YouTube Shax

Just in case you’re looking for an Interim class to take at UA, check this out:

Interim 2012. MTWT noon to 3:15 pm.  Professor Sharon O’Dair

“YouTube Shakespeare” (EN 408) is a study of adaptation and appropriation of Shakespeare, in which you will address a play text, The Tempest, three film versions—*Forbidden Planet*, *Prospero’s Books*, and *The Tempest* (Taymor 2010)—and multiple You Tube versions of the play. In support of the text, the films, and the videos, we will read theory and criticism on adaptation and appropriation, beginning with a consideration of Susan Orlean’s *The Orchid Thief* (1998) and the film into which it was made, Spike Jonze’s *Adaptation* (2002), which was based on Charlie Kaufman’s screenplay. Your work for the interim term will be to create a video adaptation of *The Tempest* of at least five minutes’ length.  You will work in teams, and be responsible, if necessary, for appearing in your classmates’ videos.  You will spend a good deal of time in the Gorgas multi-media center.

Texts:  William Shakespeare, *The Tempest*; Fred Wilcox, *Forbidden Planet*; Peter Greenaway, *The Tempest*; Julie Taymor, *The Tempest*. Susan Orlean, *The Orchid Thief*; Spike Jonze, *Adaptation*; Charlie Kaufman, *Adaptation*.  Selected articles about adaptation and appropriation, available in Gorgas reserves.

EN 408 has prerequisites.  If you wish to take this course and have not fulfilled the prerequisites, please contact either Professor O’Dair (sodair@bama.ua.edu) or the Director of Undergraduate Studies, Professor John Burke (jburke@english.as.ua.edu).  We may be able to help you enroll!

Baby, bring home the bacon!

If you missed last Thursday’s staged reading of Lysistrata, fear not!  Here’s the mp3:

Lysistrata, March 22, 2012

Sadly, you can’t hear just how many tube socks were stuffed into Kinesias’ pants…

Cast List:

Lysistrata…………………………………………..Natalie Hopper
Cleonike………………………………………………Allison Hetzel
Myrrhine…………………………………………………Molly Page
Lampito………………………………………………Susie Johnson
Corinthian Woman………………………………Amber Gibson
Boeotian Woman……………………………Dakota Park-Ozee
Leader of Men’s Chorus…………………..………….Nic Helms
Men’s Chorus………………………………….Frank Sharpe,
Eric Marable, Jr., Asher Elbein
Leader of Women’s Chorus……………………Deborah Parker
Women’s Chorus…………Amber Gibson, Dakota Park-Ozee, Dori Burns
Athenian Magistrate……………………….Mark Hughes Cobb
Kinesias………………………………….………………Joey Gamble
Spartan Herald……………………………..…………Motell Foster
Spartan Ambassador………………………..………Russell Frost

Adapted and Directed by Steve Burch