51��������

Course Description

Summary

“The theater is the place where we learn how to be. At its best, it is a rehearsal for the great moments of our life, including our happinesses. Love, death, we see it on stage and it prepares us for our life.” —John Guare A play is a metaphoric and empathic art form that seduces us into imaginatively making choices and suffering consequences along with the characters on stage. Every day in the real world, we watch as people make choices whose consequences are truly ours to share—some global, some local, some only in our dreams. What if we could rewrite those choices and change what happens to our lives, our world? We will read 5-7 books and plays and watch films to exploring how the narrative art form navigates and exploits the gravitational pull of history.  Students will chose a person born since 1930 (a public figure or a family member), research their life, identify a series of their choices and the resulting consequences, then write a 20-45 minute play where a different choice is made, and the world as defined by the play changes.