Drama (THEA-UT)

Mask work is the actor's secret tool for developing concentration, imagination, observation, and inspiration. Neutral, grotesque, archetype, clown, character, and Balinese ceremonial masks are used in exercises to deepen the trust in inspiration and to open up archetypal energy in the service of creating character. Exercises support thinking, feeling, and willingness and enable the actor to strengthen his/her imagination.

Intimacy in a performance context evokes images of kissing and sexual acts. But the term "Intimacy" also refers to the closeness between dear friends, family, old enemies, a violent encounter with a stranger; it is the story of human connection in any form that involves touch or emotional chemistry. Details in choreography keep you connected to your scene partners, both emotionally and physically while respecting personal boundaries. This class will provide an introduction for students to the language, process and best practices of Intimacy Direction and Coordination. The class will meet once per week during which time students will engage in discussions of terms, theory, and best practices of consent in the performing arts workplace. Students will be led in consent training between performers and designers, will learn the fundamentals of approaching scene work or material that is intimate in nature and will work collaboratively to simulate artistic settings where best practices can be enacted and assessed. Toward the end of the term, students will work with text, scenes or breakdowns to practice their approach to solving challenges around intimacy choreography.

Looks at theatre training for the actor through theatre games, Spolin Technique, Open Theatre exercises, and other vocal and physical improvisation techniques aimed at unlocking the actor's imagination. Also includes application and analysis of different experimental and traditional improvisational approaches to the actor as collaborator in the process of making theatre.

Performance Composition with Liz Swados is different each semester. Please check the specific course information on the Registration page of Drama's website <http://drama.tisch.nyu.edu>

Actors enhance their performance by learning to work with greater ease in breathing, vocal production, and movement while learning to recognize the habits that interfere with free expression.

Laughter is a spontaneous physical explosion that is also a universal language. This class will use physical improvisation as a way of building this common language for the young actor to participate in creating a new and international theatre that is their own. The actor trained in Clown and Bouffon will have a strong awareness and relationship with their audience.

This experiential Yoga class explores the many aspects of this ancient system of exercise that relieves tension, strengthens and invigorates the body, creates and enhances body awareness. Classical Hatha Yoga postures and breathing techniques are introduced, practiced and put together in a flowing or Vinyasa style that synchronizes movement with breath. The sequential learning builds to a mindfulness of movement. Postures allow one to develop a keen sense of focus while emphasis on breath is used as a continual reference point for returning to and being in the present moment. The class provides a satisfying workout for the body while the mind becomes calm. Through regular practice one becomes stronger, more flexible and well balanced in body, mind and spirit.

Throughout this semester-long course, Drama students will collaborate with Dramatic Writing students in the development and reading of the playwrights’ new full-length scripts. While playwriting students learn to better hone their craft by hearing their words performed aloud by trained actors, actors will develop the flexibility, specificity, and quick thinking required to make new drama come alive. By the end of the semester, the company of actors will have read aloud each script in its entirety and engaged the writers and instructors in a discussion of their work. Certain sessions will involve the reading of a full script followed by a discussion. In other sessions, the acting company will perform rewrites that the writers have submitted based on those full-length readings and the ensuing feedback. Homework will entail the weekly reading of a new script, the formulation of questions for the writers, and the participation in a class blog devoted to ongoing reflection on the work. All participants will learn how to communicate effectively in a rehearsal room and how to work productively within a limited timeframe. Most importantly, everyone will develop working relationships that should last well beyond the semester.

An introductory playwriting class. With the use of specially designed exercises and a study of the techniques of master dramatists, each student completes a one-act play, which receives a reading at the end of the class. In the process of writing their own play, students gain further insight into and appreciation of the mechanics of creating effective drama as well as the satisfaction of completing their own dramatic work.

Will you catch me when I fall? Will you respect my boundaries? Can I hold you accountable? Who is in control? What agency do I have in this process? How do I know that this process will acknowledge the fullness of my lived experience?" These are just a few of an important list of questions that theatre makers are asking one another in the 21st century. At the root of these questions is a critical consideration of how we collaborate in light of a long history of unjust circumstances where theatre makers have been mistreated, abused, objectified or left out. If collaboration is an inherent part of our training and practice, then how do we prepare to collaborate with others so that our processes are generative and healthy for everyone that is involved? How do we respond to collaborative processes that are harmful? Our work over the course of the semester is to develop a working analysis of how we collaborate that we can use to approach our training and practice.

An introduction to stage combat. Students learn the basics of unarmed combat: falls, rolls, throws and flips, as well as various punches, kicks and blocks. Emphasis is placed on actor safety, script interpretation, and acting the violence.

Prerequisite: Stage Combat I. A continuation of the techniques learned in Stage Combat I, culminating in a skills proficiency test in unarmed combat with the Society of American Fight Directors.

Prerequisite: Stage Combat I. The study of the broadsword: basic safety techniques, footwork, and cut and thrust drills, culminating in a skills proficiency test in broadsword with the SAFD.

Prerequisite: Stage Combat I. The study of rapier and dagger - basic safety techniques, footwork, and various double-fence drills, culminating in a skills proficiency test in rapier and dagger with the SAFD.

There are four different sections of this course. Please check the specific course information on the Registration and Advisement page of Drama's website: http://drama.tisch.nyu.edu

The course concentrates on the text of Shakespeare's plays and how to use the text as a guide for the actor to achieve the character's intentions. Emphasis is placed on analysis of the verse, how to speak it, and how to use it to create character. Students prepare monologues, soliloquies, set speeches, and sonnets for presentation in class.

This course offers an opportunity for the beginning singer/actor to determine his or her strengths as a solo performer in a supportive environment. Not a class in singing technique, the emphasis is on the individual's communication of the song. To this end, we employ various methods toward personalizing the performance.

See notes for special registration procedures. These weekly individual voice lessons are designed to strengthen the actor-singer's vocal instrument. Each session provides the student a technical base to build the voice and protect it against misuse. The approach to technique is classical, which may be applied to musical theatre repertoire as well as opera and art songs.

This course will touch on all aspects of this rewarding and potentially lucrative business. We'll discuss the business of voice-over work, how to get started, what skills you need to have and how you can develop them. A significant part of the course will be actual voice-over performance in a Tisch studio. Each student will be critiqued as to style, versatility, and directability. All types of voices are welcome, but good diction is an imperative.

Ballet for all levels. Classes held at the Collaborative Arts Project (CAP 21), 18 West 18th Street.

Jazz for all levels. Classes held at the Collaborative Arts Project (CAP 21), 18 West 18th Street.

Private voice lessons for New Studio music theatre students. For faculty tracking purposes.

