THEA 2205 – SCRIPT ANALYSIS
SPRING 2006
OFFICE: 126 FINE OFFICE ARTS
HOURS: 3 – 5pm MTWR
DR. DAN ROBBINS
PHONE: #5040
drobbins@gdn.edu
COURSE NUMBER AND TITLE: THEA 2205: Script Analysis
COURSE FORMAT: This is a lecture course, and it carries 3 semester hours of credit.
CATALOGUE DESCRIPTION: A survey of the development of Western dramatic form and style, with a focus
on production.
RATIONALE: Theatre reflects the morals, beliefs, fears and ideas of a society. Through the study of the history of
the dramatic form we can see how society has evolved over 2500 years.
COURSE TEXTBOOK: Types of Drama, 8th ed. Barnet, Burto, Ferris, Rabkin
COURSE OBJECTIVES: Upon the successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:
Discuss origins of dramatic theory in ancient Greece.
Understand the significance that religion plays in the development of drama.
Discuss the link between theatre and its community.
Discuss dramatic form through the centuries.
Understand theatrical criticisms from Aristotle through the 20th century.
Identify the primary aspects of the development of drama as a literary form from the Classical Greek period to the
present.
EVALUATION: Methods of evaluation will include the following: two exams, a term paper; two critiques, and ten
quizzes.
GRADING:
2 Exams
2 Critiques
Term paper [1000 words] or book report
8 Quizzes on assigned plays
10% ea.; for a total of 20%
10% ea.; for a total of 20%
20%
5% ea.; for a total of 40%
Cinderella will be performed Feb. 11 at 7:30 pm and Feb. 12at 11am. Misery will be performed Feb. 22, 23, 24,
25, at 7:30 pm and Feb. 26 at 3 pm. A Chorus Line will be performed April 19, 20, 21, 22, at 7:30 pm and April 23
at 3 pm. The minimum length for a passing grade is 500 words.
FINAL EXAM – May 2nd, 8am-10am
ATTENDANCE:
6 or more unexcused absences will result in a failing grade. See attachment for specifics.
TENTATIVE CALENDAR
THEA 2205: SCRIPT ANALYSIS
WEEK 1:
Greek Drama and Theatre
Discuss The Poetics
WEEK 2:
Read and discuss Oedipus Rex
WEEK 3:
Quiz on Oedipus Rex
Medieval Drama
Read and discuss Everyman
WEEK 4:
Quiz on Everyman
Renaissance Drama and Theatre in England
Read and discuss Hamlet
WEEK 5:
Read and discuss Hamlet
WEEK 6:
Quiz on Hamlet
15th through 17th centuries
Improv and discuss The Insane Asylum
Cinderella papers due
WEEK 7:
Read and discuss The Insane Asylum
Quiz on The Insane Asylum
WEEK 8:
Midterm exam over Greek through Commedia
March 2nd last day to drop
Misery papers due on Feb. 27th
WEEK 9:
Read and discuss Tartuffe
WEEK 10:
Quiz on Tartuffe
Modern Drama and the Theatre
WEEK 11:
Read and discuss A Doll’s House
WEEK 12:
Quiz on A Doll’s House
Read and discuss The Importance . . . Earnest
WEEK 13:
Read and discuss The Importance . . . Earnest
Quiz on The Importance . . . Earnest
WEEK 14:
Discuss Modern Theatre movements
Read and discuss The Cherry Orchard
WEEK 15:
Discuss The Cherry Orchard
Quiz on The Cherry Orchard
A Chorus Line papers due
WEEK 16:
Review for Final/ Term Papers due
FINAL EXAM – May 2nd, 8am-10am
ATTENDENCE POLICY AND TEST GRADES ADDENDUM
ALL TESTS, WHETHER WRITTEN, ORAL, OR PARTICPATORY, THAT ARE NOT
TAKEN ON THE ASSIGNED TEST DATE DUE TO AN UNEXCUSED ABSENCE WILL
BE:
1. ASSESSED A 10 POINT DEDUCTION FOR EACH CLASS DAY LATE
2. ANSWERS FOR BONUS QUESTIONS WILL NOT BE ADDED TO THE TEST GRADE.
EXCUSED ABSENCES:
1. PARTICIPATING IN AN OFFICIAL SCHOOL FUNCTION, I.E. TENNIS
TOURNAMENT, SOCCER GAME, CHOIR CONCERT, ETC.
2. JURY DUTY
3. FUNERAL OF IMMEDIATE FAMILY: GRANDPARENTS, PARENTS, SIBLINGS, OR
CHILDREN.
4. EMERGENCIES, SUCH AS A CAR ACCIDENT, HEART ATTACK, ETC. OF SELF,
SPOUSE, OR CHILD.
