Preface / Notes to Students and Instructors
Part I. The Exercises
Lesson 1: Style
Exercise 1-1 Baby Talk / Exercise 1-2 Baby Moves / Caveat
Lesson 2: Stylized Exchanges
Exercise 2-1 Pig Latin / Exercise 2-2 Speaking in (Foreign) Tongues / Exercise 2-3 Contemporary Greetings / Exercise 2-4 A Sampling of Elizabethan Greetings / Exercise 2-5 Ad Lib Elizabethan Greetings / Exercise 2-6 Ad Lib Elizabethan Insults / Exercise 2-7 Hamlet's Greeting to the Players
Lesson 3: Roses Are Red
Rhyme and Verse / Exercise 3-1 Roses Are Red / Exercise 3-2 Roses Are Redder - Take One / Eye Contact - And Looking Elsewhere / Exercise 3-3 Roses Are Redder - Take Two / Exercise 3-4 Roses Are Redder - Take Three / Thinking Your Character's Thoughts / Exercise 3-5 Roses Are Redder - Take Four / Playing the Play
Lesson 4: Playing God
Exercise 4-1 Playing God / Playing a Character
Lesson 5: Characterization
Exercise 5-1 Reciprocal Characterization: Gloucester and Hastings / Exercise 5-2 Intrinsic Characterization: Gloucester and Hastings / Intrinsic Characterizations: Extensions and Stereotypes / Centering / Exercise 5-3 Centering / Character Postures and Walks / Exercise 5-4 Character Walks / Character Voices / Exercise 5-5 Finding Your Voices / Character Descriptions / Exercise 5-6 Playing Out Character Descriptions / Animal Imagery / Exercise 5-7 Animate (Animalize) Your Character / Intrinsic and Reciprocal Characterization / Exercise 5-8 Character Greetings
Lesson 6: More God
Exercise 6-1 A Stanza, by God
Lesson 7: Playing the Devil
Exercise 7-1 Play the Devil
Lesson 8: Noah and His Wife: The Battle of the Sexes
Scene 8-1 Noah and His Wife
Lesson 9: Performance
Exercise 9-1 A Performative God / Performative Aspects of Dramatic Scenes / Exercise 9-2 Performing Your Greetings and Insults / The Audience in the Theatre / Scene 9-3 The Performative Context: Oedipus and Creon / Exercise 9-4 The Performative Context: Shakespeare / Exercise 9-5 the Performative Context: Chekhov
Part II. The Scenes
Lesson 10: Greek Tragedy
Scene 10-1 Oedipus and Teiresias / Scene 10-2 The Family Context: Oedipus and Jocasta / Play the Scene
Lesson 11: The Commedia
Commedia Styles and Scripts / Commedia Performances / Commedia and Renaissance Ideals / Niccolo Machiavelli / Exercise 11-1 Commedia Direct Address / Commedia Lazzi / Scene 11-1 Nicomaco and Sofronia / Stock Characters / Other Commedia Scenes
Lesson 12: Shakespeare and the Elizabethan Theatre
Scene 12-1 Richard and Ann / Verse / Scansion / Scene 12-2 Richard and Ann / Verse Variations / Playing the Verse / Rhetoric / Playing the Rhetoric / The Public Environment / Scene 12-3 Beatrice and Benedick / Shakespeare and Commedia / More Elizabethan Scenes
Lesson 13: The Theatre of Molière
Scene 13-1 The Bourgeois Gentleman / Costume ande Deportment / Play the Scene / Scene 13-2 The Misanthrope / Playing Translations
Lesson 14: Restoration Comedy
Exercise 14-1 Restoration Speeches / Scene 14-2 Restoration Scene
Lesson 15: The Belle Epoque
Exercise 15-1 George Bernard Shaw / Exercise 15-2 Anton Chekhov
Lesson 16: Contemporary Styles
Angels in America / Scene 16-1 Prior and Harper / The Piano Lesson / Scene 16-2 Boy Willie and Grace / Wit / Scene 16-3 Vivian and Jason
Lesson 17: L'Envoi