Theatre H101 and Theatre 871

The syllabus for Theatre H101: Introduction to Theatre Through Primary Sources, a course for honors students, is available at http://theatreh101.blogspot.com

Here's the syllabus for Theatre 871, a graduate seminar on Greek, Roman, and Medieval Theatre.

Theatre 871 Greek, Roman and Medieval Theatre Autumn Quarter 2007
Instructor: Dr. Alan Woods, 1433 Lincoln Tower
Office Hours: M 1 3 p.m. T 9 - 11 a.m. and by appointment.
Phone: 292 6614 or 4 8238 e mail: Woods.1@osu.edu
Class Meetings: MW Time: 3:30 5:18 p.m. Room: 2068 Drake
Texts:
Ashby, Clifford. Classical Greek Theatre: New Views of an Old Subject (Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 1999).
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy (New York: Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt, 2006).
Familiarity also is assumed with Bieber's History of the Greek and Roman Theatre (second edition, 1961). A detailed bibliography will be on reserve in the Lawrence & Lee TRI and in the Reserve Room at the Thompson Library. Copies of both Ashby, Ehrenreich, and Bieber and plays to be read are on reserve in the TRI and at the Ackerman Library.
Learning Objectives: To survey current theories and available research materials documenting the theatre of the Greek, Roman and Medieval periods in Western Europe through exploration of its artistic, social, and cultural dimensions. By the end of the quarter, the student should have familiarity with the conventions of theatrical style of each period.
Teaching Method: Lecture/discussion.
Grading: Grading will be based on the following:
midterm examination: 30%
final examination: 35%
a research paper of publishable quality 30%
class involvement: 5%
total: 100%
Attendance Policy: Absences are permitted only in cases of extreme illness or personal emergencies. In a Theatre Department, the latter does not include production duties.
USG ESCORT SERVICE: 292 3322
This syllabus is available in alternative formats upon request.
Academic Misconduct:
It is the responsibility of the Committee on Academic Misconduct to investigate or establish procedures for the investigation of all reported cases of student academic misconduct. The term Aacademic misconduct@ includes all forms of student academic misconduct wherever committed; illustrated by, but not limited to, cases of plagiarism and dishonest practices in connection with examinations. Instructors shall report all instances of alleged academic misconduct to the committee (Faculty Rule 3335-5-487). For additional information, see the Code of Student Conduct (http://studentaffairs.osu.edu/info_for_students/csc.asp).

Any student who feels s/he may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact me privately to discuss specific needs. Please contact the Office of Disability Services at 292-3307, room 150 Pomerene Hall, www.ods.ohio-state.edu/welcome.htm (a text only version is at www.ods.ohio-state.edu/textonly/index.htm) to coordinate reasonable accommodations for students with documented disabilities.
http://www.ods.ohio-state.edu/


Theatre 871: Greek, Roman and Medieval Theatre, Autumn 2005 p. 2
Class outline:
W 9/19 Introduction and parameters; background to Greek culture

M 9/24 theories of origin both Greek and non Greek/barbaric; Ehrenreich, chapter 1.
W 9/26 Research materials: textual evidence: manuscripts & scholia; Ashby, chapter 1

M 10/1 Research materials: archaeological evidence; Ashby, chapter 2
W 10/3 Research materials: Iconographic evidence

M 10/8 Research materials: Iconographic evidence, continued
W 10/10 Textual materials: plays. Familiarity is assumed by this date with all the surviving
texts of Aeschylos, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes

M 10/15 Textual materials: fragments and inscriptions; Ashby, Chapter 3
W 10/17 Textual materials: fragments and inscriptions; Ashby, chapter 4

M 10/22 Hellenistic archaeological remains; MIDTERM EXAMINATION PAPERS DUE
W 10/24 Hellenistic archaeological remains, continued; Ashby, chapter 5

M 10/29 Hellenistic textual fragments; have read: the surviving play and fragments of Menander
W 10/31 Roman theatre: festivals and productions; Roman historiography; Vitruvius, Pollux, Livius Andronicus, and other exercises in hegemonic discourse; Ehrenreich Chapter 2.

M 11/5 Roman textual materials; familiarity is assumed by this date with all surviving texts of Plautus, Terence, and Seneca
W 11/7 Imperial entertainment patterns: mimes, pantomimes, gladiatorial contests

M 11/12 The impact of political, social, religious change; Augustine and the Church Fathers;
Concept of the "Dark Ages" and the survival of theatrical traditions; Winchester and liturgical drama, and the "Millenium Psychosis" ; Ehrenreich, Chapter 3.
W 11/14 Fleury and 12th century liturgical drama

M 11/19 Secular forms and the Arras Plays; Passion and Corpus Christi Plays; have read by this date: Winchester Quem Queritis trope; Fleury Play of Herod; Adam de la Halle: The Play of Robin and Marion
W 11/21 Cycle drama; have read the York play of Noah's Fludde; The Anyplace play; professional troupes; have read Mankind; Pierre Pathelin

M 11/26 Folkdrama and entertainment forms; pre Shakespeare or post triumphal entry? How many times does the Renaissance dawn?; Ehrenreich, Chapter 4
W 11/28 PAPERS DUE. Conclusions and summary. Evaluation.

