Most students encounter drama as they do poetry and fiction – as literature to be read – but never experience the performative nature of theater. How to Teach a Play provides new strategies for teaching dramatic literature and offers practical, play-specific exercises that demonstrate how performance illuminates close reading of the text. This practical guide provides a new generation of teachers and theatre professionals the tools to develop their students’ performative imagination. Featuring more than 80 exercises, How to Teach a Play provides teaching strategies for the most commonly taught plays, ranging from classical through contemporary drama. Developed by contributors from a range of disciplines, these exercises reveal the variety of practitioners that make up the theatrical arts; they are written by playwrights, theater directors, and artistic directors, as well as by dramaturgs and drama scholars. In bringing together so many different perspectives, this book highlights the distinctive qualities that makes theater such a dynamic genre. This collection offers an array of proven approaches for anyone teaching drama: literature and theater professors; high school teachers; dramaturgs and directors. Written in an accessible and jargon-free style, both instructors and directors can immediately apply the activity to the classroom or rehearsal. Whether you specialize in drama or only teach a play every now and again, these exercises will inspire you to modify, transform, and reinvent your own role in the dramatic arts.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Introduction The ExercisesHubris and Hamartia based on Aristotle’s Poetics Agamemnon by Aeschylus The Eumenides by Aeschylus Antigone by Sophocles Oedipus the King by Sophocles Medea by Euripides Lysistrata by Aristophanes The Twin Menaechmi by Plautus The Second Shepherd’s Play by The Wakefield Master Atsumori by Zeami Motokiyo Everyman by Anonymous A Midsummer Night’s Dream (I) by William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night’s Dream (II) by William Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare The Tragedy of Hamlet (I) by William Shakespeare The Tragedy of Hamlet (II) by William Shakespeare The Tragedy of Othello by William Shakespeare Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare The Tragedy of King Lear by William Shakespeare The Tempest by William Shakespeare Life is a Dream by Pedro Calderón de la Barca Tartuffe by Moliere The Misanthrope by Molière Restoration Theater Audiences The Country Wife by William Wycherley The Rover by Aphra Behn The Way of the World by William Congreve The School for Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan Woyzeck by Georg Büchner A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen Miss Julie by August Strindberg Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw Trifles by Susan Glaspell Six Characters in Search of an Author by Luigi Pirandello Juno and the Paycock by Sean O’Casey Machinal by Sophie Treadwell The House of Bernarda Alba by Federico García Lorca Our Town by Thorton Wilder Mother Courage and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht Long Day’s Journey Into Night by Eugene O’Neill The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller Waiting for Godot (I) by Samuel Beckett Waiting for Godot (II) by Samuel Beckett The Crucible by Arthur Miller Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams Endgame by Samuel Beckett The Birthday Party by Harold Pinter Rhinoceros by Eugene Ionesco A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry The Zoo Story by Edward Albee Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? By Edward Albee Dutchman by Amiri Baraka The Homecoming by Harold Pinter The House of Blue Leaves by John Guare Death and the King’s Horseman by Wole Soyinka Fefu and Her Friends by María Irene Fornés And the Soul Shall Dance by Wakako Yamauchi Zoot Suit by Luis Valdez True West by Sam Shepard Top Girls by Caryl Churchill Cloud Nine by Caryl Churchill “Master Harold” … and the boys by Athol Fugard Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet Fences by August Wilson The Other Shore by Gao Xingjian The Piano Lesson by August Wilson M. Butterfly by David Henry Hwang Fires in the Mirror by Anna Deavere Smith Angels in America, Part One by Tony Kushner Information for Foreigners by Griselda Gambaro Oleanna by David Mamet Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard Blasted by Sarah Kane ‘Art’ by Yasmina Reza How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks Doubt: A Parable by John Patrick Shanley Dead Man’s Cell Phone by Sarah Ruhl Water by the Spoonful by Quiara Alegría Hudes Sweat by Lynn Nottage Vietgone by Qui Nguyen