Script Analysis Paper between 5 and 8 pages ,due tomorrow noon.

Positives (+) – Things, ideas, or moments in the play which you find to be amazing, exciting, electrifying, thrilling. The things you think would look great onstage, that really pop for you, really stand out, really get you thinking.

Challenges (-) - The things you feel would be difficult to adequately stage. Things that are gratuitous, over the top, illogical, or flawed.

NOTE: This is NOT a spot to dump negative OPINIONS about the play. This is not the spot to tell us you don’t LIKE the play. This is a spot to list things in the play that might be CHALLENGING to produce or things that are difficult to understand, not difficult to like.

FOR BOTH POSITIVES AND CHALLENGES: You must list at least 2, no more than 3, items for each, with each item getting a good-sized paragraph. (5 – 7 good sentences per paragraph.) Thus, if you wrote about two positives and two challenges, you’d have 4 paragraphs total between these two sections, each paragraph having between 5 and 7 good sentences.

Cracks/Threads (*) - Your way into the play. How do you, personally, as someone who has seen some plays and has been writing a lot about them, get into this play? Perhaps something in it reminds you of something in your life. Perhaps there’s a relationship dynamic in the play that reminds you of people you know. Maybe the setting of the play speaks to you because you’ve been there, or it reminds you of places you’ve been. This is a spot to pour YOURSELF into the paper: why is this play relevant to you? Limit yourself to 2 paragraphs for this section.

Concretes (^) - Physical items called for in the script—set pieces, props, and costumes, mostly. Track each concrete object, item, or set piece called for directly in the script.

Audio/Visual moments (A/V) - Sound, light, and physical moments that really stand out as important.

FOR BOTH CONCRETES AND A/V MOMENTS: Track as many as you can in your reading, and then pick the MOST IMPORTANT 4 or 5 with 1 – 2 sentences explaining the importance of each. I cannot stress enough: the point of these two sections is CURATION—gather a lot of data, and then evaluate and weigh it, including only that which is essential to an understanding of the play.

Synthesis - Write this section after completing the rest of the document Your goal here is to SYNTHESIZE all of the items listed in your document into a cohesive statement about your understanding of the play. Tell me what the play is about, using the reactions, threads, concretes, and A/V moments you discovered and ranked as most important. This is NOT about your reaction to or enjoyment of the play. This you talking about what this play is about, how it works, what makes it worthy of producing. It should be 2 – 3 paragraphs long.

Examples

The general format, then, is to start each bullet point under each section with a short title/summary in bold, and then start your description/reflection.

Positives, challenges, cracks/threads, and syntheses follow the same format. Similarly, concretes and A/V moments follow a similar but slightly different format. Here are short examples of both, using Shakespeare’s The Tempest as a case study:

Positive, Challenge, Crack/Thread and Synthesis structure:

The below example is the beginning of a positive:

o Prospero’s speech: Prospero’s “Our revels now are ended speech” from Act 4, Sc. 1 is a deeply moving speech. It comes at a moment in the play when...

That’s how positives, challenges, threads, and syntheses should look on the page. A bullet point, a simple tag or title in bold, and then launch into the paragraph from there.

A/V and Concrete structure:

The below example is an A/V moment:

o Act 1, Sc. 1 – The storm: The play opens with a massive, thunderous hurricane at sea, giving us a sense of chaos at the top of the play.

Notice something really important here: DON’T JUST LIST THE CONCRETE OR A/V MOMENT! You need to give me the act and scene number, too. Failure to cite act and scene number will result in a lower grade.