DRAM10080

Learning Outcomes:

Completing this module, students should be able to:

- Identify and define key players, ideas, and works in theatre and activism
- Gain a broad knowledge of dramatic approaches to the topic and be able to write about these ideas
- Interpret the impact of activism in theatre works and in theatre-making
- Critically analyse performative/theatrical elements within activists’ approaches.
- Consider where theatre has been effective and less effective in addressing social injustices.
- Evaluate the efficacy and aims of activist theatre
- Acquire an understanding of how activism in theatre has changed and evolved
- Grasp some of the key dramatic techniques employed by activist playwrights
- Illustrate an artistic response of activism in your everyday life

Indicative Module Content:

Indicative Module Content (subject to change):
Lecture Schedule:


Class 1: Introduction: Theatre 101 and Thinking About Activism

Class 2: The Good Person of Szechwan: Brecht’s Mark on Political and Activist Theatre

Class 3: Waiting for Lefty: Labor Rights and Audience Engagement

Class 4: Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed and its Lasting Impact

Class 5: 1960s Radical Theatre: Antiwar, Civil Rights, and Radical Approaches to Activism

Class 6: Seven: Women and Gender Rights Activism

Class 7: The Normal Heart: HIV/AIDS Activism and LGBTQ+ Rights

Class 8: Performing Activism: Examples of Everyday Activism That We May Not Consider

Class 9: The Exonerated: A Case Study about Capital Punishment and Theatre’s Influence on Politics

Class 10: Theatrical Responses to Activism

Class 11: Theatre Activism Within: Evaluating Efforts in Current Theatre Practices to Change Longstanding Inequities

Class 12: Sharing Our Final Project Ideas

The United Nations identified seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as core to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and UCD contributes in general to SDG 4 Quality Education. Further SDGs explored within this module if relevant are listed below. A scale of 1 - 5 indicates the extent to which the SDG is covered.


 

Student Effort Hours:

Approaches to Teaching and Learning:

Approaches to Teaching and Learning:

Lectures about plays, related reading, and broader activist implications about these works, including time given for brief student discussion and questions.

Small group learning involving discussion about plays/readings, conversation about responses regarding plays and readings, small group activities, final exam preparation, and one-on-one written feedback on assignments.

Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.

Module Requisites and Incompatibles

Not applicable to this module.
 

Assessment Strategy

As part of UCD's student support, under the Additional Consideration policy, extensions may be available for the following assessments in the module: Assignment (including essay/poster), Portfolio, Reflective Assignment, Report(s), and Individual Project.

 

Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 

Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, on an activity or draft prior to summative assessment
• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment
• Group/class feedback, post-assessment
• Online automated feedback
• Peer review activities

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Feedback Written feedback will be provided to students individually throughout semester. Feedback on mid-term paper given within two weeks. End of term exam feedback will be offered in the post-assessment period.

Plays:
Waiting for Lefty by Clifford Odets
The Good Person of Szechwan by Bertolt Brecht
The Exonerated by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen
The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer
Seven by Paula Cizmar, Et al.
Climate Change Plays - link provided

Chapters from these Books:
Theatre of the Oppressed by Augusto Boal
Theatre & Protest by Lara Shalson
Restaging the Sixties – Radical Theatres and Their Legacies by James M. Harding
Radical Street Performance by Jan Cohen-Cruz

Excerpts from other books and articles provided on Brightspace

Recommended Reading:
Stefan Bläske, Luanda Casella, Milo Rau, and Lara Staa, The Art of Resistance: On Theatre, Activism and Solidarity (Berlin: Verbrecher Verlag), 2020.
Jan Cohen-Cruz, Radical Street Performance: An International Anthology (London: Routledge) 1998.
Dan Friedman, Performance Activism: Precursors and Contemporary Pioneers (New York: Palgrave Macmillan) 2021.
Jacob Juntunen, Mainstream AIDS Theatre, the Media, and Gay Civil Rights: Making the Radical Palatable (London: Routledge), 2016.
D. Soyini Madison, Acts of Activism: Human Rights as Radical Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge UP), 2010.
Mary McAvoy, Rehearsing Revolutions: The Labor Drama Experiment and Radical Activism in the Early Twentieth Century (University of Iowa Press), 2019.
Mady Schutzman and Jan Cohen-Cruz, Playing Boal: Theatre, Therapy, and Activism, (London: Routledge), 1994.
Kim Solga, Theatre and Feminism, (London: Metheun Drama), 2015.
Vanessa Nakate, A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis (Boston: Mariner Books), 2021.

Timetabling information is displayed only for guidance purposes, relates to the current Academic Year only and is subject to change.