This unit studies canonical dramatic texts from key Australian eras, principally indigenous, modernist and postcolonial. The workshopping and deconstruction of texts will focus on play structure, character, language, theatrical genre and critical cultural context, towards the generation of dramaturgical and educational resources.
UNIT CONTENT
Indigenous, Colonial, Modernist and contemporary playwrights and play texts.
Key themes and influences on national writers.
Representations of the shifts in Australian identity.
Australian drama on the world stage.
Postcolonial and Modernist theory.
The rise of dramaturgy in Australia Theatre and education resources.
Australia plays: new Australian drama. (1989). London: Nick Hern.
Bedson, J., & Croft, J. (Eds.). (1993). The Campbell Howard annotated index of Australian plays 1920-1955. Armidale, N.S.W.: Centre for Australian Language and Literature Studies, University of New England.
Brisbane, K. (Ed.). (2000). Plays of the 60s. Sydney: Currency Press.
Brisbane, K. (Ed.). (2001). Plays of the 70s. Sydney: Currency Press.
Brisbane, K., & Parsons. P. (1991). On stage. [Videorecording] Australia: Australia Council.
Bush theatre plays (1996). London: Faber and Faber.
Fotheringham, R. (Ed.). (2006). Australian plays for the colonial stage: 1834-1899. St. Lucia, Qld.: University of Queensland Press.
Gilbert, H. (1998). Sightlines: Race, gender, and nation in contemporary Australian theatre. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Milne, G., (2004). Theatre Australia (un)limited: Australian theatre since the 1950s. Amsterdam: New York, NY: Rodopi.
Pfisterer, S. (1999). Tremendous worlds: Australian women's drama 1890-1960. Sydney: Currency Press.
Plays from black Australia: Jack Davis, Eva Johnson, Richard Walley, Bob Maza. (1989). Sydney: Currency Press.
Tait, P., & Schafer, E. (Eds.). (1997). Australian women's drama: Texts and feminisms. Sydney: Currency Press.
Webby, E. (1993). Modern Australian plays. Sydney: Sydney University Press in association with Oxford University Press.