M 12/3 3:30 5:18 p.m.: Final Examination

Theatre 675.01
Summer 2007 M-F 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
July 9-20 2038 Drake Performance and Event Center
Instructor: Dr. Alan Woods woods.1@osu.edu
1433 Lincoln Tower 292-6614
office hours: MW 3-5 p.m. and by appointment

Title: Crones, Curmudgeons, and Living Treasures--Theatre and Aging.

Description: The History, Theory, and Literature of the Senior Theatre Movement.

Senior Theatre--performance by and for those over 55 years old--is the most rapidly growing sector of recreational and avocational theatre in North America and Europe, with fully professional performance groups now emerging. This course explores the history of the emerging international Senior Theatre Movement from its beginnings in the post World War II era to the present, the application of studies in gerontology to the developing theory of Senior Theatre, and the growing literature of dramatic texts created for Senior Theatre from oral history, life narratives, and traditionally scripted drama.

Learning Objectives: By the end of the course, the student will have gained a detailed knowledge of the growth, development, and current status of Senior Theatre, awareness of performance as both artistic and recreational activity, and familiarity with the Senior Theatre=s dramatic texts, both original and adapted for the particular needs of Senior Theatre practitioners. With Theatre 675b, The Practice of Theatre and Age, this course constitutes a concentration in senior theatre as part of the area of specialization in aging.

Teaching Method: lecture/discussion.

Assignments

Each student will complete two short research reports, with the results presented orally in class. The oral reports will focus on (1) an analysis of three plays (ten minute, one act, full length) written for Senior Theatre groups, and (2) an existing professional, avocational or recreational Senior Theatre company. Each report should last about 15 minutes, and must include appropriate handouts.


Grading

Grades will be determined by the quality of work completed, with individual assignments contributing as listed below
Research Report 40%
Research Report 40%
Participation 10%
total 100%

USG ESCORT SERVICE 292-3322

This syllabus is available in alternative formats upon request. Any student who feels s/he may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact me privately to discuss specific needs. Please contact the Office of Disability Services at 292-3307 in room 150 Pomerene Hall to coordinate reasonable accommodations for students with documented disabilities.

Class outline

M 7/9: introduction and theoretical background; gerontology and the realities of aging in America in the second half of the twentieth century; representation of older characters in plays; plays assigned
T 7/10: Stumbling/road blocks: strengths and limitations of performance by and for the aging ; have read Strimling, Introduction; Basting, chapter 1.
W 7/11: history: avocational/recreational beginnings; drama as therapy; have read Greenblatt, chapter 1, Vorenberg, introduction; survey of companies; companies assigned
R 7/12: history: Senior pride and the gray panthers; theatre as empowerment; consciousness raising; have read Basting, chapter 3; excerpts from I Was Young, Now I=m Wonderful
F 7/13: history: Senior drama recognized; American Theatre Association focus group; have read Cornish and Kase, Introduction. Play reports.

M 7/16: history and literature: development of first strains of professionalism, development of oral history and self generated texts; have read Kaminsky, Introduction, in Myerhoff
T 7/17: history and literature: professional senior companies growth and maturity; efforts to expand repertory; have read Basting, Chapter 4; have read Lonergan
W 7/18: history and literature: senior centers and entertainment; the >dancing grannies=; international connections and contexts; Basting, chapters 2 and 8.
R 7/19: history and literature: specialization and niche groups; cross cultural and diversity issues; the market emerges; conferences, festivals, emergence of a professional association
F 7/20: history, theory and literature: have read Basting, conclusion; company reports.

texts:
Basting, Anne Davis. The Stages of Age: Performing Age in Contemporary American Culture. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1998.
Cornish, Roger, and C. Robert Kase, eds., Senior Adult Theatre: The American Theatre Association Handbook. University Park and London: Pennsylvania State U P, 1981.
Greenblatt, Fred S. Drama With the Elderly: Acting at Eighty. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1985.
Lonergan, Kenneth. The Waverly Gallery. New York: Grove Press, 2000.
Myerhoff, Barbara. Remembered Lives: The Work of Ritual, Storytelling, and Growing Older. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1992.
Strimling, Arthur. Roots & Branches: Creating Intergenerational Theatre. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2004.
Vorenberg, Bonnie L. Senior Theatre Connections. Portland: ArtAge Publications, 1999.

