Explores the actor’s tools: body, voice, mind, imagination, and the essential self. Through studio exercises, students address issues of honesty and creativity in the theatrical moment, and begin to have a sense of their strengths and limitations as communicating theatrical artists. Provides an opportunity for students to discover their relationship to “the other”: the acting partner, the group, the environment, and the audience.
Intro to Playwriting is dedicated to process. Students learn to write plays by writing plays. The primary goal of the course is to encourage students to write quickly, fluidly, fearlessly, and with a sense of fun and playfulness. Students will write one 10-minute play (approximately 10 pages) each week, or a 10-page scene, which will be outlined in an assignment. Our emphasis is on experimentation, taking risks, and trying new things.
In-class writing exercises are designed to circumvent students’ first lines of defense, to silence the negative editor voice, to experience trusting first instincts, and to encourage students to write both visually and concretely. Each week’s assignment will introduce another element of craft, including high and low context dialogue, revealing action, the power of the unspoken word, disrupted ritual, etc.
After a session devoted to the ground rules of giving and receiving constructive feedback, work is read in class and the group responds. Character maps, storytelling from personal experience, and monologues are the starting points. Reading is a component; a short play or scene by a contemporary playwright will be read and discussed each week in class. These plays introduce students to the wide world of individual voices and styles, from David Ives’ comic, “Sure Thing,” to Jose Rivera’s poetic magical realism, “The Winged Man,” to Donald Margulies carefully orchestrated, “Last Tuesday.”
The workshop format helps create a community of writers. The class is lively and fun.
This course concentrates upon freeing the natural voice, culminating in the actor's ability to work in any style. The progression of Linklater's approach to voice is taught, as time allows. Although the focus is acting, students not primarily interested in theater but interested in developing their voices may find this class useful.
The class is an extremely hands on introduction to the crafts that set the theater stage. The class takes place in the Set shop, where the tools & techniques of building scenery is covered, in the Costume shop, where every student makes an item of clothing for themselves, and on the Paint floor where the rudiments of scene art is taught. The class also gets to work with Lighting equipment, Makeup, Sound effects and more. The final project is the culmination of the class experience where each student gets to choose a project to build for themselves or the department. STAGECRAFT ROCKS!
Memorable theatrical experiences are greater than the sum of their parts. Each language of theater - acting, directing, playwriting, sets, costumes, lighting, sound, music, video, movement, etc. – embodies its own version of the play’s narrative, and then all of these intricately told stories come together to create a layered event. We focus on the creative thinking and hands-on practices of diverse theater arts to present both a practical introduction to these disciplines and the opportunity to assess the meaning they transmit when they come together in production. The class attends at least four professional theatrical productions that serve as the sources of the study of theater practice.
Examines the theatrical event from the perspective of composition in a performance workshop. Studio exercises address the process of developing a theatrical work through an internalized understanding of compositional principles in theater. Examines uses of time, space, and action. Complemented by outside readings, videos, short essays, and in-class discussions, subject provides performer, director, choreographer, designer or writer opportunities to engage with large and small group ensembles in creation of theatrical events. Topics include image, movement, shape, repetition, gesture, and spatial relationship.
This course introduces students to the art and formal ideologies of contemporary dance. We explore the aesthetic and technical underpinnings of contemporary dance composition. Basic compositional techniques are discussed and practiced, with an emphasis on principles such as weight, space, time, effort, and shape. Principles of musicality are considered and developed by each student. Working with each other as the raw material of the dance, students develop short compositions that reveal their understanding of basic techniques. Hopefully, students come to understand a range of compositional possibilities available to artists who work with the medium of the human body. This fall, students work with guest artist Neta Pulvermacher as well as resident faculty members.
Seminar examines an array of performance disciplines from the perspective of the performer. Explores what it means to read the human body as a dynamic medium of expression; how fundamental techniques of the performer shift across cultural borders and in step with changing social contexts and historical traditions; and how the expressive tactics of one media platform adapt to the demands of another. Students engage in close analysis of performance practices, acquiring a theoretical and historical framework for thinking about performance across disciplines. Complemented by outside readings, video viewings, short essays, and studio performances, this course is intended to provide students with an introduction to core concepts in performance studies as they relate more generally to the study of media. Instruction and practice in written and oral communication provided.
This class assumes some introductory work in acting. It seeks to develop and supplement skills that the student-actor has already discovered and begun to work on. The class continues the student-actor’s exploration of self and his/her responses to a variety of acting situations. Through scene work, and some related theater games and exercises, students should continue to increase their strengths as actors as well as become aware of what needs further development.
The essential difference between this course and the introductory acting class is that primary attention is given to making someone else’s words (and, of course. his/her thoughts, desires, fears, etc. as well) one’s own. For all work, our practice will be to perform twice in class, the first presentation followed by a more finished second one that takes into account the discoveries and suggestions made after the first run-through in class.
For each of the major class assignments (the monologue and the scenes themselves), a written record tracing the student’s perception of what happened during the process from initial work through final presentation should be kept in a journal. The entries should be as thorough and critical as possible; they are meant to constitute a history of the student’s learning about acting.
An in-depth exploration of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, which will be produced by Dramashop during IAP 2009. Students in the seminar need not be involved with the production: they have the choice of taking only the course or of actively being a part of the production. (Students are not required to take the seminar to work on the production.) The seminar will study the play from a variety of angles. We’ll look at the historical Caesar and read the classical sources for his life and times. We’ll consider the Elizabethan transformation of the story and learn how Shakespeare’s play is connected to the political issues of the playwright’s day. We will examine a few modern versions of Caesar (Shaw, Wilder, Richard Nelson, for example). And, most importantly in this year of the presidential election, we’ll look for connections between the play and what’s happening in American politics today. We’ll especially be concerned with the media and “spin”:’ Caesar, his assassination, the end of the Roman Republic and the birth of the Roman Empire have been spun from ancient Rome to our time, and the principal players have been co-opted for political advantage. We will have guest speakers on ancient history, Elizabethan history, the politics of the presidential campaign, and on the media. Seminar projects include making a media “surround” for the play – newspaper articles, campaign videos, sound bites and blogs.
Provides an intermediate workshop designed for students who have a basic understanding of the principles of theatrical design and who want a more intensive study of costume design and the psychology of clothing. Students develop designs that emerge through a process of character analysis, based on the script and directorial concept. Period research, design, and rendering skills are fostered through practical exercises. Instruction in basic costume construction, including drafting and draping, provide tools for students to produce final projects.
The assassination of Julius Caesar marked the demise of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire. Basing his play on classical sources, Shakespeare inevitably viewed the event through the lens of Elizabethan politics. This production will view the play through the lens of contemporary American and global politics, in the wake of a momentous presidential election.
The production rehearses during IAP and plays during the first two weekends of Spring Semester 2009. Credit is given for acting and for technical positions.
Dance Theater Ensemble's Fall Concert mixes dance theater and opera with an adaptation of Gertrude Stein’s early twentieth-century vision for the telling of the history of everyone everywhere at every time—The Making of Americans. The Making of Americans concentrates on a family across multiple generations as they live through the trials of one generation into the next on the plains of America. Storms fill the sky; a tree is torn from the ground, its roots obscenely pointing to the sky. Shingles are torn from the roof of a small house. Rain falls and a violinist is lifted into the air where she curiously remains, suspended there. Clouds fill the sky and slowly the stage becomes an American landscape, filled with families.
Casting for this inclusive production begins at the start of the semester, and rehearsals will begin around the second week of September. Start date is TBA; schedule will probably be TR 6-8.
