Blood and Magic: Special Effects in Historical Practice

3 units

Should Sarah Kane's Cleansed have realistic or symbolic blood? Does The Tempest's Ariel have to fly? This course integrates textual analysis with production to consider depictions of violence and magic in performance across centuries. By examining contemporary and historical staging conventions as well as creating their own scenework, students will consider how violence and magic are cultural constructions and explore how on-stage depictions of these cultural constructions can impact interpretations of the source text. Students will read key plays from antiquity to today and write dramaturgical analyses across multiple assignments. Additionally, in a structure based on director Anne Bogart's legendary Collaboration course at Columbia University's School of the Arts, students will experiment with practice as a way of knowing, as they work in small companies to create, stage, and review short, critically engaged adaptations of each play, every two weeks. Students will also join a Special Interest Group (SIG) based on rotating course themes, which may include Adaptation, Immersivity, Interactivity/Participation, Stage Technology, and Historical Context. This course fulfills the Studies in Historical Practice requirement for Drama majors and minors.