Plays:

Ten minute:

Sandra Dempsey: Rosa’s Lament
Jim Gordon: A Good Deed
Kathy Coudle King: Brittle Bones
Douglas Stewart: Final Exam
Nicholas Tasi: Boxer
Justin Warner: Lunch Boat

One Act:

Martha Boesing: Song of the Magpie
Jay D. Hanagan: Welcome Home
Maureen Brady Johnson: Limbo
Robert L. Kinast: Salt in the Pepper Shaker
John Lordan: Friendly Skies
Mary Steelsmith: List of Honor

Full length:

Donald Drake: The Passage
Joe Feinstein: The Last of the Aztecs
Judy Juanita: Theodicy
TheodicyJulia Perlstein: PLINKO!; or, the Goddess of Static Cling
Lynn Snyder: Older Than Dead
Nancy Zaman: To Heir is Human

Theatre 597 Syllabus

Here's the syllabus for the summer offering:

Theatre 597: Issues of the Contemporary World: Censorship as an Instrument of Public/Private Policy

5 cr hrs. U/G. Summer 2007 MTWR 1:30-3:18 p.m. 1048 Smith

Instructor: Dr. Alan Woods 1433 Lincoln Tower 292-6614 woods.1@osu.edu

Office hours: MW 12:00 noon -1:00:p.m. T 4:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. and by appointment

Prerequisite: second level writing course; cultural diversity course; 4th year status. Not available for graduate credit for graduate students in the Department of Theatre.

Course Description:

Exploration of the ways in which censorship has been employed by governmental groups in both western and Asian societies as an instrument of public policy, or in response to pressure groups within those societies.

Course Objectives:

1. To discover how different contemporary societies perceive the role of government in controlling what information citizens can freely access

2. To study the interaction between cultures with differing (and often mutually exclusive) societal value systems

3. To explore the ways in which the cultures of contemporary societies have become interdependent, and some of the stresses that interdependence creates

4. To give students the opportunity to gain a richer comprehension of issues of censorship and governmental control in the contemporary world.

Background Statement:

As culture becomes global, one response has been an increasing conservatism and nationalism, often expressed in efforts by governmental bodies to control or shape information. Those efforts frequently result in censorship (whether overt or covert), often defended on moral, cultural, political, or educational grounds. Worries about secular Western influences in fundamentalist Islamic countries which led to the banning of cable television in Iran, the concern about the imposition of American sexual freedom on Chinese youth which caused the Chinese government to ban a production of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, a Wisconsin superindentent cancelling the musical Urinetown to protect student morals, or efforts to block pornographic websites (defined in radically diverse ways) in American libraries, schools and homes--all are recent manifestations of beliefs that governments must regulate expression. However justified, such efforts often are met with fierce resistance and at least some measure of public debate. The course will explore selected examples of censorship, or attempts to establish censorship, in a variety of western and eastern cultures, to examine the issues that such efforts expose.

Course Requirements:

Student participants will be organized into small research teams of 4-5 members each, and will explore specific instances of attempted censorship. The explorations will result in classroom presentations, a written report, and an annotated bibliography. Each individual student will also prepare a personal manifesto regarding his or her own response to the larger issue of the role of government in regulating information. Written reports may, at the students’ option, be submitted in the form of a webpage or in any other format which best serves the material; approval of the selected format is required by May 18^th.

Individual students will also write a peer evaluation of their colleagues on the research team, covering such elements as timeliness of contributions, ability to accomplish assignments, the usefulness of contributions, value of contribution to the overall project, willingness to participate in group project. Each student will also evaluate six presentations by other research teams.

Research teams will explore the any of following cases of censorship or attempted censorship; other cases may be chosen with permission of the instructor:

SEX ON STAGE AND IN PRINT:

Whole World of Lesbian Sex in Arkansas The Vagina Monologues, North America, China, India, Europe, 1997-2005. Romeo and Juliet in Missouri, 2006 Idomeneo at Deutsche Oper, Berlin, 2006

RELIGION ON STAGE AND IN ART:

Our Lady of the Tortillas in Texas 2007 Christopher Durang, the Roman Catholic Church, and Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All To You, St. Louis and elsewhere, 1980s. Corpus Christi: Terrence McNally and a gay parable, New York and elsewhere, 1998-2005. Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s Behzti (Dishonour), at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, 2004 Jerry Springer, The Opera, on stage and television, 2003-2006 Chocolate Jesus in New York

POLITICS

"Kucch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai" (Anything Can Happen) banned in Pakistan (2004) Maulana Azad and the Gujarat Censor Board, India, 2003. Porgy and Bess and cultural diplomacy, Europe and the Soviet Union, 1952-56.

