Elizabeth Egloff Michael Wilson
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PROVOCATIVE MEDICAL THRILLER ETHER DOME CURRICULUMBY GUIDE ELIZABETH EGLOFF DIRECTED BY MICHAEL WILSON TABLE OF CONTENTS Standards 3 Guidelines for Attending the Theatre 4 Artists 5 Themes for Writing & Discussion 7 Mastery Assessment 12 For Further Exploration 13 Suggested Activities 22 © Huntington Theatre Company Boston, MA 02115 September 2014 No portion of this Curriculum Guide may be reproduced without written permission from the Huntington Theatre Company’s Department of Education & Community Programs Inquiries should be directed to: Donna Glick | Director of Education Huntington Theatre Company 264 Huntington Avenue Boston, MA 02115 This curriculum guide was prepared for the Huntington Theatre Company by: Alexandra Truppi | Manager for Curriculum & Instruction Aurelia Clunie | Education Associate for Student Audiences (Hartford Stage) with contributions by: Donna Glick | Director of Education Jennifer Roberts | Director of Education (Hartford Stage) Produced in association with La Jolla Playhouse and Hartford Stage. COMMON CORE STANDARDS IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS STANDARDS: Student Matinee performances and Reading Literature: Key Ideas and Details 3 pre-show workshops provide unique opportunities • Grades 9-10: Analyze how complex characters (e.g. those with for experiential learning and support various multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of combinations of the Common Core Standards for a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or English Language Arts. They may also support develop the themes. standards in other subject areas such as Social • Grades 11-12: Analyze the impact of the author’s choices Studies and History, depending on the individual regarding how to develop related elements of a story or drama play’s subject matter. (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed). Activities are also included in this Curriculum Guide and in our pre-show workshops that support Reading Literature: Craft and Structure 5 several of the Massachusetts state standards in • Grades 9-10: Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how Theatre. Other arts areas may also be addressed to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), depending on the individual play’s subject matter. and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks), create such effects as mystery, tension, or surprise. • Grades 11-12: Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure specific parts of a text (e.g., the choice of where to begin or end a story, the choice to provide a comedic or tragic resolution) contribute to its overall structure and meaning as well as its aesthetic impact. Reading Literature: Craft and Structure 6 • Grades 9-10: Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of world literature. • Grades 11-12: Analyze a case in which grasping point of view required distinguishing what is directly stated in a text from what is really meant (e.g., satire, sarcasm, irony, or understatement). Reading Literature: Integration of Knowledge and Ideas 7 • Grades 9-12: Analyze multiple interpretations of a story, drama, or poem (e.g. recorded or live production of a play or recorded novel or poetry), evaluating how each version interprets the source text (include at least one play by Shakespeare and one play by an American dramatist). ETHER DOME CURRICULUM GUIDE 3 MASSACHUSETTS STANDARDS IN THEATRE ACTING TECHNICAL THEATRE • 1.14 — Create complex and believable characters through the • 4.13 — Conduct research to inform the design of sets, integration of physical, vocal, and emotional choices (Grades costumes, sound, and lighting for a dramatic production 9-12). (Grades 9-12). • 1.15 — Demonstrate an understanding of a dramatic work by developing a character analysis (Grades 9-12). CONNECTIONS • 1.17 — Demonstrate increased ability to work effectively alone • Strand 6: Purposes and Meanings in the Arts — Students and collaboratively with a partner or in an ensemble (Grades will describe the purposes for which works of dance, music, 9-12). theatre, visual arts, and architecture were and are created, and, when appropriate, interpret their meanings (Grades PreK-12). READING AND WRITING SCRIPTS • Strand 10: Interdisciplinary Connections — Students will • 2.11 — Read plays from a variety of genres and styles; compare apply their knowledge of the arts to the study of English and contrast the structure of plays to the structures of other language arts, foreign languages, health, history and forms of literature (Grades 9-12). social science, mathematics, and science and technology/ engineering (Grades PreK-12). AUDIENCE ETIQUETTE Attending live theatre is a unique experience with many • Theatre should be an enjoyable experience for the valuable educational and social benefits. To ensure that all audience. It is absolutely all right to applaud when