Courses

This course will explore plays from classical times to the present in which women are at the center of the cultural narratives the theater creates. Sometimes women defy kings or rulers; sometimes they commit crimes; sometimes they figure primarily as heroic or punishing mothers, abused wives, or comic protagonists. One purpose of the course is to explore what roles the theater has created for women at particular moments in history and also to explore the contradictions and complexities that emerge within those roles. At the same time, the course will investigate the changing nature of the theater itself and how the representation of gender changes from, for example the Greek ritual, theater to the all-male stages of Shakespeare's time to the experimental theater of today. Every class will include some onyour-feet script work with Catherine Suffern, our creative artist co-instructor.