SEX AND POLITICS

Annie Sprinkle, Karen Finley, and Tim Miller: the NEA 4 updated, United States, 1990-2005. Burlesque, strip tease, and exotic dance, from the C. H. McCaghy Collection, Lawrence & Lee Theatre Research Institute

EDUCATIONAL CENSORSHIP

Grease in Missouri, 2005; Urinetown in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, 2006, Beloved in Kentucky, 2007, The Crucible in Illinois and California, 2006.

Bibliography:

Alpert, Hollis. The Life and Times of Porgy and Bess: the Story of An American Classic. New York: Knopf, 1990. Angelou, Maya. Singin’ and Swingin’ and Getting’ Merry Like Christmas. New York: Random House, 1976. Barish, Jonas. The Anti-Theatrical Prejudice. Berkeley: U of California P, 1981. Bolton, Richard, ed. Culture Wars: Documents from the Recent Controversies in the Arts. New York: New Press, 1992. Hamilton, Marybeth. When I’m Bad, I’m Better: Mae West, Sex, and American Entertainment. New York: HarperCollins, 1995. Heins, Marjorie. Not In Front of the Children : "Indecency," Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth. New York : Hill and Wang, 2001. Hunter, James Davison. Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America. New York: Basic Books, 1991. Levine, Judith. “Kids. Theater,” The Nation 284:2 (January 8/15, 2007), 32-6. Levinson, Nan. Outspoken: Free Speech Stories. Berkeley: U of California P, 2003. Sova, Dawn B. Banned Plays: Censorship Histories of 125 Stage Dramas. New York: Facts on File, 2004. West, Mae. Three Plays by Mae West, ed. Lillian Schlissel. New York : Routledge, 1997.

Additional Course Guidelines:

1. All written work must be submitted in processed form or via e-mail. Handwritten work will not be accepted.

2. Course material will be available online, via the course webpage. Instructions on how access the course webpage will be distributed in advance of the course via e-mail, and during the first class session.

Texts:

General texts will be available online, on the course webpage; hard copies will be available on reserve through the Ohio State University Libraries. Additional copies will be available in the reading room of the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute, 14th floor of Lincoln Tower.

Research projects will require the use of primary source materials which may have limited availability, due to their nature. The types of research materials each topic entails, and their availability, will be made clear at the beginning of the term.

Grading Scale:

Your grade will be based on a combination of the following:

research project oral report: 60 points

research project written report: 60 points

research project annotated bibliography: 20 points

peer evaluations: 17 points

personal manifesto: preliminary draft 10 points

personal manifesto: final version 20 points

Evaluation of Research teams: 12 points

TOTAL POSSIBLE POINTS: 200

Grading Points:

A 185 and above A- 180-184 B+ 174-179 B 166-173 B- 160-165 C+ 154-159 C 146-153 C- 140-145 D+ 130-139 D 120-129 E 119 and below

Any student who feels s/he may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact me privately to discuss specific needs. Please contact the Office of Disability Services at 292-3307, room 150 Pomerene Hall, www.ods.ohio-state.edu/welcome.htm (a text only version is at www.ods.ohio-state.edu/textonly/index.htm) to coordinate reasonable accommodations for students with documented disabilities.

This syllabus is available in alternative formats upon request.

USG ESCORT SERVICE: 292-3322.

Class Schedule:

M 6/18: backgrounds: definitions of types of censorship, discussion of reasons for efforts to censor T 6/19: governmental and public policy issues; formation of research teams; have read Hunter, introduction; Bolton, Chapter 1. W 6/20: history of censorship in the west, Classic through early Medieval periods; assignment of research project topics; Barish, chapters 1-3. Personal manifesto preliminary draft due.
R 6/21: history of censorship in the west, Medieval through Renaissance periods; Barish, chapter 4.

M 6/25: history of censorship in the west, post Renaissance. T 6/26: censorship in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.. W 6/27: history of censorship in the east; R 6/28: case study: Mae West. West: Sex, The Drag

M 7/2: case studies: the Lord Chamberlain in England, 1747-1968; Socialist Realism in the Soviet Union
T 7/3: case study: the Motion Picture Code in the United States, 1934-1955. W 7/4: INDEPENDENCE DAY! NO CLASS! R 7/5: student reports: groups 1-2

M 7/9: student reports: group 3-4
T 7/10: student reports: groups 5-6 W 7/11: student reports: groups 7-8
R 7/12: student reports: group 9-10

M 7/16 student reports: group 11-12; final report format approval by this date.
T 7/17 student reports: group 13-14
W 7/18: censorship: revisited; summary and conclusions; final reports submitted or mounted on webpage

F 1:30 p.m. Final exam scheduled; personal manifesto final version due

Theatre 597 s

Theatre 597 in June; Theatre and Aging seminars in July

Theatre 597, the course in censorship, will be offered during the first term of Summer Quarter, beginning in June and running through July. The syllabus is below, after the Theatre 533; there will be some changes in report topics to reflect the continuing efforts to censor material, but the structure of the course and the requirements will remain pretty much the same, with some tweaking.

