Int`l Pgms, Drama (ITHEA-UT)

Explores the works of Shakespeare as text and performance. A variety of critical methodologies, including biographical and cultural analysis, are used to reveal the continuing vitality of these plays and their relevance to the theatre of our time.

Course description (optional): This class will look at the west coast tradition of Latinx theater and its particular connections with the broader Los Angeles performance community. Focusing primarily but not exclusively on questions of regional development, history, aesthetic specificity, and political impact, Latinx Theater and Performance may look at the development of this particular cultural form as a distinct genre with roots to oral ritual, performance art, studio art and other interdisciplinary influences. The class may trace roots back to the Latin American performance traditions such as Mexican vaudeville, the rise of the political theater in the 1960s, and the complexity of the genre in more contemporary times. Students will read play texts as well as scholarly articles to frame a more in-depth critical analysis of the Latinx performance.

African Women Playwrights is a reading-intensive course that focuses on the structural and narrative diversification of the theatrical texts written by women from the continent in the 20th and 21st century. We’ll critique the plays as both literature and dramatic texts intended for production. What is clearly evident in African women playwrights’ writing is its focus on women’s agency; generational legacies; tensions among tradition, colonialism, and modernism; unresolved issues between tribal and national identities; family relationships; intimacy and commitment; the spiritual conflicts set from among the worlds of rituals, polytheism and monotheism; the challenging coexistence among Christianity, Islam and Judaism; the impact of the global diaspora on African identity; and the intersecting issues of blackness, Africanness and womanhood.