Subject Area: Theatre and Performance Studies
This course can also be studied in the following specialisation: English

Great Plays will develop your skills in reading canonical plays written for live performance. In particular, you will develop the ability to navigate the relationship between two sorts of ‘play': a script and a performance. The course combines exercises in literary analysis of written text, with a consideration of performance conventions and signification in theatre production. Through a lecture series and seminars that incorporate rehearsed readings and evidence from productions, you will become familiar with a broad range of highly-regarded plays from antiquity to the present day. You will investigate the relationship of these plays to the contexts in which they were first staged and to our contemporary world. You will also have opportunities to analyse and intervene in the processes of canon formation. This course is part of the Theatre and Performance Studies stream, and can also be studied as an elective in the English stream.