EXAMPLES OF NON-EXCUSED ABSENCES:
1. ILLNESS OF SELF, CHILD, SPOUSE, OR ANYONE ELSE.
2. WEDDINGS
3. BAR MITZVAHS
4. BAPTISMS
5. FUNERALS OF NON-IMMEDIATE FAMILY OR FRIENDS
6. SPECTATING AT AN OFFICIAL SCHOOL EVENT
Suggested Reading List
Plays:
Restoration era and 18th Century English:
Surrealism
The Country Wife - Wycherly
The Way of the World - Congreve
She Stoops to Conquer - Goldsmith
The School for Scandal - Sheridan
The Conscious Lovers - Steele
The London Merchant - Lillo
Orpheus - Cocteau
A Spurt of Blood - Artaud
Blood Wedding - Lorca
18th c. European and Romanticism:
Private Lives - Coward
Saint Joan - Shaw
Juno and the Paycock - O’Casey
Of Mice and Men - Steinbeck
Our Town - Wilder
Mother Courage - Brecht
Faust, Part 1 - Goethe
Mary Stuart - Schiller
Hernani - Hugo
Nathan the Wise - Lessing
The Servant of Two Master - Goldoni
King Stag - Gozzi
19th century Melodrama
The Octoroon - Boucicault
The Drunkard - Smith
Richilieu - Bulwer-Lytton
Under the Gaslight - Daly
19th century Realism and Naturalism
A Doll’s House - Ibsen
The Seagull - Chekov
La Ronde - Schnitzler
The Second Mrs. Tanqueray - Pinero
The Weavers - Hauptman
Arms and the Man - Shaw
Symbolism
The Wild Duck - Ibsen
The Dream Play - Strindberg
Ubu Roi - Jarry
The Blue Bird - Maeterlinck
Expressionism
From Morn to Midnight - Kaiser
R.U.R - Capek
The Hairy Ape - O’Neill
Between the World Wars
Absurdism
The Bald Soprano - Ionesco
Waiting for Godot - Beckett
The Balcony - Genet
1950’s
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - Williams
The Crucible - Miller
The Visit - Duerrenmatt
Oklahoma - Rodgers and Hammerstein
My Fair Lady - Lerner and Loewe
West Side Story - Bernstein and Laurents
60s - the present
Loot - Orton
Equus - Shaffer
Who’s Afraid . . . Virginia Woolfe - Albee
A Raisin in the Sun - Hansberry
The Serpent - van Italie
Buried Child - Shepard
Accidental Death of an Anarchist - Fo
Fences - Wilson
American Buffalo - Mamet
A Soldier’s Play - Fuller
Crimes of the Heart - Henley
The Heidi Chronicles - Wassertein
Cloud Nine - Churchill
The Colored Museum - Wolfe
HOW TO WRITE GOOD
BY FRANKL. VISCO with additions by DAN ROBBINS
My several years in the word game have learnt me several rules:
1. Avoid alliteration. Always.
2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.
3. Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)
4. Employ the vernacular.
5. Eschew &'s and abbrev.'s etc.
6. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.
7. Remember to never split an infinitive.
8. Contractions aren't necessary.
9. Foreign words and phrases are not apropos N'cest pas?
10. One should never generalize.
11. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said. "I hate quotations. Tell me what you
know."
12. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.
13. Don't be redundant; don't repeat yourself, or say what you have said before.
14. Profanity sucks the big one.
15. Be more or less specific.
16. Understatement is sorta but not really good.
17. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.
18. One word sentences. Eliminate.
19. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.
20. The passive voice is to be avoided.
21. Go around a barn at high noon to avoid colloquialisms.
22. Mixed metaphors are a pain in the neck and should be thrown out with the bathwater.
23. Who needs rhetorical questions?
24. Subject and verb always has to agree.
25. Do not use a foreign term when there is an adequate English quid pro quo.
26. Methinks it behooves the writer to avoid archaic expressions.
27. Do not use the hyperbole; not one \vriter in a million can use it effectively.
28. Placing a comma between a subject and a predicate, is not correct.
29. Parenthetical words however must be enclosed in commas.
30. Use you're spellcheck, butt bee careful. Wear they work, their grate, but they have they're
limb its.
31. Proofread carefully to see if you have any words out.
32. Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
33. No sentence fragments.
34. Remember to finish what
35. Avoid slang, it's not very cool.
.
Physical Disability Statement
Students needing special accommodations or services should contact the ADA
Officer. Please see Academic Catalog for further instructions.
Learning Disability Statement
Students with learning disabilities should contact the ADA Officer in writing to
request an accommodation. The Officer will then notify the professor of any
special needs. Please see Academic Catalog for further instructions.
Academic Honesty Statement
Each student is expected to be honest in his or her work for the course and to guard
against any appearance of dishonesty on the part of other students. Examples of
violation of academic honesty include but are not limited to the following: the
supplying or receiving of unauthorized information about the form or content of an
exam prior to its being given; the use of any unauthorized aid during the exam;
copying or allowing the copying of assigned work; the submission of the same or
essentially the same work or paper on two different occasions; the supplying or
receiving of completed research, outlines or papers for submission by any person
other than the author; plagiarism, i.e. presenting as one’s own the words, work, or
opinions of someone else. The College’s rules on and penalties for, violation of
academic dishonesty may range from a refusal of credit for an individual
assignment to failure in the course and perhaps referral to the Vice President for
Student Affairs. Please see Academic Catalog for full descriptions and the official
consequences of such dishonesty.