Description:How to Teach a Play provides a new generation of teachers with the tools to develop their students’ performative imagination. This collection of teaching exercises, written by internationally-renowned drama scholars, offers effective teaching methods for 75 of the most commonly taught plays, ranging from classical drama through to contemporary plays by Tony Kushner, Paula Vogel and Suzan-Lori Parks.Grounded in research of the playwright’s work, the exercises illuminate the performance elements or attributes of specific scenes, while also showing how that performance element illuminates the thematic meaning of the play as a whole. Because each teaching exercise is written as an instructional guide that is accessible and jargon-free, the teacher can immediately apply the activity to practice in the classroom.How to Teach a Play brings to life for the reader the distinctive qualities that make theater exciting: movement and dance, sound, physical presence, or vocal inflection. With exercises on each of the 75 plays arranged according to the distinct performance attributes being explored – sound, tempo, tension or movement – and with each featuring cross-references to other teaching exercises in the book, the strategies equip instructors with a bank of proven approaches to explore and animate the play for the classroom. This book will inspire teachers and students alike to discover the dynamic qualities of this unique genre.