Learning Theater: From Audience to Critic at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Who doesn't love going to a play: sitting in the darkened theater, a member of the audience community waiting to be entertained, charmed, and challenged? But how many of us know enough about the details of the plays, their interpretation, their production, and acting itself, to allow us to appreciate fully the theatrical experience? In this seminar, we will spend 14 days in Ashland, Oregon, at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), where we will attend these plays: Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night; Dominique Morisseau's Three Musketeers; Qui Nguyen's Rent; and Where We Belong: A Musical, books and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and music by Stephen Flaherty. (To read more about these productions, go to www.osfashland.org). We will also spend time backstage, meeting with actors, designers, and artistic and administrative directors of OSF. Students read the plays before the seminar begins, attend these productions together, and have the time to study one play closely through a second viewing. In Ashland, students will produce a staged reading and design a final paper based on one or more of the productions. These reviews will be delivered to the group and turned in on Thursday, September 21.