Awake and Sing! A Senior Thesis Event

Awake and Sing!

A Senior Honors Thesis Project

From the project director, Taiwo Sokan:

How does the casting of a play change its meaning to an audience? In this one night only event, we will strive to answer this question together.  Clifford Odets’ Awake and Sing! will serve  as our analytical text for the evening as we work our way through three scenes, messing with casting choice of each. We will observe racial diversification casting  techniques such  as colorblind casting, race neutrality, photonegative casting, and more. We will rely on our audience members to stage and act in three  scenes  from Awake & Sing!  In each scene, our  goal is to replicate a different casting technique. We will repeat some scenes several times, each time with a different cast.

After these scenes, a discussion will take place  about  which scenes  were more  successful than others with in completing their goal. For example, did a scene I  may  have constructed  to  be race neutral actually come off to the audience as race neutral?  Were there some cast configurations that were more successful in achieving the goal of race neutrality?  If so, why? Audience can write down their own feelings and our discussion afterwards may be recorded  for  further  use  in  developing my thesis project.This one-time workshop will offer free pizza  to  all participants.  No acting experience is required. 

Please contact Taiwo  (taisokan@sas.upenn.edu)  if you are interested in participating.