Tag Archives: drama/theater

George Bernard Shaw on Art

Posted on July 27, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable.”

George Bernard Shaw

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.

Leave a comment

Posted in Essays/Readings, Quotes

Tagged ,

Casablanca

Posted on July 18, 2023 | Leave a comment

Do you have any cinephiles (or cineastes, if you prefer) on your hands this summer? Fans of Turner Classic Movies (which has been in the news lately), perhaps? If so, this reading on the film classic Casablanca and its accompanying vocabulary-building and comprehension worksheet might be useful. This is a reading from the Intellectual Devotional series, so a full page of text, along with my standard configuration for the worksheet: eight vocabulary words to define, eight comprehension questions, and the usual one to three “Additional Facts” questions–in this reading, it is three questions under that heading.

If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Worksheets

Tagged , , , , ,

Book of Answers: Christopher Isherwood and Cabaret

Posted on July 14, 2023 | Leave a comment

What work by Christopher Isherwood was the basis for the musical Cabaret (1968)? Cabaret was based on the play I Am a Camera (1951) by John Van Druten, which was in turn based on Isherwood’s “Sally Bowles,” a story appearing in Goodbye to Berlin. Isherwood lived in Berlin in the early 1930s.

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged , , , , ,

Bowdlerize

Posted on June 16, 2023 | Leave a comment

“bowdlerize: To expurgate a book. In 1818 an English physician, Thomas Bowdler (1754-1825), gave to the world a ten-volume edition of Shakespeare’s works ‘in which nothing is added to the original text; but those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family.’ Bowdler later treated Gibbon’s Decline and Fall in the same way. Hence, we have the words bowdlerist, bowdlerizer, bowdlerism, bowdlerization, etc.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged , , ,

Oscar Wilde on Hypocrisy

Posted on June 8, 2023 | Leave a comment

“I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.”

Oscar Wilde

Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes

Tagged , ,

Bhavabhuti

Posted on May 19, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Bhavabhuti: (8th century AD) Indian playwright. Bhavabhuti is praised for his subtle handling of poignant scenes and his mastery of Sanskrit as a poetic language. Two of his plays, Mahaviracarita (tr Portrait of a Hero, 1871) and Uttararamacarita (tr Rama’s Later Story, 1915), retell the Ramayana story in highly dramatic and sometimes sentimentalized form; a third, Malati-madhava (Fr tr 1885) deals with a legendary tale.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged , , ,

Joruri

Posted on May 12, 2023 | Leave a comment

“Joruri: Originally a genre of popular song in Japan, accompanied first by the biwa (Japanese lute) and later by the samisen (Japanese banjo), it was adapted as the musical narrative for the Japanese puppet theater (Bunraku). The person who chants the joruri is known as the giddayu, Joruri is not a dramatic form, but rather is the chanted narration of tales often dramatic in nature.”

Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged , , ,

Book of Answers: Tennessee Williams

Posted on April 28, 2023 | Leave a comment

“How long was the first run of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)? The play opened in New York in 1947 and ran for 855 performances.”

Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference

Tagged , ,

Cultural Literacy: Stage Direction

Posted on April 21, 2023 | Leave a comment

Here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on stage direction. This is a half-page document with a two-sentence reading and two comprehension questions. When it’s all said and done, your students will understand the concept of state directions and even receive an introduction to three primary stage directions, enter, exit, and exeunt.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Worksheets

Tagged , , ,

Cultural Literacy: Katherine Hepburn

Posted on March 23, 2023 | Leave a comment

Elsewhere on this blog, you will, I admit, find Dorothy Parker’s famously withering remark on the actress, but here, nonetheless, is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Katherine Hepburn. This is a full-page document with a four-sentence reading and four comprehension questions.

Incidentally, while I find Ms. Parker’s comment, like almost everything this pillar of the Algonquin Wits ever said, hilarious, I don’t necessarily agree with it.

If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.

Leave a comment

Posted in English Language Arts, Independent Practice, Worksheets

Tagged , , , , , ,