Drama 238 Course Outline 2013
Drama 238, Fall 2013
Special Topics in Performance: Intensive in Ensemble and Performance
Instructor: Dr. Julie Salverson
Phone: 545-6000 Ex.77485
Email: salversn@queensu.ca
Office: 306 Carruther’s Hall
Class Location: Vogt Studio, Carruthers Hall
Office Hours: Wednesday 12:-1.pm or by appointment
Blog Site: 238intensive.wordpress.com
Class times:
Fridays: Sept 20, 27, October 4, 11, 18, 25 from 11:30pm – 5:30pm
Course Description:
The class is a special study in performance and is designed as an intensive experience in the building of ensemble. This year the topic is “Boal’s Forum Theatre Meets Melodrama: Possibilities for Political Theatre”. Augusto Boal’s Forum Theatre has a long tradition around the world and in Canada of tackling political situations through the voices and bodies of those who experience them. What happens if we take the framework of Theatre of The Oppressed and infuse it with the spirit of fun, vulnerability and madness, the desperate antics that is Melodrama?
Together we will ask the question, “Can we laugh and still change the world?”
Designed as an intensive over six weeks of the fall term, the class will have an immersion in Boal and Melodrama. With the help of Guest Artist Charlotte Gowdy, we will create short plays that address problems the students choose to tackle with their peers, exploring as we do the connections between the political, the social and the personal.
The substance of our performative inquiry will be the relationship between what we begin with as we approach, and what we discover through our research and our engagement with each other. It is understood that this is a fast and furious dive into two very particular mediums, neither of which you may know anything about. That’s fine, will be part of the challenge. Or should I say, part of the adventure!
Charlotte Gowdy has been active in theatres across Canada for the past ten years, including three seasons at the Shaw Festival. She is a graduate of the National Theatre School and trained extensively with clown master Philippe Gaulier in Paris, France. In February, 2013 she became Assistant Associate Director at the Thousand Islands Playhouse and is directing the summer Young Company.