This course introduces the student to the medium and technique of stage direction. Basic directorial concepts are studied and applied to scenes and exercises. Topics include visualization, composition, movement, text analysis, production research, and collaboration with other theatre artists. Students will be expected to present rehearsed scenes and actively analyze the work of their classmates. Presentations, readings, and discussions will foster a better understanding of the practical directing tools as well as theoretical ideas: What is the art of contemporary directing? How can directors respond to the rapidly changing realities of the 21st century?

This course is devoted to the practical presentation of auditions. Students will present auditions of rehearsed monologues and assigned scenes for the theatre, as well as perform auditions for film, television and commercials using script sides They will develop and hone audition skills to begin to prepare to market themselves to industry professionals. The class will cover both on-camera auditions and stage auditions. The course is also designed to help the performer understand the technique of auditioning by discussing the business of acting and will cover pictures/resumes and an introduction to the world of those that work in casting, ie. casting directors, agents, and managers. The goal is for the performer to learn to present his/herself in a professional manner showing individual strengths and abilities in a very short presentation. The class will provide a technique for performers to hone and use to meet the demands of any audition situation; the beginning of a process that will continue with every future audition.

This course is designed to provide a bridge for the actor from the world of Studio Training and Academia into the Professional Entertainment Industry. Over the course of the semester, students are taken through the audition process, as well as integrated into the realities of the profession at large. Guest speakers include a professional Agent or Manager, as well as at least one other Industry Professional. This class is largely participatory, as students are required to go out into the industry and find answers for themselves, reporting back to and supporting one another in a team-like framework. The health and well being of the actor is also addressed, as well as the care and feeding of an actor throughout his or her professional journey. Students are given at least two simulated audition experiences, as well.

A cultural history of clothing from Mesopotamia through the Renaissance. Ever wonder what Julius Caesar was wearing on the Ides of March? Or what Cleopatra was wearing when she set out to seduce him? What about that antique actress and exotic dancer: Theodora in that Byzantine beauty pageant? What was the prize? The answers to these and other timeless sartorial questions are found as we wind our way through the closets of history. The class focuses on the periods most likely to be encountered in theatre today. We examine how ancient clothing is adapted to the modern sage and how it often becomes the basis for futuristic costumes. We also look at how the clothing we wear today reflects our own particular civilization. Appropriate (or scandalous) clothing is provided each week, so that students can discover the excesses and eccentricities of our ancestors for themselves. Field trips to exhibitions of clothing and other artifacts.

(See Production office for an access code.) Recognition of work performed on Mainstage Productions. Specifically for running crew members and stage managers whose participation on productions exceeds normal crew hours. Repeatable for credit.

1st year Adler. Primary Training

2nd year Adler. Primary Training

3rd year Adler. Advanced Training

4th year Adler. Advanced Training

By Permission of Studio & Department Only

1st year Atlantic. Primary Training

2nd year Atlantic. Primary Training

3rd year Atlantic. Advanced Training

not offered this semester

By Permission of Studio & Department Only

1st year Cap 21. Primary Training

2nd year CAP21. Primary Training

3rd year CAP21. Advanced Training

4th year CAP21. Advanced Training

By Permission of Studio & Department Only

1st Year ETW. Primary Studio

2nd year ETW. Primary Studio

3rd year ETW. Advanced Studio

4th year ETW. Advanced Studio

By Permission of Studio & Department Only

A six-week intensive advanced studio for actors who have completed either two years of primary training in the the Department of Drama or the equivalent at another school. Classes will challenge the level of craft students have acquired. Using the Meisner technique, the focus of this advanced intensive is on expanding and deepening the actor's craft. Actors are challenged to confront the current demands of authenticity and spontaneity while applying a rigorous attention to text. The technique offers specific solutions to address areas or craft that are either not active or not accessible. This advanced studio is actor driven, applying classroom work to the rehearsal process into performance.

1st year Meisner. Primary Training

2nd year Meisner. Primary Training

By Permission of Studio & Department Only

1st year Playwrights Horizons. Primary Training

2nd year Playwrights Horizons. Primary Training

3rd year Playwrights Horizons. Advanced Training

4th year Playwrights Horizons. Advanced Training

By Permission of Studio & Department Only

1st year Strasberg. Primary Training

2nd year Strasberg. Primary Training

3rd year Strasberg. Advanced Training

By Permission of Studio & Department Only

1st year Tech Track. Primary Training

2nd year Tech Track. Primary Training

3rd year Tech Track. Advanced Training

4th year Tech Track. Advanced Training

By Permission of Studio & Department Only

1st year (1st semester) New Studio on Broadway. Primary Training.

2nd year (3rd semester) New Studio on Broadway. Primary Training

3rd year (5th semester). New Studio on Broadway. Additional Professional Training.

The New Studio on Broadway offers a rigorous, five-week (6 days per week), professional training program for the musical theatre performer. This intensive offers students the opportunity to be immersed in the core essentials of the New Studio's musical theatre curriculum and will be taught by a faculty of working professionals. Students will have weekly classes in Acting (acting technique, Shakespeare, contemporary monologue study, voice & speech, mask work); Singing (singing technique, vocal performance, vocal book preparation, sight-singing); and Dance/Movement (yoga, ballet, jazz, tap). There will also be a series of Master Classes taught by award-winning actors, directors, choreographers, and musical directors. This intensive culminates with a professional feedback session where students share their work and receive constructive comments and suggestions from invited Industry Professionals (casting directors, agents, directors, choreographers, musical directors and Broadway actors.) Digital Audition required.

the Atlantic Acting School looks forward to welcoming the inaugural cohort of a new transfer track. The transfer track will fully immerse students in Atlantic’s signature acting technique and collaborative approach to truthful storytelling. Students will work with dramatic texts and will be instructed in a disciplined approach to script analysis and working truthfully moment-to-moment. These skills will be brought together in classroom performance of the material. The program will introduce the technique through three core courses: Script Analysis, Moment Lab and Performance Technique. Further training in classes complementary to scene study include Voice and Suzuki/ViewPoints. Students who successfully complete the fall term will be invited to return to Atlantic in the spring semester, joining the third-year class. In this, the final term of Atlantic training, the focus is on polishing skills, applying them to performance and transitioning into the professional community. Through advanced level classes and full-length productions, students gain valuable experience acting in front of an audience. The pinnacle project allows students to create their own work through the formation of a theater company, culminating in a fully student-produced production in Atlantic’s off-Broadway house, Stage 2. Students prepare for graduation through business classes which include on-camera casting, the creating of their own website, shooting a reel, recording demo V/O material and having their headshot taken.

