s West Side Story.
We will adapt a myth, a poem, three inanimate objects, and a song. The final project for the class will be an adaptation of a short story into a play of 30 to 90 minutes.
Learning Outcomes:
To change the way students look at adaptation and investigate what adaptation can carry.
To movie them from seeing story as the only aspect of a work of art that provides original signal of a strong and structuring nature.
We will hope to adapt the territory and meaning of adaptation into something of greater utility and scale.
Delivery Method: Fully in-person
Course Level: 2000-level
Credits: 4
Th 1:40PM - 5:20PM (Full-term)
Maximum Enrollment: 12
Course Frequency: Once a year
Categories: All courses , Drama , Fully In-Person , Updates
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