Theatre History at Otterbein

Otterbein students prepare to show classmates the posters they have made summarizing their research papers.

Geoffrey Nelson taught Theatre History I & II at Otterbein University this past year and will do so again next year.  Otterbein has a large theatre department and is noted for the professional training it provides for both actors and technician/designers.  The Theatre History survey course is required for all theatre majors.

In addition to the textbook, Living Theatre: A History of Theatre by Edwin Wilson and Alvin Goldfarb, students also read plays spanning the past two thousand years: Oedipus Rex, Lysistrata, The Misanthrope, A Doll House, Galileo, Endgame, Oleanna, etc. Filmed stage performances, including Shakespeare’s As You Like It at the restored Globe Theatre in London, were also shown, as well as documentaries on such figures as Ibsen, Brecht, and avant-garde director Robert Wilson.

Nelson, who studied theatre history in graduate school with renowned historians Oscar Brockett and Richard Moody at Indiana University and with Alan Woods at Ohio State University, has interacted with Otterbein students many times over the past few decades.  First as a guest director for the plays The Taming of the Shrew, The Witness for the Prosecution, God’s Favorite, Arsenic and Old Lace and The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds and then as a professional guest actor for August Osage County and The Brothers Karamazov.