Viewpoints originator Mary Overlie creates an investigation of performance that utilizes the basic building materials of space, time, shape, movement, story, and emotion. This process of deconstructing performance through the Viewpoints opens the possibility of moving among and through many levels of reality and establishing a mobility of inner life. This laboratory will consist of five elements: physical training, Viewpoints practices and improvisation, scene study and improvisation, and performance collaboratively produced by students and faculty to demonstrate the results of this personal and collective research in a semester-end public showing. The laboratory provides a technical foundation in contact improvisation, experiential anatomy, developmental movement, and improvisatory-based release techniques as it applies to both actors and directors. Students are guided through improvisational studies to experientially locate and creatively define these elements as ensemble languages and internal technique. Group and solo improvisations are used as a basis for composition and later integrated into scene work. In scene study, the Viewpoints are used to establish the fundamental presence of the actor, which is expanded to include character, text, and the audience.

By Audition. Access Code Required. Advanced Training.

By Audition. Advanced Training. The Practicum is designed for the 3rd or 4th year student desiring extremely focused, rigorous training that explores a number of methods and disciplines. This advanced studio option is an intensive exploration of acting through text and song. Classes in scene study, music performance, dance/movement, voice, speech, are required with comedy/improv and Shakespeare offered as electives. Special segments in on-camera techniques and a presentation of new one act plays are part of the curriculum. Additionally, students are coached in developing two audition monologues. The whole is designed to form a class ensemble in a trusting and committed environment.

The Black Arts Institute Transfer Track is a semester-long comprehensive exploration of the history of the contemporary Black theater tradition, highlighting key historical moments, including the Harlem Renaissance, the Black Power Movement and the genesis of the many Black theaters that emerged during the Black Arts Movement.

The Children's Theater Studio will explore with depth and energy how to create children's theater that is neither condescending, simplistic or just plain bad. Students will be encouraged and guided to create their own pieces while simultaneously working on the newest show written by Liz Swados. A love of mischief, physicality and music is required. These skills will also be developed. Adapting beloved childrens' books will be a part of the studio as well as creating material from scratch. Zaniness and a real respect for dreams is also helpful.

By Audition. Access Code Required. Advanced Training. The Classical Studio is a production-oriented ensemble concentrating on Shakespeare. Each semester a complete play is presented, focusing on the interaction of actor and text. This requires six weeks of evening and weekend rehearsals, followed by a week of performances. This is in addition to a full class schedule which includes Acting, Voice & Speech, Alexander Technique, Movement, and Stage Combat. Additionally, in the spring semester, we remount the fall play in repertory with the spring play, followed by our annual Word Orgy, a celebration of word and song that brings the year to a close. Acting classes focus on the intensive development and presentation of monologues, soliloquies, and scenes. The goal of the studio is to create THOUGHT IN ACTION: the presentation of classical texts in an immediate and forceful present. The Studio embraces traditional, experimental, and emerging techniques, while building upon a basic emotional reality.

1st Semester Stonestreet. Advanced Studio open to all Drama Majors. Call (212) 229-0020 for orientation. The Stonestreet Screen Acting Workshop offers a professional environment in which to continue and broaden training, adapt theater skills and embrace the art of film acting and directing, and experience the film and television mediums, from the audition phase through to the production and post-production phases, completing their first or early professional work before they graduate. Students experience the unique challenges of acting on sets for all size screens, from three camera set-ups and the big screen arena to the iPod, by continuing to build on and surmount their previous training by playing challenging and varied roles in original films, sit-coms, dramatic series, and PSAs. Students learn to embrace both naturalism and character work that is both believable and interesting on camera and work on a variety of material from original unproduced film & tv material to film classics as well as adaptations of modern classic and classical material. Stonestreet's multi-tiered audition class allows students to become practiced, professional auditioners while making industry contacts with agents and casting directors on a weekly basis for the entire semester. All student work is recorded, editors help students compile actor reels after Stonestreet I or during Stonestreet II and final projects are showcased on Stonestreet's movie website www.stonestreetmovies.com.

2nd Semester Stonestreet. Advanced Studio. (Prerequisite: Stonestreet I) Stonestreet II includes a special collaboration with the NYU TSOA Goldberg Dept. of Dramatic Writing in our Annual Film Festival that creates feature & short screenplays, tv pilots and series, specifically for our advanced returning Stonestreet Students along with advanced coursework. Many of our shorts and features continue to be presented in film festivals & win awards, opening new doors for actors to the industry, directors, producers and writers. Students shoot professionally lit, directed and edited films of original material which can include classical adaptations as well. Participating in Stonestreet's new webseries (www.the47thfloor.com) allows students to work on detailed characters that are specifically designed for them, participate in full-blown production from the start of the semester, and have an accessible, professional way to showcase their work. Student involvement is from preproduction to production as well as from the editing process where a good deal more about acting is learned. The Stonestreet-Golberg Film Festival gives students additional performance, character and film opportunities to work on professional level projects that shot & edited are showcased in international film festivals and to the professional world via www.stonestreetmovies.com. Stonestreet Movies also serves as a cost free Actor's Reel where students can literally email a link of their work anywhere in the world in lieu of an audition or as a way of introducing themselves to potential work sources. DIRECTING, PRODUCING, WRITING: PILOT PROJECTS. Specialized programs for directing, producing, and writing are set up on an individual basis with students each semester. An interview with the program director and/or managing director is necessary.

By Permission of Studio & Department Only

This course is an introduction to the craft of screen acting and to the protocols of a film and television set. A highly focussed intensive developed in collaboration with faculty from Tisch Undergraduate Film and Television and the Stonestreet Screen Acting Workshop, the course provides essential working knowledge of acting and auditioning for the camera. It will embrace and build upon the theatrical training received in primary studio training while opening an actor's eyes to the differences that exist between film and theatre acting. Students will have an opportunity to experience where camera, material and technology meet actor and director so as not to be intimidated but instead be empowered to work in the medium.

FOR MUSIC THEATRE STUDENTS: Students will take classes in Acting, Vocal Music and performance, Speech and Dance. Dance classes will explore the dynamic range from Ballet, Broadway Styles and Contemporary popular dance vernaculars, such as Hip-Hop and Salsa, as they are used in the Music theatre. Vocal Music and performance will explore healthy, vocal production, breathing and properly supported sound, the ability to act on the lyric and the wide range of musical styles reflected in today’s contemporary Musical theatre. Acting and Speech courses will explore fundamentals of Acting through exercises and scene study. All of these courses will be taught with an emphasis on the Music theatre as a collaborative ensemble art form requiring proficiency in Music, Dance and Acting, first and foremost. Must be taken in conjuction with THEA-UT 860 for a combined total of 6-units. FOR ACTING STUDENTS: Students will take classes in Acting, Voice and Speech, Movement, Play Analysis and Acting for the Camera. Voice classes will explore breathing, healthy vocal production, vocal range and expressivity necessary to create fully realized characterizations on the stage. Movement courses will explore physical strength, increasing stamina, flexibility and physical expressivity through dynamic tasks, games and disciplines, including traditional Western as well as more global and experimental forms of movement. Acting and Speech courses offer fundamentals of Acting through scene study and exercises directed towards honest, clear and truthful characterization and performance. Must be taken in conjunction with THEA-UT 860 for a combined total of 6-units.

