Amadeus

Opening Remarks: 10:00-10:30 AM

Workshop: June 8, 10:30 AM-12:00 PM

Watch Ahead: YouTube (rent or buy) or Amazon Prime (rent or buy)

Cast and Crew: Music: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | Book: Peter Shaffer | Director: Miloš Forman | Starring: F. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge
Run time: 3 hours

Critical Thinking Prompts

1. How does the playwright construct tension through contrasts of character and language?

2. How do the opposite passions of Mozart and Salieri build the emotional arc of the play? Is there a dark/light dichotomy driving the play?

3. Where does the music of the production become a character in itself?

4. With which contemporary musicians can students today relate to Mozart?

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Supplemental Resources

• INTERVIEW with Michael Pennington​

• Theater Talk: Peter Shaffer Discusses “Amadeus”

• Peter Shaffer: Mozart’s music

• Peter Shaffer: Amadeus – not an objective biography

• We also pay tribute to Peter Shaffer's historic (self-) preservation comedy, Lettice and Lovage, that garnered awards in London and New York for the play and its laugh-a-minute star, Dame Maggie Smith.