Key City Public Theater Study Guide

A Study Guide for Teachers

WOYZECK
By
Georg Büchner

Adapted by Sarah E.R. Grosman

Key City Public Theatre
Port Townsend, Washington

This Study Guide was compiled and edited by Rena Murman

© 2012 Key City Public Theatre, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) educational and cultural institution. KCPT Teacher Guides may be duplicated at no charge for educational purposes only. They may not be sold or used in other publications without the express written consent of the Key City Public Theatre. WOYZECK
A Study Guide for Teachers

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 4
Interview with the Adaptor & Director, Sarah Grosman
A large part of my work as a theater artist involves what is known as Community Based Theater, meaning work that sits at the intersection where expressive, stylish, and awesome theatermaking meets active community building. It’s my interest to make a production of Woyzeck as only the people of Port Townsend can. In my mind, the pond at the end of the play is none other than the recently torn down tidal clock off of Water Street and the prop of the fatal knife will be made at the Port Townsend School of Woodworking with local wood. The barracks in the play are Fort Warden. The tavern is Sirens (or the Uptown, I cannot choose), the clearing Woyzeck runs to is the end of the dock by the Maritime Center, and the people of this town are the people of that town and this is a story about them and about
Adaptions on stage and in other media include:
1925 -- Wozzeck, an opera by Austrian composer Alban Berg, premiered in Vienna.
1979 -- Werner Herzog adapted Woyzeck into a film.
1994 -- the Handspring Puppet Company of South Africa created a production entitled Woyzeck on the Highveld. Woyzeck was portrayed as a black South African servant.
1994 -- another film based on Woyzeck, directed by János Szász.
1999 the Worth Street Theater Company played Woah-Jack!. Adapted and directed by Jeff Cohen, the play portrays Woyzeck as a black American soldier at an army base in the 1960s.
2000 -- Tom Waits, Robert Wilson, and Kathleen Brennan created a production of Woyzeck in Denmark that traveled to New York two years later.
2006 -- the Gate Theater of London played Woyzeck in New York. The production was adapted and directed by Daniel Kramer, using music by Elvis Presley, Dolly Parton, and Beethoven throughout as background music although the play was set in the 1800s.
2007 -- a modernized play, Re: Woyzeck by Jeremy Gable premiered in Fullerton, California. In this play Georg Büchner becomes a character himself. The play was received favorably and was considered for Pulitzer