Beyond 101: Quirky Classes Enliven Fall Course Offerings

“It’s an analytical and critical look at documentary theater,” professor Christine Evans said. “It’s really about what happens in the theater when stories and facts and objects that come from outside the theater are staged,” she said.

Students will study nonfiction plays and then write and perform their own productions using modern-day political and social issues, such as the Occupy movement, for inspiration.

Evans said that the course straddles the line between news and fictional theater, combining the disciplines to enable students to apply their studies to real-world situations.

“All stories have to be shaped to be performed in some ways,” she said. “One of the key differences is in the contract with the audience; the expectation that something is made from [true] testimony or materials creates a different contract with the audience than something [that] everyone knows is fictional.”

As a new professor, Evans said she is excited for the course and believes students will appreciate studying a genre that may be entirely new to them.

“I’m really thrilled to be at Georgetown and [to] have the opportunity to try out this course with a brave band of students,” she said. “It’s an incredibly rich topic, and it’s also one that can change a lot, depending on the interest of the class.”