Review:
He said some blatantly incorrect facts and did not give clear grading guidelines. Also, do not take this class if you are not deeply involved with drama because you will be at a disadvantage, especially come the final project.

Workload:
The reading was pretty manageable. Since discussions of the plays barely touched on the actual texts, you can easily get away with not even completing the reading.

review a class you took with Don Weingust - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
I commend him for the effort he put into being funny. That being said, I found his lectures rather boring, and he never had anything especially smart to say about the plays we were reading. Granted this was a survey class, and we only had so much time to spend on each play, the questions he raised during discussions were usually very mundane, and we barely touched on the theoretical aspects of the plays (absurdist, brechtian, etc). I feel we mostly did literary analysis. This is not just because this was a survey class. I've seen survey classes taught better.

I did like the guest speakers, however. They had interesting things to say. As did the TAs. Watch out for the TAs, though. They were tough graders.

Workload:
A play a week, 2-3 reviews, a midterm, a final project, and a final exam. Very manageable.

review a class you took with Downing Cless - help your classmates make informed decisions!

Review:
Although Downing often gets sidetracked, he is clearly very knowledgeable and I like how he encourages classroom discussion, which we did for at least half of the class every day. The class is focused on interpreting plays and talking about key decisions that would need to be made in the actual acting (although there is never any acting required, though you can opt to for your creative project). The plays we read were actually very good. If you're not big into English or Drama, it's a good introduction to everything without being crazy. His midterm was horrible unless you took amazing class notes that you memorized front to back - just very obscure things.

Workload:
If you're like me and wait until the night before to read a play, it becomes a lot of work. Generally, there is a play a week, although sometimes there are 2 or you have to watch a movie also or something. There were 3 written reviews (2pg) due for plays we had to see (2 here at tufts and 1 in Boston) and the creative project definitely took time. So, it's very doable but you really have to plan your time.

review a class you took with Downing Cless - help your classmates make informed decisions!