The Experimental Theatre Wing is a unique, physically based acting program with an international reputation for developing creative artists, courageous actors at ease in their bodies, who are alive to new ideas. The professional training program combines the physical impulse-based acting techniques of Jerzy Grotowski with the psychological character work of Stanislavsky. In addition, the primary curriculum emphasizes movement and includes Viewpoints (a method for separating, examining, and experimenting with the elements of acting), contact improvisation, extended vocal technique, singing, and various approaches to creating original work. ETW is dedicated to providing students with a comprehensive training program that enables them to shape their own artistic visions and to perform in a wide range of theatrical styles. ETW faculty members are vibrant professionals in the forefront of creating contemporary theatre, dance, and music. Summer studio training consists of physically based acting, character-based scene work, improvisation, speech and vocal performance (focusing on freeing the voice and finding each student’s unique quality), movement (heightening body awareness with training in contact improvisation, Viewpoints, and hip-hop), and self-scripting classes where students have the opportunity to create original work. Must be taken in conjuction with THEA-UT 860 for a combined total of 6-units.

The Stonestreet Screen Acting Workshop (SSAW) is a unique and comprehensive program that has pioneered the art and craft of screen acting since it's inception in 1990. SSAW is conducted at Stonestreet's 6,000 sq. ft. film, television and internet studio, where professional directors, producers, and casting directors develop and produce movies, pilots, commercials, television and webseries. Students train and work in the same environment with access to full production and post-production facilities (including several editing systems and editors) with the guidance of constructive teachers who are industry professionals. The emphasis of the workshop is on becoming imaginative and creative actors who are both believable and interesting cinematically in any genre while embracing a wide variety of characters and material from different periods and cultures. While screen acting can utilize many of the same techniques and tools of theater acting, there are significant differences with regard to subtext, how the current technology can be used in creative and non-limiting ways, as well as with creating organic and compelling characters that often appear in a medium or long shot but also under the magnifying glass of the close-up. Ultimately students are guided from audition to rehearsal to performance with the hopes of inspiring with ideas and stories that are meaningful to both the actor and the audience. Workshop classes include: Screen Acting & Character, Muliti-Camera Screen Acting, Sit-coms, Improv & Comedy on Film, Commercials & the Business, the History of Screen Acting, Voice-overs and Voice on Screen, and Introduction to Audition & Performance. Must be taken in conjunction with THEA-UT 860 for a combined total of 6-units.

Behind the scenes internships in the New York Theatre, Film and Television industries. For more information go to http://drama.tisch.nyu.edu/page/intern.html.

Non-credit requirements for the Applied Theatre Minor.

Drama majors only. This course is designed to foster students? intellectual engagement with drama and theatre by introducing them to the basic terminology and methodology used in understanding plays and performances. A range of critical perspectives are applied to a variety of plays from different periods and places; additionally, a number of contexts for theatre study are introduced, including theatre history and performance studies. Through free discussion, serious analysis, and friendly debate, students actively enter into the creative life of the Department and of the rich theatre culture that surrounds us in New York City. Regular critical reading and writing assignments will be made.

Drama majors only. This course meets twice a week, once in a large lecture session devoted to richly illustrated presentations on topics in the history of stage practice (including theatre architecture, stage structure, costume, scenery and lighting design, theatre technology, and contemporaneous cultural and art history), and the second time in smaller seminars which provide introductory training to various aspects of current production and theatre technology. Interested students can receive focused training in stage management, lighting, scenery and costuming. All students participate in production work.

The study of African American dramatic traditions from early minstrelsy to turn of the century musical extravaganzas; from the Harlem Renaissance folk plays to realistic drama of the 1950s; from the militant protest drama of the 1960s to the historical and experimental works of the present. Issues of race, gender, class; of oppression and empowerment; of marginality and assimilation are explored in the works of such playwrights as Langston Hughes, Alice Childress, Lorraine Hansberry, Amiri Baraka, Adrienne Kennedy, George C. Wolfe, Ntozake Shange, August Wilson, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Anna Deavere Smith. The socio-historical context of each author is also briefly explored. (Theatre Studies B)

This course acts as both an introduction to the genre of Asian American theatre, and an interrogation into how this genre has been constituted. Through a combination of play analysis and historical discussion, the class will look a the ways Asian American drama and performance intersect with a burgeoning Asian American consciousness. (THEATRE STUDIES B)

Specific institutions in United States culture have captured the playwright's imagination throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries. Whether or not these institutions are revered or criticized by art, they are often the foundational structures that shape an American's private and public experiences, one's work life ("employment"), and domestic life ("marriage," "family"). Certainly, the nation's super-structures influence each one's lives, directly or indirectly-such as government (federal, state, local), military, the church, education, and entertainment. This course analyzes institutional structures and their impact on the diverse theatrical representations of individualization and community produced in and by a democratic society. We will look at conventional and experimental theatre--from canonized to under-represented work-created by a wide range of artists. Among the playwrights under consideration: Glaspell, Crothers, O'Neill, Stein, Treadwell, Odets, Saroyan, Wilder, Williams, Miller, Wright/Green, Albee, Kennedy, Fornes, Mamet, Pinero, Shanley, Houston, Parks, Wilson, Kushner, Cruz, Smith, Hoch, Jones, Forbes, Power, Beaty, The Group Theatre, Open Theatre, Wooster Group, Ridiculous Theatrical Company, Split Britches, Five Lesbian Brothers, Universes, and Elevator Repair Service. Among the critics: Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche, DuBois, Fanon, Althuser, Foucault, Butler, Savran, Diamond, Delbanco, Roediger, and Elam. Our semester's question: To what extent does US drama and performance reinscribe institutional "policy"/conventions or radically intervene in an effort to overturn familiar paradigms in favor of new representations and theatricalities? (Theatre Studies B)

Eurotics proposes an interdisciplinary approach to exploring contemporary European drama & performance by inter-connecting aesthetic, political, historical and geographical issues. The course will acquaint students with some of the cutting-edge European performers? and writers? artistic re/actions to life, the world and history, while giving students the opportunity to investigate their own responses to the same topics: war, death, madness, ethnic/racial/class/gender/sexual discrimination etc. Works by Sarah Kane, Mark Ravenhill, Heiner Muller, Botho Strauss, Marius von Mayenburg, Roland Schimmelpfennig, Yasmina Reza, Orlan, Vaclav Havel, Biljana Srbljanovic, and Milica Tomic, are among those to be studied. (THEATRE STUDIES B)