And Theatre 675a and 675b, our two seminars on Theatre and Aging, will be offered in July as a two-week intensive. More details at www.osuseniortheatre.blogspot.com

Theatre 533: coping with a required course

This is the third in a one-year, three-quarter, sequence of courses that survey the literature and history of western theatre, and fills several requirements for Theatre majors. The course itself is not required--majors have a range of courses which satisfy the lit/hist requirement. So there's not a built-in audience, which is just as well. In any event, this is my approach for Spring 2007:

Theatre 533: Theatre Repertory III: Survey of representative theatre and drama since the rise of Realism. Shattering the Norm: expanding theatre beyond commercial Broadway/West End productions and interests MW 11:30 a.m. – 1:18 p.m. DR 2068

Instructor: Dr. Alan Woods, 1433 Lincoln Tower
Woods.1@osu.edu
Office hours: M 9:00 – 11:00 a.m.
T 1:00 – 3:00 p.m. and by appointment

Course Description:
The course will explore efforts – sometimes violent, sometimes subtle -- to expand the concept of “theatre” over the course of the twentieth century from a professional commercial entertainment industry to something capable of expressing artistic, political, social, and ethnic concerns. We will also survey the changing definition of reality in theatrical performance, through an exploration of performance conventions, theatrical texts, theories of acting and design, theatre architecture, and the shifting role of the audience.

Course Objectives:
1. To discover how the concept of the real has shifted over the past century or so.
2. To study the ways in which theatrical conventions adjust to shifts in hegemonic structures
3. To explore the ways in which the tensions between experimentation and commercialism both benefit and harm the role of theatrical art in society
4. To give students the opportunity to gain a richer comprehension of the interrelations among cultural, commercial, social, and political currents shaping the nature of theatrical performance.

Background Statement:
All theatrical performance is a lie: the audience knows that it’s fictive; we know that the handsome man we see at Lincoln Center’s Vivian Beaumont Theatre is not really nineteenth-century literary critic Vissarion Belinsky in nineteenth-century Moscow, but an actor named Billy Crudup who’s on a Manhattan stage in 2007. But we agree to accept the fiction as reality – a process often called “the willing suspension of disbelief” – for the sake of an evening’s entertainment. The highest praise for an enjoyable performance is to call it “realistic.” That’s been true for most Western theatre since the fifth century B.C.E. But what is accepted as “real” shifts and changes over time. Thus we will explore how that concept has shifted over the twentieth century and into the first decade of the twenty-first, and what have been some of the reasons for the shifting. And we’ll also explore how theatrical experimenters have sought to find new ways to express reality, as well as efforts to escape the narrow constraints that commercial and audience perceptions of “realism” place on artists.

Course Requirements:
It is assumed that participants will complete readings as assigned; readings and due dates are listed on the course schedule below. Most readings can be found in the required texts; several additional readings will be available on the course’s Carmen site (www.carmen.osu.edu), which also has various other course materials. Each participant will submit short papers exploring the conventions at play in three radically differing theatrical experiences in central Ohio over the course of the quarter; guidelines on Carmen. Specific experiences must be approved in advance. Each participant will also complete a research project, exploring some aspect of the issues raised in the course. An oral report on the research will be given during the final two weeks of the term; a final research report will be submitted at the Final Examination. The research topic must be approved via a proposal due April 25^th. The format of the final research report must be approved by May 21^st. Guidelines for the research topic proposal and final report format are on Carmen. . Research projects should employ primary sources.

Additional Course Guidelines:
All written work must be submitted in processed form or via e-mail. Handwritten work will not be accepted.

Texts:
Most plays are in William B. Worthen’s The Harcourt Brace Anthology of Drama; historical background is provided by assigned chapters from the Brockett and Hildy History of Theatre. General texts are available at the usual bookstores; additional copies are on reserve through the Ohio State University Libraries. Additional copies will be available in the reading room of the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute, 14th floor of Lincoln Tower. Some texts will be available only at the TRI or through Carmen; these are identified on the Class Schedule

Grading Scale:

Your grade will be based on a combination of the following:

Conventions in central Ohio performances: 3 @ 20 points: 60 points

Research project oral presentation: 60 points

research project written report: 60 points

active participation in class sessions: 20 points

TOTAL POSSIBLE POINTS: 200
Grading Points:

A 185 and above A- 180-184 B+ 174-179
B 166-173 B- 160-165 C+ 154-159
C 146-153 C- 140-145 D+ 130-139
D 120-129 E 119 and below

Any student who feels s/he may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact me privately to discuss specific needs. Please contact the Office of Disability Services at 292-3307, room 150 Pomerene Hall, www.ods.ohio-state.edu/welcome.htm (a text only version is at www.ods.ohio-state.edu/textonly/index.htm) to coordinate reasonable accommodations for students with documented disabilities.

