Course Learning Outcomes:

1. Accurately use basic concepts acquired from this and other courses in theatre studies (including ideas about audiences, reception, dramaturgy, scenography, performance, and theatre history) to investigate and analyse relevant examples from the productions at the Festival towards realizing new insights and knowledge.
2. Discuss George Bernard Shaw, some of his modern contemporaries, and what they were trying to do with the theatre of their time.
3. Discuss how a period play interfaces with a contemporary audience and how the theatre artists (designers, directors, actors, etc.) help negotiate that interface.
4. Discuss the mandate and identity of the Shaw Festival, debate its function in a contemporary context, and analyze its programming.
5. Explain why modern is not a synonym for contemporary when we are referring to "modern drama."
6. Read a play to identify its production challenges, to discern its potential relevance for a contemporary audience, and to formulate possible production solutions for bringing it to the stage.
7. Realize the essential value of paying careful attention to detail across all disciplines (direction, scenography, performance, dramaturgy) when transferring a play from page to stage.
8. Truly comprehend how smart scenographic and performance choices affect the interface between an audience and a text, and realize how pivotal they are to the process of theatre creation.
9. Understand how and why everything that is put onstage should arrive there as the result of a deliberate choice, and realize why that is crucial for the creation of great theatre.