Arabs in the US have been writing dramas since the start of the 20th century; however it was not until the end of the 20th century that something like a movement came into existence. This class makes the case for an Arab-American theatre constituted within artistic responses to several shared experiences. Prominent among these are the increased surveillance and scrutiny that Arab Americans have experienced after 9/11. This concern for the civil liberties of Arabs in the US parallels distress at an apparent devaluing of Arab life throughout the world. Arab-American theatre came into existence amidst the growing visibility—after the intifada—of the indignities and hardships experienced by Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, concern for Iraq’s civilian population following the First Gulf War and the post-war sanctions, the torture and prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib, and the changing experience of Arab migration in an age of political Islam and new communication technologies. The moniker, Arab American, papers over a number of schisms evident in the term Arab itself—linguistic, national, religious, cultural, and economic. Arabs speak a score of dialects, profess more than a dozen faiths, and hail from twenty-two nations. Nonetheless the idea of a common Arab heritage is upheld in all of these nations and shared by a great many Arab-Americans. In short, to ask what is Arab-American theatre is to ask what is an Arab-American.

THEATRE & WAR. This course explores how theatre as an artistic medium represents war and grapples with the ethics of representation from Greek tragedy to contemporary drama. Instead of focusing on one historical era or nation, we will turn our attention to the question of genre, mediation, and the grounds for comparison. What is the history of theatrical representations of the atrocities of war? What makes theatre a particularly powerful site for engaging with the political and personal stakes of war? How have tragedy, comedy, Brecht’s epic theatre, and documentary theatre responded to the wars of their immediate historical contexts? How does theatre stage the memory of war? How does theatre engage with the mass proliferation of violent images in other media? Alongside these questions, we will explore issues of violence, propaganda, witnessing, trauma, and therapy. Finally, we will look at the phenomenon of “theatre of war” and the use of theatre in army training. (Theatre Studies B)

This course (different each time) focuses on one or two related major playwrights. Recent course offerings include Wilson, Kennedy and Parks, Williams, Beckett, Fornes, Ludlam and Theatre of the Ridiculous, and Contemporary playwrights. (Theatre Studies B)

A study of plays by female playwrights and feminist theatre from the perspective of contemporary feminist theory. Considerations include strategies for asserting new images of women on stage, the dramatic devices employed by female playwrights, lesbian aesthetics, race, class, and the rejection of realism. Possible plays and performance texts treated include those of Maria Irene Fornes, Caryl Churchill, Ntozake Shange, Adrienne Kennedy, Susan Glaspell, Aphra Behn, Holly Hughes, Karen Finley and Suzan-Lori Parks. (THEATRE STUDIES B)

This course explores over 400 years of gay and lesbian characters and themes in Western theatre and performance. From Marlowe to Kushner, Broadway to the cutting edge of performance, the class looks at gay and lesbian identities across time and performance genres against a background of cultural, social, sexual and critical history. (Theatre Studies B)

A study of the contemporary interdisciplinary movement inserting theatre into educational, therapeutic, and activist contexts, as evidenced in practices such as TIE (theatre-in-education), psychodrama, and "theatre of the oppressed." Examination of the collaboration of artists and people untrained in art to create work meaningful to their cultural loci; the problematic concept of community itself, to both include and exclude, and to oversimplify identity; the recentering of the theatrical event from playwright, director, or actor to the interaction between performer and spectator. (THEATRE STUDIES B)

In the spirit of Situationist Guy Debord, we shall think of the practice of radical street performance as the site in which ?the imaginary becomes real.? This class will examine historical and contemporary performances in non-traditional public spaces that seek to effect social change. We will critically analyze the ?how to,? the strategies and tactics that structure these performances, and the personal and political conditions that incite and affect their concept and execution. In the process of considering ourselves as practitioners, observers and critics of radical street performance, we will discuss and redefine its key terms including but not limited to: public and private space, performance, witness, spectator, object, subject, event, temporality, improvisation, duration, actor/performer and radical. (THEATRE STUDIES B)

A survey of the most original and influential examples of the American Musical Theatre tracing its development from the various strands of music and performance that arrived in America at the turn of the century to the current state of the Broadway musical. We look at the great songwriters, the important directors and choreographers, the leading performers and the landmark musicals that changed the game. This course is an excellent opportunity to place the current innovations of the musical into a cultural and historical context.

This course (different each time) explores one or more distinctive theatrical genres such as tragedy or comedy; melodrama, satire or farce; or plays of distinctive theatrical types, such as experimental ensembles, theatre of the absurd, solo performance, documentary theatre or same-sex plays. Since theatrical genres and theatrical types come into being because playwrights respond to historical necessity by visualizing specific world views, the course presents a study of the role and function of the theatre within societies as a response to historical, psychological and spiritual forces. (Theatre Studies B)

This course (different each time) explores the history and semiotics of one of several hybrid genres, such as dance drama, film adaptations of plays, or multimedia works. Recent topics include: Media and Performance, Icons of the Theatre. See notes for specific focus. (Theatre Studies B)

A typical job description for dramaturgs tends to promote them as "guardians of the text" or champions of the ideas in a theatrical production. More prosaically, a dramaturg is to a play what an auto mechanic is to a car: he may not have built it, but he knows what drives it and how to make it hum. Editor, critic, interpreter, scholar, historian, sleuth, facilitator, midwife, web geek, theorist, visionary - the dramaturg above all is a collaborator who works with the director, designers, and actors to help them create and maintain a conceptual approach to a production. And lest these descriptions sound too lofty or expansive, here's one more to bring us up short: "Dramaturg: German for smart ass." Students will learn about the dramaturg's role through readings, practices and class visits from dramaturgs, directors, designers, and actors. (THEATRE STUDIES B)

Course description (optional): The course is founded in disability justice theory, which is itself rooted in the collective artistic and writing practices of disabled queer-of-color performance group Sins Invalid. Reading with and through this framework, we will investigate the potential for theatre and performance to be sites of disability justice. Theoretical readings, journalism, and practical/activist/artist statements will inform how we encounter a variety of performance texts and films, as well as how we theorize embodiment. These readings will be interspersed with engagements with visionary thinkers of disability justice, weeks focused on dreaming fully accessible futures within and beyond the stage. On the one hand, this course will critique the role theatre has played as a socially-disabilizing apparatus for people with a range of abilities and impairments, as supplement, complement, and foundation to major debilitating structures of contemporary society: incarceration, war, capitalism, and environmental degradation. On the flip side, and equally as vital, we will study the legacy of disability justice organizing, with particular focus on theatre and performance-activist institutions, works, theories and practices by, for, and about people with disabilities and people of color. The goal for this course is that students will cultivate an expansive imagination for disability justice, and the scholarly support to apply that imagination to their own creative, intellectual, and activist practices.

