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How can canonical works of English literature contribute to our modern popular culture? How can we adapt canonical authors in a way that reflects our contemporary values and concerns? 

This course will explore these questions by introducing students to techniques that contemporary dramaturgs (script advisors on theatrical productions) use when editing or adapting Shakespeare’s plays for modern performance. We’ll begin by going over some basic principles of dramaturgy and adaptation theory, and by examining the building-blocks of Shakespeare’s work (genre, acts/scenes, metre/rhyme, etc.). Once this foundation is established, students will be encouraged to experiment by creating their own adapted selections from Shakespeare’s texts, under a variety of imagined circumstances they could one day encounter in the modern theatre industry (i.e., editing for length; editing to change characters or setting; writing original new framing narratives to accompany Shakespeare’s text). As part of these exercises, students will be asked to document their editing processes and to reflect on how the changes they make shape our perceptions of the stories, of the characters, and of Shakespearean authority. Each assignment will also be prefaced with discussion of a production exemplifying the dramaturgical techniques at hand (examples may include Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film adaptation Romeo+Juliet, Justin Audibert’s 2019 gender-swapped Taming of the Shrew, Phyllida Lloyd’s 2012 all-women Julius Caesar, etc.).