Class Schedule:

M 3/26 Introduction
W 3/28 have read Henrik Ibsen: A Doll House 1879

M 4/2 have read Lottie Blair Parker: Way Down East 1898~; Brockett and Hildy Ch. 16
W 4/4 submit venue for Conventions Paper 1; have read Anton Chekhov: The Cherry Orchard 1904

M 4/9 Conventions Paper 1 due; have read Bernard Shaw: Major Barbara 1905; Brockett and Hildy Ch. 17
W 4/11 submit venue for Conventions Paper 2; have read Eugene O’Neill: The Hairy Ape 1922

M 4/16 Conventions Paper 2 due; have read Lillian Hellman: The Children’s Hour 1934; revised 1952*; Brockett and Hildy Ch. 19
W 4/18 have read Ena Lamont Stewart: Men Should Weep 1947*

M 4/23 have read Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee: Inherit the Wind 1955*; Brockett and Hildy Ch. 31
W 4/25 Research Topic proposal due; have read Harold Pinter: The Homecoming 1965

M 4/30 have read Brian Friel: Translations 1980; Brockett and Hildy Ch. 23
W 5/2 submit venue for Conventions Paper 3; have read Sam Shepard: True West 1980

M 5/7 Conventions Paper 3 due; have read August Wilson: Fences 1985; Brockett and Hildy Ch. 24
W 5/9 have read Jack Davis: No Sugar 1985

M 5/14 have read Liz Lochhead: Mary Queen of Scots Got Her Head Chopped Off 1987*
W 5/16 have read Timberlake Wertenbaker: Our Country’s Good 1988

M 5/21 have read Carlos Murillo: dark play, or stories for boys 2007*
Research Reports; Research Format Proposal Due
W 5/23 have read Ken Weitzman: As If Body Loops 2007*; Research Reports

M 5/28 Memorial Day; no class
W 5/30 Summary and Conclusions;

W 6/6 11:30 a.m. – 1:18 p.m. Final Examination Scheduled; Final Research Report Due by 1:18 p.m.

Theatre 597 Wraps Up Winter 2007

The term's over, all work in, grades assigned and reported. In general, good work done. A preponderance of As and A-s with only a smattering of grades in the B range, and the usual odd C or failing grade. Although the students had the option of mounting a webpage as the final report, only one of the research groups did so; the results are at http://chrismindless44149.tripod.com/index.htm --a report on the censorship problems Christopher Durang had/is having with Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All To You.

One side note, which has to do with my own advancing age and the changing world we live in--these students are pretty hard to shock. They've grown up with an openness (or blatantness) about sex and language which is very different from my teenage years a half century ago. So many of their research reports about efforts to censor various things were marked by the students' bemusement, and difficulty in really getting why the material was so offensive to some. Haven't yet figured out a way to find out what they find offensive, in the main.

And one effect of the changes mores--when the Department did Our Town during this past quarter (and I was cast in a couple of small roles to add some age to the cast!), I realized that there's now a problem: our student audience, for the most part, hasn't any idea what Mrs. Webb is talking about in the wedding scene when she talks about how barbaric the whole system is, how she wasn't able to bring herself to say anything to Emily, and she went into 'it' totally unprepared herself. Of course she's talking about sexual intercourse; for the current crop of young people, that a young woman could reach her wedding day being entirely ignorant of the mechanics of sexual relations, is literally incomprehensible. Most of the students in the cast of Our Town had no idea what the speech was about; imagine how bewildered the student audience was?

Overall, the course was a terrific experience for me as the instructor. I'll find out the student perspective when the students' evaluations are made available to me!

Theatre 597: Censorship

A "capstone course," meant to be a senior seminar that also satisfies the advanced writing assignment. Taught for the second time in Winter, 2007--with some 56 students enrolled. Why so many in a 'seminar'? There aren't many of these courses on the books yet, and, of course, censorship has its own attraction. The syllabus:

Theatre 597: Issues of the Contemporary World: Censorship as an Instrument of Public/Private Policy

5 cr hrs. U/G.
Winter 2007
TR 1:30-3:18 p.m. 0160 McQuiggg

Instructor: Dr. Alan Woods
1433 Lincoln Tower 292-6614
woods.1@osu.edu

Prerequisite: second level writing course; cultural diversity course; 4th year status.
Not available for graduate credit for graduate students in the Department of Theatre.

