My Dramaturgical Lecture in a TFM Class

Over the summer, Professor Mark Freeman asked me if I would be interested in presenting a lecture in his TFM 150 Screenwriting class. He was hoping I could shed light on our adaptation of Desire. He was specifically interested in the context of Desire in O'Neill's life, the process of a stage adaptation, and the relevance of our adaptation in the world today. I created a PowerPoint for the students and we discussed the plot, relationships, how to translate O'Neill's specific stage directions to the screen, and I graphed for them a chart of everyone's desires in Part 1, Scene 4. I learned so much and I hope they did too.

Here's the text from one of the slides that discussed working rehearsal themes, Randy's focus for the play, and relevant issues in the play that relate to current events.

Working rehearsal ideas:

–From extreme poverty comes extreme cruelty; great poverty unchecked can cause catastrophic events

•Is O’Neill’s play still relevant?

• –Do we still struggle with abuse, violence, and poverty?
• –Does the majority of America still turn a blind eye to poverty? Or do we pretend it’s not there because we see such wealth?
• –Is our culture fated to continue the cycle of greed?
• –Is it possible to find a balance between tradition and new age or will there always be a constant battle?
• –If we cannot recognize the signs are we fated to repeat our mistakes?