Credit Points: 30
Study Time: 300

This unit introduces you to contemporary performance styles, techniques and playwrights. Through a practical exploration of an existing contemporary play, adapting a text or devising an original piece of work you will consider through performance how form, style and structure can affect content, meaning and audience engagement in a theatrical event.

You will examine plays by contemporary writers such as Anthony Neilson, Laura Wade, Martin Crimp, Sarah Daniels and Mark Ravenhill in order to understand the demands that contemporary theatre can place upon the actor and the audience. In addition you will examine theories of performance by practitioners and theorists such as Bertolt Brecht, Jerzy Grotowski, Peter Brook, Anne Bogart and others and will explore and integrate concepts of contemporary performance in your practical scene work and in your process Log Book and evaluation.

The unit ends with a showing of the scenes you have been working on for an invited audience.

Outline Syllabus
An indicative guide to the content of this unit:

• Reading and analysing a play by a contemporary playwright 
• Research on the world of the play 
• Implications of content, form and structure for performance theories of contemporary performance
• Brechtian concepts e.g. Epic, Dialectic, Popular, Alienation, etc. 
• Declaration of bias 
• Exploration of the actor‟s relationship to the audience 
• Character as function within the dramatic structure
• Economy of delivery and physical statement 
• Social and political contexts for performance
• The Actor‟s responsibility towards the play and event

Method of Delivery
Studio practice, student presentations, group learning, showings, peer and self-evaluation, independent study, group and individual tutorials.

Aims

A1 To develop your understanding of the requirements and demands of contemporary performance.
A2 To introduce you to Brechtian and contemporary theories of performance.
A3 To identify and to explore the tools the actor requires to fulfil the demands of contemporary performance.
A4 To develop further your investigative skills to include a consideration of the social/political ideologies and issues which may have a bearing on and inform the dramatic event.
A5 To extend your skills intellectually, imaginatively and physically in order to communicate effectively with an audience.
A6 To introduce you to plays by contemporary playwrights.

Learning Outcomes
On completion of this unit you will be able to:

LO1 Understand and articulate the requirements and demands of contemporary performance practice.
LO2 Articulate your awareness and understanding of political and social issues as they relate to your work- in discussion, evaluation and in performance.
LO3 Demonstrate extended skills in contemporary performance, particularly in relation to your ability to communicate with the audience, whilst maintaining truth in the context of the dramatic situation.
LO4 Articulate an awareness of contemporary plays, theories and playwrights

Reference Material

Key
Brecht, B. and Willett, J. (ed.). (1978). Bertolt Brecht: on theatre. London: Methuen.
Sierz, A. (2001). In-yer-face theatre: British drama today. London: Faber and Faber.

Additional play texts as assigned by the tutor

Recommended
Aronson, A. (2000). American Avante-Garde Theatre: A History. London: Routledge.
Bigsby, C. (2000). Contemporary American playwrights. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goodman, L. (ed.) and de Gay, J. (ed.). (2000). The Routledge reader in politics and performance. London: Routledge.
Gordon, R. (2006). The Purpose of Playing: Modern Acting Theories in Perspective. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
Innes, C. (2001). Avante-Garde Theatre: 1892-1992. London: Routledge.
Roberts, P. (1999). The Royal Court Theatre and the modern stage. Cambridge University Press.