English 2223
The Page and the Stage
Prompt #14
February 23, 2011
playgoer's companions

Looking back

We're going to spend some of today's class with the Playgoer's Companions that have been generated for the three plays that open tonight. One thing we'll be doing is the mechanical process of folding them so that the theatre companies, who have other demands on their time right now, don't have to.

As we do that, I want to spend some time talking about the challenges of moving from research to editing to layout and production, with a view to helping people think about some of the opportunities for learning which I think are provided by this process. I'll focus on three large issues:

I'm going to use examples from the three Companions we've done already as a way of thinking about this. In every case, I'll be talking about ways in which things could have been done better -- but I should be clear that this is not a matter of blaming people who could have done things better but didn't: as I said last time, this is a process that you learn by doing, and if I had my way, this course would be a year long and everybody would have two chances to go through this process. I believe that's how we learn best. Here, however, the chances we have to learn are from watching other people do it, either before, or after, we do it ourselves, and trying to put ourselves in their position. We all stand to learn from watching, first, how we all did various parts of this together with Buried Child, and then, second, how six groups of people did it when working on Perfect Pie, Heart's Desire, and Inspector Hound.

For next time

Take one Playgoer's Companion with you. If you didn't work on one of them, choose at random; if you worked on two, choose one or the other; if you worked on only one, choose that one. Over the next two days, compare the Companion as it was printed with the texts in the wikis -- both with the draft, and with the work of the original Task Force. Mark, and keep a list of, as many specific changes as you can find -- omissions, additions, reorganizations, and (especially) specific textual changes -- things like word changes, additions of phrases or information, etc.  Whatever you can find that represents what seems like a conscious change, mark it in the text of your copy of the Playgoer's Companion, and on a separate sheet make an explanation of what the change is.

In class on Friday we'll talk about some of these changes.

Midterm evaluation

If you haven't yet done so, read Prompt #13.

To the next prompt
To the previous prompt
To the list of prompts for "The Page and the Stage"
To the main Page and the Stage Web site