Course Description:
Exploration of the ways in which censorship has been employed by governmental groups in both western and Asian societies as an instrument of public policy, or in response to pressure groups within those societies.

Course Objectives:
1. To discover how different contemporary societies perceive the role of government in controlling what information citizens can freely access
2. To study the interaction between cultures with differing (and often mutually exclusive) societal value systems
3. To explore the ways in which the cultures of contemporary societies have become interdependent, and some of the stresses that interdependence creates
4. To give students the opportunity to gain a richer comprehension of issues of censorship and governmental control in the contemporary world.

Background Statement:
As culture becomes global, one response has been an increasing conservatism and nationalism, often expressed in efforts by governmental bodies to control or shape information. Those efforts frequently result in censorship (whether overt or covert), often defended on moral, cultural, political, or educational grounds. Worries about secular Western influences in fundamentalist Islamic countries which led to the banning of cable television in Iran, the concern about the imposition of American sexual freedom on Chinese youth which caused the Chinese government to ban a production of Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, a Wisconsin superindentent cancelling the musical Urinetown to protect student morals, or efforts to block pornographic websites (defined in radically diverse ways) in American libraries, schools and homes--all are recent manifestations of beliefs that governments must regulate expression. However justified, such efforts often are met with fierce resistance and at least some measure of public debate. The course will explore selected examples of censorship, or attempts to establish censorship, in a variety of western and eastern cultures, to examine the issues that such efforts expose.

Course Requirements:
Student participants will be organized into small research teams of 4-5 members each, and will explore specific instances of attempted censorship. The explorations will result in classroom presentations, a written report, and an annotated bibliography. Each individual student will also prepare a personal manifesto regarding his or her own response to the larger issue of the role of government in regulating information. Written reports may, at the students’ option, be submitted in the form of a webpage or in any other format which best serves the material; approval of the selected format is required by May 18th.
Individual students will also write a peer evaluation of their colleagues on the research team, covering such elements as timeliness of contributions, ability to accomplish assignments, the usefulness of contributions, value of contribution to the overall project, willingness to participate in group project.

Research teams will explore the any of following cases of censorship or attempted censorship; other cases may be chosen with permission of the instructor:

SEX ON STAGE:
Olga Nethersole’s trial for obscenity in Clyde Fitch’s Sapho, New York, 1900.
Maude Allan, Salome, and libel in London, 1918.
The Vagina Monologues, North America, China, India, Europe, 1997-2005.
Naked Boys Singing, Milwaukee and elsewhere 2005
Spring Awakening, off and on Broadway, 2006-2007—and before

RELIGION ON STAGE:
Christopher Durang, the Roman Catholic Church, and Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All To You, St. Louis and elsewhere, 1980s.
Corpus Christi: Terrence McNally and a gay parable, New York and elsewhere, 1998-2005.
Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s Behzti (Dishonour), at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, 2004
Jerry Springer, The Opera, on stage and television, 2003-2006

POLITICS
"Kucch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai" (Anything Can Happen) banned in Pakistan (2004)
Maulana Azad and the Gujarat Censor Board, India, 2003.
Porgy and Bess and cultural diplomacy, Europe and the Soviet Union, 1952-56.
Paradise in Cincinnati, 2002.
My Name is Rachel Corrie, London 2005, New York 2006

SEX AND POLITICS
Annie Sprinkle, Karen Finley, and Tim Miller: the NEA 4 updated, United States, 1990-2005.
Burlesque, strip tease, and exotic dance, from the C. H. McCaghy Collection, Lawrence & Lee Theatre Research Institute

EDUCATIONAL CENSORSHIP
Grease in Missouri, 2005; Urinetown in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, 2006.

Bibliography:

