ENG 388 - Contemporary Theatre

In the midst of our highly visual and multimedia age, we don’t typically go immediately to the stage as a site of significant cultural conversation. Part of this is the availability of digital media; part of this is the economic inaccessibility of theater to many people; part of this is the limited availability of resources for the performing arts. Still, there is simply no substitute for the vitality and importance of live theater. To paraphrase Edward Albee, theater puts a mirror before an audience and asks them: “This is who you are. Now what are you going to do about it?”

This course will examine the origins and development of contemporary theater in the global north, post-1960, with an emphasis on American and British drama. We will place particularly heavy emphasis on plays of the last two decades, examining the ways in which recent theater has asked its audiences to contemplate issues of concern to contemporary life including (although certainly not limited to) race and racism in America; gender and sexuality; health care inequities; global violence against women; migration and transnational capitalism; and the commodification of human relations. We will also discuss how theater challenges us to find creative solutions through connection, care, community, and claiming identity; it likewise centers those solutions emerging from within marginalized communities. No prior experience reading drama is necessary, and I welcome students of all levels and from across the disciplines.

In the past, this course has included works by August Wilson, David Henry Hwang, Quiara Alegría Hudes, Lynn Nottage, Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins, Robert O’Hara, Adrienne Kennedy, Amiri Baraka, Jez Butterworth, Antoinette Nwandu, Young Jean Lee, Mike Lew, Martyna Majok, John Belluso, Tony Kushner, Amy Herzog, Edward Albee, and Ayad Akhtar.

Satisfies a requirement in the Communication Studies interdisciplinary major and minor.
Satisfies the Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.
Satisfies the Historical Approaches requirement of the English major.
Satisfies the Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.