| English Language Theatre Mr. Rome Welcome! This should be a year of substantial growth in your knowledge and your skills as an actor. You will mostly be working in a REHEARSAL context on scripts which represent a broad range of theatrical styles from throughout theatre history. Girls may have to play male roles, but this helps guarantee that everyone will play a "lead" at some point (and in the meantime let's hope someone will write some plays for women). Take heart: for hundreds of years, all actors were men. Your efforts represent "getting even", perhaps... Basically, each month/quarter we'll prepare 20-40 minutes of a play to present (sometimes to English classes or others) from various era/style/genres*. You should end up with a working sense of these diverse plays and the variety of ways of acting for them. PLAY EVALUATIONS are a major part of your individual work (other than line memorization). Once a month you are required to hand in an evaluation according to the 6-point outline I will give you, which is based on a play you've read (one you've not read before). These can be done in a single well-worded page (if you write small), but are hard to do quickly. Turn in a complete evaluation on time, and you will do well. Fail to turn these in, and you may fail entirely. HOMEWORK includes memorizing lines (and various written forms of proving it), those pesky play evaluations, some other written work, bringing in stuff as necessary for your scenes, etc. You will find that the members of this class become a unit, and you will get to know everyone very well. Extra credit is earned for participation in the extracurricular plays, and it is expected that you will all contribute to the cast or crew at some point (or many points). Enjoy yourself! Special privileges start to accrue in this class. We may well mount a production of a Shakespeare play (one-act) which we will take into competition at the FOLGER Theatre Secondary School Shakespeare Festival. We have done exceptionally well at the festival in the past, and despite your relative inexperience, I am confident we will impress the judges again this year. Please note that the Shakespeare production will involve after-school rehearsal which is required classwork time. This show may also be part of the Short Plays production at Robinson later in the year. *Please note that since a month's work culminates in a single class performance, often in front of an invited audience, it is not possible to make up the work even if you have even an excused absence the day of performance. "The show must go on," and so must you--everyone else's performance depends on yours (as vice versa is true). Do NOT schedule appointments on a performance day. Even if you are deathly ill, we deserve the chance to have a few minutes (hours, hopefully) to find a substitute, a new costume, run thru the blocking, etc. Call! Anyone missing performance without advance notice (703-426-2123) will automatically, irrevocably fail the assignment. FIELD TRIPS. We also plan on going to the Arena Stage matinee series in Washington, and meeting the cast for a discussion afterwards. There is a charge for this, so it's not required, but the series is fabulous and not only of great value ($76 for 4 plays), but at a great discount, too. I hope you'll all be able to attend. So: rehearsals, styles, eras, plays, projects. This is a busy class, with never quite enough time, but it is a great one, where all that stuff from last year starts to fit together, and even make useful sense. Be sure you have with you each day in class: something to write with, something to write on, and something secure to keep it all in. There will be the occasional lecture, handouts and tests. Next |