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HUM 211 -- Group Performance Project I hope this production will be the capstone of your HUM 211 experience. While during most of the semester you have been asked to write about the ideas we've covered in the coruse, for this assignment you can communicate your understanding verbally, through dramatic action, or speech.

This assignment should

include five class members,
present a skit, dramatization, or performance involving all but one of the group members,
center on a discussion, contemplation, argument about human experience in light of the ideas of at least three voices covered in our class,
be creative,
last five to 12 minutes,
demonstrate that you can apply the ideas from the class in everyday situations.

The assignment may be performance live or recorded on videotape; one member of the group can be a non-performer who runs the video camera or simply introduces the group to the class (all group members must be involved in planning). All presentations must go before the class during the last days of the term.

You do not have to produce a script; the presentations should be improvisations, but your group should discuss the ideas you will present and agree on how the skit should convey the them.

Here are some ways you might fulfull this assignment:

Create a TV program like the "Ricky Lake" or "Jenny Jones" show, where people with problems "have it out" with each other while a psychiatrist or other professional analyzes their behavior. Invent a problem or set of problems, and have three characters/writers comment and give advice. The host him/herself might be a voice covered in this course.

Create a more calm talk show, sort of like you might see on C-SPAN or PBS, in which a host interview several of the writers we've studied, asking them questions that will challenge them and cause them to disagree.

Create a forum like "Cross Fire" in which thinkers argue vehemently about their ideas.

Create a skit in which a person(s) have some conflict or life-changing experience. Include three characters to interact with the main characters whose personal philosophies mirror those of the three voices covered in HUM 211.

Any performance that presents the ideas of at least three voices (characters or writers) in a creative way that relates those ideas to common problems today will score well. I'm less interested in the quality of your performance (or production values on video) than in the way you relate ideas together.

Better scoring performances will:

be audible and clear
come to some story-ending conclusion
make the audience think in new ways about the ideas you present

This project is due during the final week of school in December.

If you have questions, e-mail me!
last updated on 19 August 1999

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