audience members are able to enjoy the performance, appropriate and laugh at the funny moments. Talking and calling out during the performance, however, are please take a few minutes to discuss the following audience not allowed. Why might this be? Be sure to mention that etiquette topics with your students before you come to the not only would the people seated around them be able Huntington Theatre Company. to hear their conversation, but the actors on stage could hear them, too. Theatres are constructed to carry sound • How is attending the theatre similar to and different from efficiently! going to the movies? What behaviors are and are not appropriate when seeing a play? Why? • Any noise or light can be a distraction, so please remind students to make sure their cell phones are turned • Remind students that because the performance is live, off (or better yet, left at home or at school!). Texting, the audience’s behavior and reactions will affect the photography, and video recording are prohibited. Food, actors’ performances. No two audiences are exactly the gum, and drinks should not be brought into the theatre. same, and therefore no two performances are exactly the same — this is part of what makes theatre so special! • Students should sit with their group as seated by the Students’ behavior should reflect the level of performance Front of House staff and should not leave their seats once they wish to see. the performance has begun. 4 ETHER DOME CURRICULUM GUIDE ARTISTS SF: Why did Michael think you would be the right person to write this story? EE: He knew that I had grown up in Farmington, CT, where Morton’s wife lived before they married. I went to school in West Hartford and college in Hartford. And I was steeped in the Hartford view of the world and of itself. I was thrilled to take it on – I love plays about history and politics. As I researched, I became hypnotized by the story of the four men who were at the center of the ether controversy — Horace Wells, William Morton, Dr. Charles T. Jackson and Dr. John C. Warren — who were esteemed surgeons at Massachusetts General Hospital, one of a handful of respected medical schools in the country. Wells had been investigating ways to alleviate his patients’ suffering during dental surgery. He witnessed a man who injured himself after inhaling laughing gas. When he saw that the man felt no pain, he Playwright Elizabeth Egloff wondered if the gas could be used on his patients. He successfully experimented with the gas, and Morton suggested he demonstrate MEET THE PLAYWRIGHT the procedure in Mass General’s operating theatre. The stakes for Wells’ demonstration in the hospital’s dome were very high. When Playwright Elizabeth Egloff is a Farmington, CT native and Trinity it failed, it launched a medical competition that would change the College (Hartford, CT) graduate. After studying poetry in school, history and the destinies of those four men. she worked in publishing before focusing on writing plays. While earning a graduate degree at Brown University, Egloff discovered Jackson claimed he had given Morton a vial of sulfuric ether so that playwriting was not just for men, but that she could offer that he could painlessly extract his wife’s tooth. Morton took both her own unique perspective as a female playwright. She pursued Wells’ and Jackson’s ideas and climbed his way into Mass General’s this passion and graduated with an MFA from the Yale School dome and into the medical history books. Wells, a sensitive idealist, of Drama. Her first play, The Swan, premiered at Yale Repertory was irreparably wounded by Morton’s betrayal and descended into Theatre and was later produced at the Public Theater in New depression and addiction. Some believed Wells was the inspiration York. It has since been performed across the United States and for Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. internationally. Her plays have been produced at regional theatres At a certain point, I realized that there were inconsistencies; the story throughout the country and include The Devils, The Lovers, was different depending on whose version I read. But the brutal Phaedra, and Peter Pan and Wendy. Egloff is an Emmy Award- fact remained that Morton deserved the credit – he was the one nominated screenwriter and has won the Helen Merrill Award, who picked up the ball when no else did and took it all the way into the Lila Wallace Foundation Writer’s Award, the Oppenheimer the end zone. Harvard Medical School and Mass General’s library Award, and the Kesselring Prize. La Jolla Playhouse Dramaturg accounts have always credited Morton, but no mention is made Shirley Fishman sat down with Egloff to discuss writing and the about his scandalous past. Jackson receives some credit for helping production process of Ether Dome. Morton with research. Their accounts don’t mention Wells. After the Shirley Fishman: What inspired you to write a play about the 2001 publication of Julie M.