Textual Analysis for Actors in a Shakespearean Theater Troupe
Start Date
7-10-2017 10:40 AM
End Date
7-10-2017 12:10 AM
Description
What does the digital have to offer to the public? This project is an experiment examining the usefulness of computer-assisted textual analysis in the context of a community theater troupe putting on an original-practices production of Love’s Labour’s Lost. In the Shakespeare in the Summer version of original practices, actors are expected to analyze the text's rhetoric on their own and improvise blocking, with no director or rehearsal. I provide each actor with textual analysis of their lines, using multiple methods: sentiment analysis, stylometry, and word collocation. I use their responses to discover which methods are the most useful and compelling to them in the process of preparing for the show, and to speculate on what digital scholarship might ideally offer publics engaged in literary interpretation.
Type
Presentation
Session
#s1b: Exploring Digitized Texts, moderator Kate Boylan
Language
eng
Location
Elaine Langone Center, Center room
Textual Analysis for Actors in a Shakespearean Theater Troupe
Elaine Langone Center, Center room
What does the digital have to offer to the public? This project is an experiment examining the usefulness of computer-assisted textual analysis in the context of a community theater troupe putting on an original-practices production of Love’s Labour’s Lost. In the Shakespeare in the Summer version of original practices, actors are expected to analyze the text's rhetoric on their own and improvise blocking, with no director or rehearsal. I provide each actor with textual analysis of their lines, using multiple methods: sentiment analysis, stylometry, and word collocation. I use their responses to discover which methods are the most useful and compelling to them in the process of preparing for the show, and to speculate on what digital scholarship might ideally offer publics engaged in literary interpretation.