This course will introduce students to a variety of 20th century theatrical productions staged during times of conflict and crisis. From the amateur stages made out of restaurant backrooms, street corners, and cafes to the professional Broadway theaters, we will look at how access to resources and government support influences strategies of production. From the 1920’s agitation trials (Agitsud), mass spectacles, and agitprop theater during the Russian Revolution to contemporary theatrical responses to disease, war, racism, and social oppression the course will examine how theater has been used as a reaction to social and political unrest, as a tool to fight oppression (or a tool to encourage obedience and propagate national political ideals), and as a respite from hardship. We will look at the performance theories and strategies that emerged during these theatrical moments, and we will read seminal plays that were written and staged during these periods. Throughout the course we will ask the question, “Why is theater often used as a response to crisis?” In addition to the historical and theoretical work the course will have a practical component. Students will be asked to imagine how he or she would produce a theatrical response to either a contemporary crisis (i.e. the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, marriage equality, abortion rights, health care reform…etc) or a historical crisis (i.e. Civil Rights, Vietnam War, sexual liberation, Women’s Rights…etc..). Finally, we will look at how the artists’ and activists’ access to resources influences the methods and products of theatrical production, and how restrictions can often open doors to new and inventive performance technologies. (Theatre Studies B)

A study of selected major theories of dramatic representation and theatrical communication, engaging such topics as the nature of mimesis, the history of ethics and aesthetics, and the role of the spectator. Along with seminal Western theoretical texts like Aristotle's Poetics, non-Western texts like the Sanskrit Natyashastra and modern theories like Brecht's epic theatre, Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty, and Grotowski's Poor Theatre are discussed. Finally, contemporary critical theories such as feminism, psychoanalysis, semiotics, deconstruction, new historicism, and postmodernism are explored for their relevance to theatre thinking. (Theatre Studies B)

This course (different each time) uses key theoretical concepts of the field of performance studies to examine a diverse range o performance practices. Topics include ritual, interculturalism, tourist performances, electronic and computer performance, sports performance, erotics, burlesque, masquerade and animality. (THEATRE STUDIES B)

This course (different each time) extends from the basic history of the musical theatre course offered each fall. It covers specific areas of musical theatre practice in greater detail. Focus subjects can include lyrics, choreography, the musicals of Stephen Sondheim, directors of musical theatre, experimental music theatre, etc. See notes for the specific focus. (THEATRE STUDIES B)

The course introduces students to the great variety of theatrical activity going on in the City, in order to recognize the vast number of theoretical issues and practical questions it raises, and to develop serious intellectual and critical vocabulary for responding to it. We attend performances having prepared by reading the play or related theoretical material. We follow each show with an in-depth class discussion of the major issues raised by the performance.

An exploration of the methodology for making the personal presentational. Using storytelling, automatic writing, and the facts and fictions of one's own life each student creates material for a solo performance piece. (Theatre Studies B)

Movement Practicum: The Performing Body in Theory and Practice. Theories of embodiment have been at the center of feminist theory and philosophy over the last few decades. This class will ask how practices of embodiment may shift the field of “body studies,” and how critical analysis might enlighten movement training for actors. The class will begin by examining key theoretical writings on embodiment; we will question how such writings define “the body” and what insights such definitions engender. Simultaneously, we will engage in basic anatomy of the body through physical exercises. The class will then turn to yoga as a central case study of philosophical and practice based relationships. We will deepen our practice of yoga and investigate the ways in which such movement training can be examined for social, historical and identity based significance. Subsequent examples may include interrogations into other movement-based techniques, such as the Viewpoints, Alexander technique, the work of Jerzy Grotowski and others. Readings may include work by Rene Descartes, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Shunryu Suzuki, Sharon Carnicke, Patanjali, B.K.S. Iyengar, Gilles Deleuze, Phillip Zarrilli, Bert States, Rebecca Schneider, Stephen Wangh and others. Class time will be generally divided between movement exercises and critical analysis and conversation. (Theatre Studies B)

This course explores the healing and therapeutic aspects of theatre and drama using drama therapy. Beginning with a study of play in child development, we will explore the three types of play - practice play, symbolic play, and games with rules - and examine their purposes in child development. We will then examine the four major techniques in drama therapy and their relationships to play and performance. We will study the Five Phase Model (Emunah), Developmental Transformations (Johnson), Rose Method (Landy), and Psychodrama (Moreno). The course will be theoretical, experiential, and technical. Students will have the opportunity to participate in each method of drama therapy, as well as lead drama therapy training sessions. (THEATRE STUDIES B)

This class introduces students to fundamental directing tools: principles of stage composition and visual story telling, action based script analysis, basic directing theory, applied Viewpoints and theatrical conceptualization. Through weekly composition and scene exercises students learn to create communicative stage imagery, physicalize dramatic action and articulate sub-textual behavior. Class work includes written analysis and production concept papers. Readings include writings of Brecht, Erving Goffman, Stanislavski, Grotowski, Bogart and Francis Hodges. (THEATRE STUDIES B)

This course outlines a framework through which to make artistic creation a reality. It focuses on the necessary steps to successfully found a company, enter work in a festival and produce self-created performance in a professional context. Issues explored include articulating a mission, the options for different producing models, choosing collaborators, developing a strategic plan, basic fund raising, marketing and managing the legal, financial and regulatory issues essential for start up enterprises in a theatrical environment. (Theatre Studies B)

New York City is celebrated in the English speaking world as a center of theatrical production, making a consequential contribution to the culture. The sheer volume, range and scope of activity can make the theater scene challenging to navigate, especially as an emerging professional. The course "Ecology of New York Theater" unpacks the power structures, operating systems and business models currently underpinning the live theater industry. From the commercial theater to not-for-profit companies to presenting organizations and festivals, how does each part of the sector function and where do they interact? Who are the power brokers within the current ecosystem and, perhaps more importantly, who are the influencers that are driving innovation - the makers and disrupters moving the field forward? With which producing companies, unions and institutions is it essential to become familiar as amatter of professional literacy? And who are the creatives and power brokers that are most significant in the field right now? How is new work developed in both the commercial and the not for profit theater? Who really decides what gets produced - how and why? Upon what should one rely for cultural information? Do critics still matter? What about new trends such as immersive theater, illusion, hybrid concerts, autobiographical and testimony theater, circus and burlesque? And what of the audience? What does the live experience offer - and has the responsibility of the artist toward the audience changed? Who is coming to the theater and who is not? While it will not be possible to cover every linchpin organization, company or creator, students will know how to find out what they need to know when they need to know it.

