American Drama: Mamet to the Present - AAALB021A
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Schedule Noticeboard
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The course will investigate the development of contemporary American drama since the 1970s. C.W.E. Bigsby observes that it is only when we reach the twentieth century that American drama begins to “test its own boundaries and possibilities.” We will explore the ways in which its key playwrights address these boundaries and possibilities in particular through recurrent themes of social and individual alienation as well as through formal experiment. The playwrights in focus this semester will include: David Mamet, Sam Shepard, Luis Valdez, Marsha Norman, Paula Vogel, Tony Kushner, Suzan-Lori Parks, Wallace Shawn, Anne Washburn, Lynn Nottage, Bruce Norris and Jackie Sibblies Drury.<br>
<br> Schedule: Week 1 (3.10) Introduction Week 2 (10.10) David Mamet American Buffalo (1977) & Oleanna (1992) Week 3 (17.10) Luis Valdez Zoot Suit (1978) & I Don’t Have to Show You No Stinking Badges! (1986) Week 4 (24.10) Sam Shepard Buried Child (1978) & True West (1980) Week 5 (31.10) Marsha Norman ‘night Mother (1982) & Paula Vogel How I Learned to Drive (1997) Week 6 (7.11) Tony Kushner Angels in America (1990, 1991) Week 7 (14.11) Suzan-Lori Parks Top Dog/Underdog (2001) Week 8 (21.11) Bruce Norris Clybourne Park (2010) Week 9 (28.11) Wallace Shawn Grasses of a Thousand Colors (2009) & Anne Washburn Mr Burns (2012) Week 10 (5.12) Lynn Nottage Sweat (2015) Week 11 (12.12) Tracy Letts August: Osage County (2007) & Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins Appropriate (2014) Week 12 (19.12) Jackie Sibblies Drury Fairview (2018) Week 13 (2.1) Reserve Week 14 (9.1) Conclusion, feedback session, discussion of final research projects Please note: students must enroll in the course by week two of the semester. Students attempting to enroll on week 3 or later will not be accepted. Last update: Wallace Clare, doc., M.A., Ph.D. (19.09.2023)
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Primary materials: Jacobs-Jenkins, Brandon. Appropriate. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 2016. Kushner, Tony. Angels in America, Part One & Two. New York: Theatre Communications, 1993, 1994. LaBute, Neil. The Shape of Things. London: Faber and Faber, 2001. Letts, Tracy. August: Osage County. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 2009. Mamet, David. Plays 1. London: Methuen, 1994. Norman, Marsha. ‘night Mother. Ed. Walter Levy. Modern Drama: Selected Plays from 1879 to the Present. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1999. Norman, Marsha. Collected Plays. Lyme: Smith & Kraus, 1998. Norris, Bruce. Clybourne Park. London: Nick Hern, 2010. Nottage, Lynn. Sweat. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 2015. Parks, Suzan-Lori. Top Dog/Underdog. Ed. Matthew Roudané. Drama Essentials: An Anthology of Plays. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007. Shepard, Sam. Buried Child. Ed. Walter Levy. Modern Drama: Selected Plays from 1879 to the Present. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1999. Shepard, Sam. Seven Plays. New York: Bantam, 1984. Sibblies Drury, Jackie. Fairview New York: TCG, 2019. Valdez, Luis. Zoot Suit and Other Plays. Houston: Arte Publico,1992. Vogel, Paula. How I Learned to Drive. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1999. Washburn, Anne. Mr Burns and Other Plays. New York: TCG, 2017. Selected rsecondary materials: Bell, John. “American Drama in the Postwar Period.” A Concise Companion to Postwar American Literature and Culture. Ed. Josephine G. Hendin. Malden MA: Blackwell, 2004. 110-148. Bigsby, Christopher. A Critical Introduction to Twentieth-Century American Drama. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1985. Vol. 3. Bigsby, Christopher. Contemporary American Playwrights. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. Bigsby, Christopher. Modern American Drama 1945-1990. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1992. Bloom, Harold ed. David Mamet. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2004. Elam, Harry J. Taking it to the Streets: The Social Protest Theater of Luis Valdez and Amiri Baraka. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2001. Fisher, James. The Theater of Tony Kushner: Living Past Hope. New York and London: Routledge, 2002. Hill, Eroll G. and James V. Hatch. A History of African American Theatre. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003. Krasner, David. American Drama 1945-2000: An Introduction. Malden MA: Backwell, 2006. Malkin, Jeanette R. Memory-Theatre and Postmodern Drama. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1999. Roudané, Matthew ed. The Cambridge Companion to Sam Shepard. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002. Saddik, Annette J. Contemporary American Drama. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2007. Savran, David. Taking it Like a Man: White Masculinity, Masochism, and Contemporary American Culture. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1998 Schmidt, Kerstin. The Theater of Transformation: Postmodernism in American Drama. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005. Shank, Theodore. Beyond the Boundaries: American Alternative Theatre. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2002. Thompson, Graham. American Culture in the 1980s. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2007. Vorlicky, Robert. ed. Tony Kushner in Conversation. Ann Arbor: Michigan, 1998. Whitfield, Stephen J. The Culture of the Cold War. 2nd ed. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1996. Wilkerson, Margaret B. “From Harlem to Broadway: African American Women Playwrights at Mid-Century.” The Cambridge Companion to American Women Playwrights. Ed. Brenda Murphy. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. 134-154.
Last update: Wallace Clare, doc., M.A., Ph.D. (12.09.2023)
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Seminar
Last update: Wallace Clare, doc., M.A., Ph.D. (12.09.2023)
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Course descriptions are available at http://ualk.ff.cuni.cz/current-students.html Please note: students must enroll in the course by week two of the semester. Students attempting to enroll on week 3 or later will not be accepted. Last update: Wallace Clare, doc., M.A., Ph.D. (17.03.2015)
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