WRITING ABOUT DRAMA DRAMATURGY AND FIRSTYEAR COMPOSITION Justin

WRITING ABOUT DRAMA: DRAMATURGY AND FIRST-YEAR COMPOSITION Justin Grant, University of Florida

Fiction vs. Drama Fiction as Text Drama as Text-in-Performance

The Writer as Dramaturge

The Project Read the play Carefully select an 8 to 10 min. scene Research the context Make your interpretive decisions Create your vision statement From the film adaptation of Jean Genet’s “The Maids”

Sample Student Vision “In this scene [from Federico García Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba], there is a struggle between Bernarda and her daughters, as well as a division between the sisters themselves…The production elements are put in place to focus on the drudgery of the lives of the women trapped in Bernarda’s household, as evidenced by their stiff, suffocating clothing and the harsh lighting. The production elements also hone in on the emotional separation that exists between the women, which is reflected in the partitioned theatre type, as well as the placement and actions of the performers. ”

The Production Elements Lighting Blocking, Movement, Voice Stage and Set Design Sound and Music Costuming and Makeup Props Casting Choices

The Reflective Analysis How did you come to this vision? Why did you chose the production elements you did? What elements of the scene were you trying to highlight? What central ideas and themes were you trying to get across to your audience? Where in the text did these ideas and themes “speak” to you?

The Dramaturge as Writer Analysis—Text and Text-in-Performance Requires Thesis Evidence Explanation Reflection From the Broadway production of Angels in America