PLAY READING  

With the amount of reading and writing stressed in curriculum today, it is important to emphasize these skills in every class.  Fortunately, it is very easy to incorporate reading and writing into the theatre classroom.  The following projects enable your students to expand their academic and theatre literacy.  Encouraging students to read plays and to write critically about the theatre will prepare them for any higher theatre education program.  Furthermore, these skills transfer across academic lines into other disciplines in which critical thinking is stressed.

Skills and Understandings

Students will be able to

• Name at least ten different playwrights
• Identify major playwrights of U.S. and other western countries
• Identify major non-western playwrights
• Set reading goals for themselves
• Consider technical aspects of a play as they read
• Discuss the pros and cons of producing certain plays
• Analyze plays for social and historical importance and impact
• Develop a repertoire of a wide base of plays for selecting audition material
• Identify key characteristics and the structure of plays from a variety of cultures and time periods

      

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