In class today

Normally, at the point at which people had done research on a play, what would happen is that the group would organize to put together what they'd learned into a Web site -- in this case, a wiki -- to present to the rest of the class, so that everybody would be as well-informed as possible before going to see the production. However, in this case, almost everybody has done some research, and almost everybody has read reports on quite a lot of that research. What we need is to work on now is finding patterns in it, and deciding what are the interesting or important things to know -- and whether there are things we don't know that we think would be useful as we go into the theatre.

The best way to do that is, I believe, orally.  We'll go around the class, and invite everybody to share with the rest of us something of what you learned that you think might be of interest. As you listen to what others have to say, and think about what people wrote in the reports of research you've read be thinking about what might be the most important things a theatregoer might know as she sits down in Memorial Hall next Wednesday night to the performance. Take some notes.

After class

Between the end of class and tomorrow afternoon at 6:00, go to the course Moodle page, find the link to the Forum on What a Theatregoer Should Know, and post a proposal for what, in your view, would be helpful to that hypothetical person with the ticket in her hand. Be as specific and exhaustive as you can. In other words, indicate what kinds of information would be useful, and where you'd suggest we find it (for example, in what postings or what sources the posters used).

And then, of course, between 6:00 and class time, read as much as you can of what people have posted. The play opens on February 2, next Wednesday night. It may be possible to use our work so far to create a Playgoer's Companion for the play; we'll decide that on Friday.

There have been a couple of emailed questions about the status of our work on Buried Child in terms of the course requirements. Reading it in advance, responding to others, and then attending, posting, and responding will count as one of the four plays.  If you haven't done that, it should not be a problem; there will be more than four more plays that you will be able to do it with. There won't, however, be a task force or editorial group for it; I'm still working on what productions are actually going to be available to work on.

Next prompt: learning journals

At the end of class, I'll pass out copies of Prompt #5, which will explain how we're going to do weekly learning journals in this course. Questions about them will be discussed in class Friday.