ENGL 287 - Reviewing Shakespeare

Semester Offered: Spring
0.5 unit(s)

This course has a double objective of developing the students’ understanding of a selected Shakespeare play performed in New York City as well as enhancing their analytical and writing skills by learning how to write theater reviews. At the beginning of the semester, we decide on viewing a selected production of a Shakespeare play in New York City (funding for travel and theater tickets is available from Vassar College).

This intensive exercise has the following assignments:

1/ At the beginning of the semester, students read assigned studies on the selected Shakespeare play as well as on issues and methods of analyzing stage performances. In preparation of viewing the play, the students write an analytical paper about an assigned topic of the play and its stage history.

2/ After having viewed the play, each student collects 5-10 reviews about the stage production and writes a “review of reviews” with special attention to the methodology and structure of the discussed review articles.

3/ As the culmination of the preparatory work listed above, the students write their own review of the stage production. Zoltan Markus.

Course Format: INT