Kate Vargulich Week One Blog Entry

In the first week, what I started to focus on was getting a good grasp on our topic as a whole. After our topic was picked, I realized that I knew next to nothing about Medieval Church Drama, so the next step was to research, but after diving into this time period, I realized very quickly that there was too much to know, and I couldn't possibly have a firm grasp on this time period as a whole. So the solution to this dilemma was to try to find events or ideas that I found interesting, and then as a group we could decide what we wanted to focus on (assuming that all of my group mates were experiencing this as well). We all came in on Thursday with this in mind. A few of us found mentions of the N-Town plays in our research and the rest of us had mentions of cycle plays, which the N-Town plays are an example of, so we collectively decided to focus our efforts on researching cycle plays, and specifically the dramatic structure of the N-Town plays. 

I'm really appreciating the analogy "digging through shit" this week, mainly because that perfectly embodies how I feel about the progress we're making on this project. As I've said, one of the first realizations I've made about this topic is how vast it is. The Medieval period alone spans a period of ten centuries, and it's been incredibly overwhelming to try to narrow our focus to be able to present a concise, informative, and interesting presentation on this period in Theater History. Though it is only the beginning of this process, I feel like we don't have a strong footing for this project yet.