Student+Activities

Professor Redstone's Theater class

This week's lesson is on American theater. My students should have already read the play assigned: A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams. I hope you enjoy making and doing these activities as much as I liked making them for you.

=Monday: Update a Scene = Choose a scene of your liking and revise it to make it relevant to today. Whether it be updating the dialogue or even the setting, make it your own. Why should we update a play that was made over 60 years ago? Because the theme is still relevant to today's history. I am hoping through this activity you will be able to see that events from 60 years ago can be just a relevant to today's youth and what is going on in our world today. You will use Microsoft Word to type up your script, but you must also present an outline created by Inspiration that shows how your ideas in your new script connect to the ideas in the original script by Tennessee Williams.

=Tuesday: Create and Present a Set Made for your Script = Once you have created your script, you must make a set using a 3D room design program that will be provided to you on the classes computers. Once you have created you set you must make a PowerPoint presentation for your set that includes an introduction, a conclusion, a slide for your set, and at least 2 more slides explaining why you chose to use the set the way you have created it.

=Wednesday: Create a Podcast for your revised Scene = With a group of your selected peers you must make a podcast for your newly revised script and upload it to the computer to edit it and send it to me in an email. Using a camera you will shoot your peers acting out the scene you have chosen and revised, you must upload it to a computer, and from there you must make opening and closing credits using Microsoft video editing software. Shooting the scene should only take you about 10 min at the most, it does not need to be perfect, use the rest of your time (40 minutes) to edit your podcast and once your finished just send it to my email address, that i will disclose to you in class. = = =Thursday: Create an Outline for Lighting, Sound, Makeup and Costumes for your Scene = Using Inspiration, create an outline for making lighting, sound, makeup and costumes for your revised scene. Use different categories for each thing you have to create and then add bullets underneath for your ideas. i.e. Use lighting for your first category, and underneath listed in bullets put what type of lighting you want and the line or action in the scene where you want it. Do the same for sound, you must put where you want the sound or lighting effect to go marked by a line or a certain action played out by the character. Your other two categories will be you makeup and costume, and for your bullets put the characters name and what type of makeup you would like to see them in and why, and what type of costume you would like to see them in and why.

=Friday: Write an Essay = There are a fair amount of symbols in this play, i want you to pick out a few and decide why they are so important. Symbolism is one of the most powerful tools when writing a play, they are very subtle but make a big impact. So i would like you to make an outline using Inspiration and then turn that into a 500 word paper using Microsoft word.