ACM LONDON: ARTS IN CONTEXT – Spring 2014 [Note: this is a preliminary syllabus, prepared during the summer and autumn months of 2012 and updated in spring 2013. It will be developed with a great deal more specificity nearer the spring term of 2014 as theatre bookings fall into place] Course: Theatre in London: the Art of Adaptation Instructor: Steven Marc Weiss, PhD Associate Professor of Theatre Arts Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa e-mail:
[email protected] phone: Course Description: This course will provide both an in-depth examination of the astonishing variety of theatre offerings available in London during each seven-week term and an equally penetrating look at the literary (or other) source materials that, directly or indirectly, inspired each production. As we consider various ways in which most theatrical productions are developed—either based on other source material or on writers’ original ideas—our ongoing focus of study will be on the intertextuality between the page (drama) and the stage (theatre). “Adaptation” is the key concept underlying the investigation, and the term will be broadly defined to include: (1) how playwrights sometimes adapt non-dramatic source materials (historical events, narrative fiction, etc.) into dramatic texts; (2) how theatre collaborators sometimes attempt to adapt for viable stage production dramatic source material from another medium (film, for instance); (3) how playwrights sometimes adapt existing, older playtexts to craft more contemporary “versions” of them; (4) how contemporary playwrights sometimes, either consciously or inadvertently, alter playtexts they “translate” from other languages; (5) how theatrical practitioners “translate” words on a page into action on the stage after carefully studying the texts for clues that will help them conceptualize and eventually actualize productions based on those clues; and (6) how playtexts are, by necessity, “adapted” by directors, designers and actors to “work” for the space(s) in which they are presented.