Whether on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or a job interview, we are required to communicate publicly. Yet, for any speech to be effective it must also be persuasive. This class combines lecture and workshop formats to introduce students to the craft of speaking publicly and persuasively as an artist or entrepreneur. Drawing upon the theatre as a form of persuasive, public speech, this course uses theatre history and performance techniques to teach students the basic concepts and skills of persuasive communication. Using the performance-based concepts like Erving Goffman’s notion of “self-presentation,” Sandford Meisner’s “particularization,” Bertolt Brecht’s concept of “epic theatre,” students will develop strategies for developing physical and emotional relationships with speeches to increase their persuasiveness. Students will learn how to structure and present demonstrative, informative, and persuasive speeches through the study of speech composition with the following aims: 1.) effectively teaching the class a skill (demonstrative), 2.) engagingly presenting research (informative), and 3.) convincing their peers to support an idea or venture (persuasive). Each form of speech will also be studied by analyzing corresponding dramatic speeches taken from works by Shakespeare, Chekhov, Mamet, and Washburn. Additionally, students will learn and practice vocal, breathing, and other theatre warm-ups and exercises to increase their capacity to relax and concentrate, speak with confidence and clarity and use props and visual aids during public presentations. (Theatre Studies B)

Leading & Managing Theatres in a Global Context. This course explores central themes and challenges in the leadership and management of theatre organizations in the 20th and 21st century from a global perspective. The course places a special emphasis on understanding the shifts and changes that are currently transforming the field. Students will address issues of leadership and service in producing and managing theatre and identify the skills and attributes required to facilitate the ongoing vitality of theatre making. The course will feature prominent guest lecturers who helm consequential and path-finding companies here in New York city. Projects will include primary research and presentations based on the examination of global practice models. (Theatre Studies B)

Focussed each time by genre (comedies, tragedies, romances, histories), or by theme or topic (theatricality, gender, race, politics, religion, etc.), this course explores the works of Shakespeare as text and performance - on stage or on film. Various 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. (THEATRE STUDIES C)

This course will examine the primarily 19th century European movement toward Realism and Naturalism that remains a major influence in today's theater, shaping both dramatic practice and audience expectation. The question of how to define these sometimes synonymous and often divergent terms will be tackled head-on, leading to a recognition that neither can be separated from each other or from the larger historical and theoretical context from which they arose. We will look at the relationship of Realism and Naturalism to the philosophical climate of the 1800s (Hegel, Darwin, Marx, Freud), to other theatrical movements (Romanticism, Symbolism, Expressionism and Aestheticism), to contemporaneous dramatic and literary forms (melodrama, the well-made play, the novel, photography), and to concrete historical trends (the rise of nation states, changing sex roles and family structures). The course focuses on the plays of the major European dramatists who defined the movement (Zola, Ibsen, Strindberg, Chekhov, Shaw), and tentatively traces its transformation in early to middle 20th century American drama. The inevitable question as to whether "the real" and "the natural" can ever be truly represented will be faced, but not at the expense of failing to ask what may or may not be gained from the attempt. (Theatre Studies C)

“Jamais réal et toujours vrai/Never real and always true.” -Antonin Artaud Since the late 19th century, theatre artists have experimented and explored in the spirit of Artaud’s declaration. The idea that truth can be attained more fully outside the realm of realism and traditional narrative has been the take-off point for Expressionism, Theatre of Cruelty, Surrealism, The Epic Theatre, Theatre of the Absurd, and Postmodernism. Plays and performances from each of these movements will be investigated for their innovation and examined within their historical context. Texts will include both representative plays and relevant essays by the playwrights (including Strindberg, Wedekind, Kandinsky, Kaiser, O'Neill, Treadwell, Artaud, Brecht, Beckett, Ionesco and Shepard, among others) as well as their literary and intellectual contemporaries. Over the course of the semester, each student will do in-depth research on a thematic area culminating in a group presentation and a final research paper. (Theatre Studies C)

This course will investigate ancient Greek theatre in its historical and theatrical context. We will cover a broad range of classical drama, paying special attention to current scholarship and debates in the field. Students will develop a comprehensive knowledge of Athenian drama, with an in-depth focus on ancient culture and stagecraft. Through a wide variety of readings, we will address topics such as textual interpretation, postcoloniality, gender, and cultural theory in fifth-century BCE Athens. Since ancient drama has been consistently appropriated by performers in subsequent periods, we will also look at the methodologies and contexts of versions from antiquity to the current season. (Theatre Studies C)

This course either (1) surveys dramatic history and theatrical practice in Europe from the middle of the 14th century to the beginning of the 17th century, starting with specific developments in Italy and followed by those in Spain and England or (2) focuses exclusively on the English Renaissance. The Continental survey includes plays by Beolco and Machiavelli, the commedia dell’arte and other parallel movements in Italy, and the plays of Calderón de la Barca and Lope de Vega in Spain. The plays of Shakespeare, Marlowe, and Ben Jonson are discussed in the context of developments specific to the English Renaissance. Topics such as theatre architecture, scenic design, and staging and performance practices are studied in relation to the style, themes, plot, and structure of the plays in each cultural context. (Theatre Studies C)

Examines the major features of nineteenth-century theatre in Europe and the United States. Varied genres may be considered, such as melodrama, farce, the well-made play, and symbolist drama, as well as popular performance forms such as pantomime, burlesque, vaudeville, and diorama. These forms will be related to important trends in the theatre, from the growth of national theatres to the rise of the director. We explore the significant changes in conditions of production and stage technologies: the competing styles of antiquarianism and lavish spectacle; the transformation of systems of lighting and theatre architecture; the development of theatrical syndicates and touring shows. In addition we analyze the first extensive theorizing of the art of acting and the growth of the cult of the actor. Specific course focus may vary each semester. (Theatre Studies C)

This course (different each time) focusses on one or more related playwrights. An in-depth study of their writings, theories, and production histories of their plays in relations to biographical, cultural, political, and aesthetic contexts. (Theatre Studies C)

The history of acting introduces the student to the major actors and acting styles of both the comic and tragic stages from the late 16th to early 20th centuries. Debates over the actor?s craft have breached the controversies of their day, exploring the meaning of the sublime, the human capacity for sentiment, the functioning of the human body, the make up of the nation, even the nature of race. This class charts the evolution of these debates in Europe and the U.S. and asks why actors and acting have inspired invectives, paeans, and riots.

