Experimental Play Writing: From Ancient Greece to Contemporary America
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Project description
Ethan studied some of his favorite Ancient Greek plays and Shakespearean plays, including Oedipus Rex, The Oresteia, as well as King Lear. Through his studies of the literary genre of drama and theater, he was inspired to write and produce his own plays. Throughout his Polygence program, Ethan wrote and workshopped his plays The Diner (inspired in part by Edward Hopper's painting) and Orestes in the Internet. He also wrote a short story about high school, The Frame Between Us.
Project outcome
Ethan wrote in his own plays, The Diner and Orestes in the Internet. He subsequently directed, staged, and performed the former at his school’s Fringe Festival, which is completely dedicated to student-written plays and films, and only accepts around four plays to be performed each year. The latter play has been published by the Bluffton University Literary Journal, and his short story has been published by One Story Inc.
Read Ethan's play!
Mentor review
I would like my students to think carefully about why an idea is best expressed through in one way over another, what the value in different types of writing might be, and how the effect might change if we, say, create a play from an idea rather than a poem.