About
Welcome! You are viewing an archive of the course offered by Natalie Harrower at the Queen’s University Department of Drama in the Winter of 2008. If you are looking for current offerings at Queen’s Drama, follow this link.
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COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course is designed for students who are keen to improve their knowledge of recent drama in Ireland, and who want to challenge themselves to move beyond a simple understanding of a play’s story, to a more complex engagement with the world of theatre. In this capacity, students will be encouraged to probe the ways in which drama is structured, and to differentiate between the text provided by a playwright, and the myriad of interpretive choices that result in the theatrical staging of that text. At the same time, we will begin with the assumption that dramatic texts are not isolated artistic products, but instead are best understood in their social, political, and historical contexts. The course will help students to develop critical thinking, research, and presentation skills that are useful both inside and outside the university. Students will be asked to think creatively when approaching a research problem, and will have the opportunity to present their research on the internet.
image/credit: Marina Carr’s By the Bog of Cats…
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COURSE GOALS: STUDENTS CAN EXPECT TO…
- Become acquainted with selected Irish playwrights and key issues in contemporary Irish drama of the last 25 years.
- Gain knowledge of key issues in Irish society, culture, and politics
- Develop a critical understanding of the relationship between drama and society
- Deepen academic research skills, and master new communication technologies
- Develop a vocabulary for discussing dramatic texts
- Improve play reading skills
- Cultivate an understanding of the relationship between a play on the page, on the stage, and on the screen