This course examines the development of theatre architecture and design from the early formalized drama spaces (the theatre of Dionysus and the theatre of Epidaurus) to the English playhouse (the Globe to Convent Garden). We discuss the significance of the Italians to design, from the first temporary scenic elements to Serlio and Torelli to the Bibiena family. The course continues with the Paris Opera House, Wagner’s Bayreuth theatre; and the American playhouses of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, and it includes the technological changes during that period. The final aspect of the course focuses on contemporary multiple use and adaptable theatre spaces. Emphasis is placed on how trends in the theatre affect the designs of productions, individuals, and aesthetic and technical innovations. (Theatre Studies C)

Working semi-chronologically through the late 19th and 20th centuries, we will examine how the director emerged as the seminal force to be reckoned with in the theatre. We will read historical texts and examine visual research as well as dramatic texts and the critical response to the work. In each case we will consider the relationship of the director to the "text," to actor training, to the ensemble and collaboration, and to the design and technology. How did the director address the community he/she sought to engage? Students will also deliver oral presentations and formally lead discussions examining a contemporary director's theory and practice. In addition, we will conduct in-class experiential exercises exploring various directorial approaches. (THEATRE STUDIES C)

Theatre has been central in the invention, dissemination, and reimagining of nationalism since the ideology emerged in the 18th century through the current nationalist revival. Theatre was not simply a venue in which nationalism was articulated, it was a technology that helped bring nationalism into being. In the 21st century, the internet is the principal technology reinventing nationalist discourse and the theatre has become a space for reflecting on the shape and consequences of this nationalist revival. How do we account for theatre's changing relation to nationalism? What role does the rise and transformation of mass culture play in nationalism's varied iterations, and what does this say for theatre's past and potential as a mass entertainment? Europe frames our class. The first theories of nationalism were articulated in Europe at the same time that European theatre became a mass entertainment. Now, as Europe responds to the worst refugee crisis since WWII, nationalism has emerged a particularly potent ideology and theatre has gone from nationalism's champion to nationalism's most thoughtful critic. We also examine theatre and nationalism in the US context, from the colonial period to the Trump presidency, as well as the role of the performing arts in the rise and transformation of Arab nationalism.

The creative source of Community-Based Performance is not the isolated genius but rather collaborations with non-artists deeply engaged around a common theme. We’ll first examine historical performative models that integrate aesthetics/entertainment with at least one of the following: healing, spirituality/religion education, cultural transmission, and politics. These extend from shamanic ritual, carnival, and medieval cycle plays through revolutionary Russian theatrics, Nazi rallies, African theatre-for-development and psychodrama. The second half of the course lays out a chronology of such work in 20th century US. Topics include immigrants’ cultural performances, pageantry, workers theatre, the Harlem Renaissance, living newspaper, the Federal Theatre Project, the Grassroots Theater of the 1940s, theatre influenced by the Civil Rights Movement, ‘60s collective creation, ‘70s identity politics as reflected in theatre, and women’s troupes. Threaded through the course is an examination of community-based performance vis-à-vis radicality, the popular, and mainstream theatre tradition. (Theatre Studies C)

In this course we will chronicle the development of the historical avant-garde from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries, with a gesture toward the avant-garde’s ongoing development in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. We will approach the major avant-garde movements, including European Symbolism, Expressionism, Futurism, Surrealism, Dada, the Bauhaus, and Constructivism, as systematic means devised by avant-garde artists to reexamine and redefine the possibilities of theatre. We will also engage multicultural formations of the avant-garde, considering works from outside Europe and the US and interrogating what James Harding problematizes as the notion of the “cutting edge.” We will also critically engage the theoretical underpinnings of the avant-garde as we consider its relation to modernism—including the semantic origins of avant-garde in French military terminology—and, subsequently, postmodernism. Taking note of simultaneous developments in visual art, dance, music, and cinema to reflect their impact on and by theatre, we will also place artistic innovation within a broader sociopolitical and cultural context, including the Industrial Revolution, shifts in political and psychological ideologies, and the long-term effects of globalization on artistic production and reception. Throughout our study, we will ask ourselves: What comprises the “avant-garde” and does it still exist?; What is our relation, as students, performers, writers, and directors, to the historical avant-garde?; and How do the works of the historical avant-garde affect our engagement with contemporary theatre and performance today? (Theatre Studies C)

This course (different each time) explores one or more distinctive theatrical genres such as tragedy or comedy; melodrama, satire or farce; or plays of distinctive theatrical types, such as experimental ensembles, theatre of the absurd. Since theatrical genres and theatrical types come into being because playwrights respond to historical necessity by visualizing specific world views, the course presents a study of the role and function of the theatre within societies as a response to historical, psychological and spiritual forces. (Theatre Studies C)

This course (different each time) explores the history and semiotics of one of several hybrid genres, such as dance drama, film adaptations of plays, or multimedia works. Recent topics include: Art History for Theatre-Makers, and Opera.. (Theatre Studies C)

Through a close examination of dramatic texts, theatrical groups and movements, this course will offer a comparative study of drama and theatre produced by African, African-American, Black British and Caribbean practitioners. It will explore how conventions of drama and theatre, as cultural practices, offer sites for performing identity and subjectivity. The course will use the idea of the Black Atlantic as a framing device signifying Africa?s historical encounter with Europe, and the connections of Africans and people of African descent in Britain, the USA and the Caribbean. Issues and theories of racial, national, ethnic, gender and sexual identities will be closely studied, The 1960s to the 1990s will be our historical context. Dramatists will include Wole Soyinka, Ngugi wa Thiongo, Ama Ata Aidoo, August Wilson, Ntozake Shange, and Derek Walcott. Groups will include Market Theatre, Kamirithu, Talawa Arts, Negro Ensemble, and Sistren. Drama in films such as Rue Cases Negres?. Dancehall Queen and Do the Right Thing will also be studied.

This course (different each time) examines different traditions, innovations, representations, and locations of Asian Theatre. The influence of major aesthetic texts such as the Natyashastra and the Kadensho are studied in relationship to specific forms of theatre such as Kagura, Bugaku, Noh, Bunraku, Kabuki, Shingeki, Jingxi, Geju, Zaju, Kathakali, Kathak, Odissi, Chau, Manipuri, Krishnattam, Kutiyattam, Raslila, and P'ansori. The dramatization of religious beliefs, myths, and legends is examined in a contemporary context. Different focuses include Japanese theatre, traditional Asian performances on contemporary stages, religion and drama in Southeast Asia, and traditions of India. (Theatre Studies C)

Course description (optional): This course explores through the lens of performance how disability and embodied difference have historically participated in the generation of culture. