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Skylark In Space

     This unit in our humanities course Drama we asked ourselves the question: What does it mean to be called a doll.  At first this seemed like a pretty simple question.  More than likely you would have heard a gruff man with a funny accent call some woman a doll.  like "You look pretty as a doll" or "Hey, be a doll and grab me a _______."   This old phrase would be one to stick with us all throughout our unit.  Usually you might characterize a doll as pretty, young, unintelligent or completely without a will of its own only to be played with.  If you pictured barbie the idea moves to a doll for little girls which is controversial because of the hyper realistic beauty standards it insinuates.  Basically any way you cut it the phase is a bit of a red flag.  

    This question was the best thing to get us thinking as we began to dig into the play 'A Dolls House' by Henrik Ibsen.  This book was set in 1870's Norway during a tumultuous time for women where many women began questioning their place in society and fighting for their rights.  This play was groundbreaking when it debuted at this time because it unintentionally became a symbol for the womens rights movement.  

    To go out and gain further immersion into the world of theatre we talked to many experts in the field.  First we spoke to Ajax and Delaney.  These two were current actors who had experience in both on stage and on screen.  This was interesting because they mentioned how big of a difference it makes for an actor to have roots in theatre instead of just starting off in acting.  After this we went to the Goodman where we talked to three different people.  Most notably we spoke with a dramaturg who explained in depth what her job entailed and shared the importance of story structure.  

    To close out the quarter we made our own screenplay where we had to take Nora from 'A Dolls House' and have her time travel to meet someone prolific in the womens rights realm to give her advice on what to do.



In conclusion this was a fun and creative action project.  One thing that stumped me was figuring out how to introduce things like social nuances because they are all from diffferent times. I overcame this with help and suggestions.  One major thing I learned about how to write a screenplay effectively and with proper formatting. This may be something that will stick with me.  One thing I might do different is to add a further conflict between the male character since it might have come off as mansplaining.
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