sampler Play's the Thing

'The Play's The Thing': A Study of Modern Drama (9th-12th grade)

"'The Play's the Thing': A Study of Modern Drama" is an honors-level high school literature class taught online. Over the course of a semester, students read a 14 plays -- a play a week! -- and reflect on the literature and the questions it poses about its own time period and about ours.

To give students a sense of the class, here are short excerpts from some of our reading.

"Sir Robert Chiltern: I will give you any sum of money you want.
Mrs. Cheveley: Even you are not rich enough, Sir Robert, to buy back your past. No man is." (Oscar Wilde)

"What do you think the party is, a racing stable? Why polish a knife every day if you don't intend to cut something with it? A party is always a tool. It has one goal: power." (Jean-Paul Sartre)

"I want my guy to have a thing he's fired up about. Like politics or movies or saving the planet. I want him to have a thing; I do not want to be the thing. You get it?" (Gina Gionfriddo)

"Is the accuser always holy now? Were they born this morning as clean as God's fingers? I'll tell you what's walking Salem -- vengeance is walking Salem. We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom...!" (Arthur Miller)

"That's it. There you are. Man say to his woman: I got me a dream. His woman say: Eat your eggs. Man say: I got to take hold of this here world, baby! And a woman will say: Eat your eggs and go to work. Man say: I got to change my life, I'm choking to death, baby! And his woman say -- Your eggs is getting cold!" (Lorraine Hansberry)

"You see, I believe money is the opiate of the people, not religion. Money is what puts people to sleep when it comes to the moral dimension of life." (Ayad Akhtar)

"Philosopher: Where is all this leading?
Galileo: Are we, as scholars, concerned with where the truth might lead us?
Philosopher: Mr. Galilei, the truth might lead us anywhere!" (Bertolt Brecht)

"All I'm saying is that you should show some respect for what other people see with their eyes and feel with their fingers, even though it be the exact opposite of what you see and feel." (Luigi Pirandello)

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You can find out more about "'The Play's the Thing': A Study of Modern Drama" here.

Class Sampler