A Brief Tour through the Theater History Canon 2025

1/15/25 - Week 1: Aristotle + Dramatic Structure
Please bring a copy of these PDFs to class. (You can access them on your laptops, tablets, or phones).

1. diagram of Aristotelean structure
2. selections from Aristotle’s Poetics
3. selection from Fergussen’s intro to Aristotle’s Poetics

I’ll be referencing them on our first day.

1/22/25 - Week 2: Classical Greek Theatre — Then and Now

Please watch this short recorded lecture by me on Festival of Dionysus. You’ll need a password, which is: Dionysus123!
Read, Sophocles’ Antigone

1/29/25 - Week 3: Theatre and Religion
There will be an in-class lecture on medieval theatre. Please bring this document to class: Regularis Concordia excerpt.
Watch Hell House, dir. George Ratliff, 2002. It is available to rent through through Amazon. The cost of the rental is $4.99. If this burdensome to you, reach out to me.

[I’m going to reference this in class but you don’t have to have read it. Just be able to access it. — Tertullian, “On Spectacle”]

2/5/25 - Week 4: Japanese Noh Theatre
Read Zeami’s On the Art of Noh Drama and his play Matsukaze.

2/12/25 - Week 5: Decolonizing Shakespeare
If you haven’t read The Tempest by Shakespeare, read a summary. Here’s one.
Read Aimé Césaire’s A Tempest and Marcos Gonzalez’s “Caliban Never Belonged to Shakespeare”

2/19/25 - Week 6: Naturalism/Realism—From Movement to Genre

Read Zola’s “Naturalism in the Theatre” and August Strindberg’s Miss Julie with the Preface. *The preface is important so please read it. We’re going to look at it closely.

2/26/25 - Week 7 : Naturalism, Symbolism, and the Independent Theatre Movement

For our March 27 class, read this selection from Konstantin Stanislavsky’s My Life in Art and the full text of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard

If you have time, also please read the The Seagull. If you don’t have the time, please read a summary. You can find one online. We’ll be looking at scenes from the play in class, so be sure you have the PDF with you.

3/5/25 - Week 8: Bertolt Brecht

Watch the video Brecht on Stage produced by the BBC. (Password for this video is: Brecht123! Then read read Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children translated by Tony Kushner.

Please the following selections of Brecht’s theoretical writing from the collection Brecht on Theatre to class with you. You don’t have to read them before class; just make sure they are accessible, since we will look at the material together..

3/12/25 - Week 9: American Psychological Realism (read or watch both of these plays)

Loraine Hansberry’s Raisin in the Sun: watch 1989 here OR read here (if you opt to read it, don’t worry about the intro unless you want to; just read the play)

Miller’s Death of a Salesman: watch 1985 version here OR read here (again, not required to read intro or any of the commentary—just the play if you opt to read rather than watch)

NO CLASS 3/19/25 — SPRING BREAK

3/26/25 - Week 10: Black Arts Movement (Note: the material here includes texts from the lead up to the launching of the movement and work from the movement itself. I know it looks like a lot to read but the readings are very pretty short. Film runs less than 1 hour.)

Trigger warning: This material includes racial slurs, discriminatory behavior, and scenes of violence. Please prioritize your mental well-being and exercise caution while engaging with this content.

Read Amiri Baraka/LeRoi Jones’s The Revolutionary Theatre. Watch film of his play Dutchman.

Read Ed Bullins’ essay “The So-Called Avant-Garde” and the follow very short plays: Theme of Blackness and Short Play for Small Theater.

4/2/25 - Week 11: Queer Theatre and the AIDS Crisis

Read Part I and Part II of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America. Note: The two parts together are quite long, so leave time.

I’ve included a PDF of the NY Times review of the opening of Part I of the play in May 1993 if you’d like to check it out. It may give you a sense of the reception in the early 1990s when we were still very much inside the AIDS crisis.

4/9/25 Week 12: Postdramatic Theatre and Fairview

Please read the play Fairview by Jackie Sibblies Drury.