TDPS Arrives in Dublin, Ireland!

After our first week on Berkeley campus, getting our scenework assignments, becoming acquainted as a performance ensemble, learning the basic history of Ireland, and diving headfirst into play texts and Irish dramatic criticism, 23 students and 2 teachers arrived exhausted but excited in Dublin to move into the hallowed grounds of Trinity College, alma mater of no other than Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, and Oliver Goldsmith among others.  Of course, one of our first stops on our campus tour the first day of class was taking a picture of our group in front of the Berkeley library.  For those who don't know, our fair school is named for Bishop George Berkeley, the Anglo-Irish philosopher, who contributed to the fields of mathematics and physics, as well as moral philosophy.   

To sum up our first week in Ireland, I will go by the numbers then follow them up with more specific posts about each event.   

1 week
2 instructors 
23 students 
24 hours of classroom instruction (does not include field trips and plays)
3 nights at the theatre (Pygmalion, Bloodknot, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof)
1 visiting playwright (Ursula Rani Sarma)  

1 round of first scene showings
2 field trips to Dublin Writer's Museum and Joyce Tower

And here was our reading list for those who want to follow on from afar:   

George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion 

Oscar Wilde, Importance of Being Earnest

Ursula Rani Sarma, Blue 

Furthermore, we had read Uta Hagen's Challenge for the Actor in Berkeley, as well as W.B. Yeats and Lady Gregory's Cathleen ni Houlihan, assorted writings from the early days of the Irish National Theatre and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot before we even got on the plane!


You will see the fruits of this labor here on our blog, and get to share in our theatrical, cultural and historical hijinks!  Stay tuned for pictures, posts from many different members of our group, student work and more!


~Charlotte McIvor