[updated] How to Teach a Play: Call for Teaching Exercises

deadline for submissions: 
March 1, 2018
full name / name of organization: 
How To Teach a Play Book Project (2018, Bloomsbury Methuen)

The editors of How to Teach a Play: 75 Exercises for the College Classroom (Bloomsbury Methuen Publishers) are seeking submissions of teaching exercises on the 75 most popularly-taught plays at the university level.

How to Teach a Play provides a new generation of teachers with the tools to develop their students’ performative imagination.  Grounded in scholarship, each teaching exercise will call attention to the performance elements of a specific play and show how the performative can illuminate the thematic meaning of the script.  The collection will consist of exercises that connect close textual analysis with performance. 

The teaching exercises in How to Teach a Play  will provide an instructional guide that is accessible and pragmatic; any instructor can immediately apply the activity to practice in the classroom.  The book is organized by performance attributes, e.g. "sound, tempo, tension, movement,” rather than chronologically, in order to underscore that drama is a qualitatively different genre than fiction or poetry, although often treated solely as literature by non-theater practitioners. 

We are seeking exercises for specific plays, based on the plays that are most popularly-taught on college campuses.  The list of plays can be found on the submission website: www.bit.ly/teachingplays

Miriam Chirico (Eastern Connecticut State University) and Kelly Younger (Loyola Marymount University), the editors, are board members of the Comparative Drama Conference.  They are enthusiastic about this one-of-a-kind book project and look forward to connecting with scholars who value innovative teaching practices and sharing their instructional strategies.

The Submission URL provides guidance on submission and the scope of the book:  www.bit.ly/teachingplays

Deadline: We are still accepting submissions for approximately 15-20 more exercises and will continue until project completion. Estimated deadline of March 2018.