The Case for a "Drama as Art" Subdistribution

[SpaghettiVibes]

I would like to propose a quizbowl-wide re-distribution of some portion of the Drama category that has historically been assigned exclusively into a tournament’s Literature distribution into the Art distribution.
I strongly believe there is room for more interesting Drama questions if we had space to write more performance-art-style questions about notable productions and staging details of plays, rather than having to stick to what can be read in the script. I really enjoy the style of questions that can be asked in the Broadway/Musical Theatre subdistributions of the Art distribution– I especially remember one Cabaret TU from an old ARCADIA (2021 maybe?) that clued the use of the mirror. I would love to be able to, for example, write bonuses about non-musical plays linked by a shared notable actor, or tossups cluing unusual/notable/relevant stagings. As things stand, I only ever feel comfortable using “art” clues for drama in the lead-ins for bonuses, as I believe that Literature questions should be able to stand on the text alone. However, I think it’s odd that stage actors are notable enough to be an answerline only if they can sing.
I’m not campaigning for “extra” drama content here, but suggesting a restructuring. I believe around 25% of the drama allotment for a set should be moved to the Art distribution to allow for these types of questions. Special care would have to be taken during packetization, of course, to prevent these questions from appearing in the same packet as a Lit-Drama question.
Thoughts?

[Stained Diviner]

Oddly enough, the Illinois Elementary School Association already classifies Drama as Fine Arts rather than Language Arts, so I am already doing this. The full-scale movement is kind of strange because a lot of writers wrote both novels and plays, so they are difficult to categorize. That doesn't seem to be what you are asking for, though, which is good.

I think that in general you should try to find ways to get the current distribution to work for you. I personally don't think the standard distribution needs to change, though it's fine if people want to disagree with me on that. If you want to write a bonus based on plays that the same performer appeared in using clues about characters and events in those plays, go ahead and write that bonus and put it in literature. If you want to write a question that focuses on stagings, think about how you expect players to learn the information being tested, and place it in literature or other fine arts based on where it fits, or possibly put it in interdisciplinary, miscellaneous, or other academic if your set has those categories. It's already kind of strange that the text of, say, A Streetcar Named Desire is literature while the movie is fine arts, but that problem is generally solved by writers writing the question they want to write and fitting it into the distribution in the way they believe is most appropriate. I don't think people will mind if a set has some Other Fine Arts based on stagings/performances as long as it is not just a literature question in disguise, and I don't think people will mind if there are some literature clues that reference noteworthy performances. If you are working with an editor, see what that person thinks, and if you are an editor you have my permission, which unfortunately isn't worth anything.

[Cheynem]

This is a good, interesting post. I do think that more questions in the vein you're referring to--that is, questions about staging/productions and those aspects of drama, are good, provided we don't go overboard. To some extent, literature questions already use such clues--to use very basic examples, questions on Our Town and Death of a Salesman frequently mention the staging and production aspects of those plays. I'd suggest more questions on drama should try to use difficulty appropriate clues about the plays' production and staging and avoid being "just the script" clues.

I think we should use common sense when thinking about where to place such drama questions. A tossup on a play that uses some staging clues to me should go in the literature distribution. A tossup on a stage actor or a question basically on specific stagings or on "theater knowledge" would probably work better in the fine arts distribution in the same way that some questions on musical theater already appear. I'm not sure if we should designate certain amounts of questions to go in particular places.

[Adventure Temple Trail]

I've had some idle thoughts lately about making a post similar to this one. I was struck on a recent visit to an exhibit on African American theater pioneers by how odd it is, for "rewarding people who know about drama" purposes, that some pivotal figures such as Ruby Dee or Ossie Davis are almost never asked because they happen to be (primarily) actors rather than authors. When doing non-quizbowl "trivia" with/against other strong theater players, I'm also regularly struck by the fact that years of text-focused quizbowl training have left me far worse than someone like Pam Mueller at knowing major actors, award ceremony results, etc.

I don't have the energy for a New Oberhausen-esque manifesto urging sweeping reforms. But I agree wholeheartedly with the OP that wherever questions on "straight plays" end up, there's a lot more room to ask about notable stagings, original cast performers, famous venues, stage production terms, etc. that enthusiasts do know. It's not zero now (see, e.g. the tossup on A Doll's House at 2023 ARCADIA asking about the recent Jessica Chastain production, or the PIANO bonus on the Royal Shakespeare Company), but it could definitely be higher. I also suspect there's many shows that are important in theater history, without quite having the sort of lasting "literary merit" that gets them dissected in a classroom, and have thus gone entirely unasked.

[SpaghettiVibes]

questions on Our Town and Death of a Salesman frequently mention the staging and production aspects of those plays

While you're not wrong here, iirc the unusual staging aspects of those plays are something outlined in those scripts (ie, something that can be known about those plays simply from reading). I'm thinking something more in this vein (that I just roughly cooked up):

Daniel Day-Lewis has not appeared onstage since experiencing a supernatural event while performing in a 1989 production of this play. A 2017 production of this play at the Almeida Theater controversially re-arranged several scenes in the text, such as arranging an earlier introduction to a character who cannot play a recorder pipe. A 2009 RSC production of this play staged one character’s death as being shot through a false mirror, rather than being stabbed through a curtain. That production of this play used a real human skull as Yorick. Andrew Scott and David Tennant have both played the title role in, for 10 points, what Shakespearean tragedy about a Prince of Denmark?

(I'm aware pyramidality may be off here, this is just a quickly drawn up example)

[Stained Diviner]

I'm OK with a question like that in literature. I would put it in literature because I expect that's how most students would get it. It might seem strange cluing Daniel Day-Lewis in a literature question, but I have written a Jackie Robinson/Branch Rickey/Althea Gibson history bonus and a Muhammad Ali history tossup with the giveaway "Name this athlete who fought Sonny Liston and Joe Frazier in the boxing ring" and felt no remorse. It's easy to point out that Robinson and Ali are important historical figures while Day-Lewis is not an important literary figure, but my general point is that it is good to take expansive definitions of categories as long as you don't stray too far into pop culture, and the reference to Day-Lewis above doesn't seem to go too far just like my references to boxing matches also doesn't. I also edited a middle school history bonus based on Taylor Swift lyrics and was fine with that. To get back to your sample question, I think it's fine to argue that knowing about high-profile performances of a play can be an important part of having deep knowledge about that play.

Some of the points raised in this thread have answers that probably depend on the level. As a high school and middle school writer, I would only use Ruby Dee or Ossie Davis as early tossup clues or hard part bonus answers, and so the question would be classified based on everything else in the question. It would be a stretch to argue that they should be high school canon, though they were awesome people who achieved fame. It would be different if I was writing for CO. I suppose any level could have questions on performers who were involved in causes, but I think at lower levels most such questions probably would be answered based on celebrity status so they would belong in pop culture/miscellaneous. There should be, and I believe there are, more options available to people writing for harder tournaments.

Similarly, I think any high school or middle school question about a play is eventually going to have severable buzzable clues on the script even if it also has several performance clues like the example above, so the question should be literature. A similar question at higher levels might be able to stay away from script clues until the giveaway, so I would hope that such questions could be other fine arts.

[Good Goblin Housekeeping]

I think these are very good points and worth trying to think about in cluing (and would be pretty uncontroversially "fine arts" in the "other" portion) even if an explicit distributional implementation doesn't necessarily happen! A lot of times writers and editors have blind spots in these sorts of area (especially since most other forms of literature don't really get the same experience as live drama) and I think it would be wonderful for you to freelance for some sets to help trickle in potential examples of the clues you're thinking of!!!