Alpert, Hollis. The Life and Times of Porgy and Bess: the Story of An American Classic. New York: Knopf, 1990.
Angelou, Maya. Singin’ and Swingin’ and Getting’ Merry Like Christmas. New York: Random House, 1976.
Barish, Jonas. The Anti-Theatrical Prejudice. Berkeley: U of California P, 1981.
Bolton, Richard, ed. Culture Wars: Documents from the Recent Controversies in the Arts. New York: New Press, 1992.
Callis, Ann Everal. “Olga Nethersole and the Sapho Scandal.” M.A. Thes. Ohio State University, 1974.
Cherniavsky, Felix Benjamin. The Salome Dancer : the Life and Times of Maud Allan Toronto : McClelland & Stewart, 1991.
Hamilton, Marybeth. When I’m Bad, I’m Better: Mae West, Sex, and American Entertainment. New York: HarperCollins, 1995.
Heins, Marjorie. Not In Front of the Children : "Indecency," Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth. New York : Hill and Wang, 2001.
Hoare, Philip. Oscar Wilde's Last Stand: Decadence, Conspiracy, and the Most Outrageous Trial of the Century. New York : Arcade Pub, 1998.
Hunter, James Davison. Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America. New York: Basic Books, 1991.
Levine, Judith. “Kids. Theater,” The Nation 284:2 (January 8/15, 2007), 32-6.
Levinson, Nan. Outspoken: Free Speech Stories. Berkeley: U of California P, 2003.
Sova, Dawn B. Banned Plays: Censorship Histories of 125 Stage Dramas. New York: Facts on File, 2004.
West, Mae. Three Plays by Mae West, ed. Lillian Schlissel. New York : Routledge, 1997.


Additional Course Guidelines:
1. All written work must be submitted in processed form or via e-mail. Handwritten work will not be accepted.
2. Course material will be available online, via the course webpage. Instructions on how access the course webpage will be distributed in advance of the course via e-mail, and during the first class session.

Texts:
General texts will be available online, on the course webpage; hard copies will be available on reserve through the Ohio State University Libraries. Additional copies will be available in the reading room of the Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute, 14th floor of Lincoln Tower.
Research projects will require the use of primary source materials which may have limited availability, due to their nature. The types of research materials each topic entails, and their availability, will be made clear at the beginning of the term.

Grading Scale:
Your grade will be based on a combination of the following:
research project oral report: 60 points
research project written report: 60 points
research project annotated bibliography: 20 points
peer evaluations: 20 points
personal manifesto: preliminary draft 10 points
personal manifesto: final version 20 points
active participation in class sessions: 10 points
TOTAL POSSIBLE POINTS: 200
Grading Points:
A 185 and above A- 180-184 B+ 174-179
B 166-173 B- 160-165 C+ 154-159
C 146-153 C- 140-145 D+ 130-139
D 120-129 E 119 and below

Any student who feels s/he may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability should contact me privately to discuss specific needs. Please contact the Office of Disability Services at 292-3307, room 150 Pomerene Hall, www.ods.ohio-state.edu/welcome.htm (a text only version is at www.ods.ohio-state.edu/textonly/index.htm) to coordinate reasonable accommodations for students with documented disabilities.

This syllabus is available in alternative formats upon request.
USG ESCORT SERVICE: 292-3322.

Class Schedule:

R 1/4: backgrounds: definitions of types of censorship, discussion of reasons for efforts to censor

T 1/9: governmental and public policy issues; formation of research teams; have read Hunter, introduction; Bolton, Chapter 1.
R 1/11: history of censorship in the west, Classic through early Medieval periods; assignment of research project topics; Barish, chapters 1-3. Personal manifesto preliminary draft due.

T 1/16: history of censorship in the west, Medieval through Renaissance periods; Barish, chapter 4.
R 1/18: history of censorship in the west, post Renaissance.

T 1/23: censorship in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries..
R 1/25: history of censorship in the east;

T 1/30: case study: Mae West. West: Sex, The Drag
R 2/1: case studies: the Lord Chamberlain in England, 1747-1968; Socialist Realism in the Soviet Union

T 2/6: case study: the Motion Picture Code in the United States, 1934-1955.
R 2/8: 1. Urinetown in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, 2006. 2. Grease in Missouri, 2005

T 2/13 3. Spring Awakening, off and on Broadway, 2006-2007 ­and before 4. Nip and Tuck
R 2/15 5. The Vagina Monologues, North America, China, India, Europe, 1997-2005. 6. Corpus Christi: Terrence McNally and a gay parable, New York and elsewhere, 1998-2005.

T 2/20 7. Naked Boys Singing, Milwaukee and elsewhere 2005 8. South Park
R 2/22 9. Paradise in Cincinnati, 2002. 10. Olga Nethersole’s trial for obscenity in Clyde Fitch’s Sapho, New York, 1900.

T 2/27 11. Christopher Durang, the Roman Catholic Church, and Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All To You, St. Louis and elsewhere, 1980s. 12. My Name is Rachel Corrie, London 2005, New York 2006
R 3/1 13. Censorship in Agentina 14. Jerry Springer, The Opera, on stage and television, 2003-2006

T 3/6 15. Burlesque, strip tease, and exotic dance, from the C. H. McCaghy Collection, Lawrence & Lee Theatre Research Institute
R 3/8 censorship: revisited; summary and conclusions; final reports submitted or mounted on webpage

M 3/12: 1:30 p.m. Final exam scheduled; personal manifesto final version due