Screen Performance in the 21st Century: How to Deconstruct Everything You Watch from TikTok to Wakanda Forever
We absorb and interpret several million pieces of information on as we engage with screen performances in any medium. How are these performances created, what messages are being sent as we watch them and how do they affect us as we move through our daily lives?
In this course, students will be invited to deconstruct the performances they see on a variety of screens from their mobile phones to their local multiplexes. We will consider the content and context of a wide range of screen performances through different analytical "lenses" in order to discover meanings that we that we may not recognise at first glance. Students will respond to these performances through group discussions and brief individual critical essays.
The screen performances to be analysed will be based largely on student suggestions, but will include many from social media as well as the following: Hamilton (2020), Wakanda Forever (2022), Stranger Things (2016-Present) and Wednesday (2022).
Course Schedule
Program Date: October 12 - November 16, 2024
Students will meet online on Saturdays, from 10:00am-11:30am Eastern. Class time will be a mix of synchronous and asynchronous learning.
Academic Director
Jay Skelton
Jay Paul Skelton has written, produced, or directed over 125 productions in London, Edinburgh, New York, Chicago and Boston. His most recent directing credits include Problems Don't Fly on Planes for Rose Bruford College, Little Man and His Wife at Canal Café, Mankind featuring the Epiphoni Consort at St Peters Vauxhall, and productions for the Camden Fringe, Edinburgh Festival Fringe and International Youth Arts Festival. He also served as Artistic Director of the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival (US) from 2005-2012. He has taught on a range of theory- and practice-based courses at RADA, Rose Bruford College, Kingston University and currently teaches at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and the University of Notre Dame in London. Skelton received his MFA from The Theatre School at DePaul University, and both his MA in Classical Theatre and practice-as-research PhD from Kingston University.