Write an essay of 2500 to 3000 words in which you deal with the following themes. Clearly state your general idea for each in a topic sentence and support it with specific references to playtexts, critical texts, films, live performances, and your own experience. Make your essay as personal and autobiographical as you like.

1.Shakespeare's own representations of imagination and theatricality, e.g.

• Power, limelight and airtime

• reading, decoding and interpreting words and gestures

• role playing and inner feeling

• audience and player interactions

• entrances and exits

• cues and miscues

• costume, masking, and self representation and self definition

• mirroring reality

• deception and self deception

• faith and faithlessness—something and nothing

• the creative process; bringing things to birth and fruition

2. Reading

• How reading the text illuminates viewing a performance

• How reading the texts illuminates performing

• How reading critical essays illuminates reading texts

• How reading performance critiques illuminates viewing

3. Viewing

• How viewing performances illuminates reading texts

• How viewing performances illuminates performing

• How viewing one performance illuminates viewing others--including a discussion of either Luhrmann, Taymore, or Loncraine and PCPA's The Winter's Tale

4. Performing

• How performing illuminates reading texts

• How performing illuminates viewing other performances

• How watching others stage and mount performances illuminates your experience of performance.

• How participation in performance deepens your understanding of at least one Shakespearean scene
• How the group creative process of performing illuminates the "mystery" of the creative process itself.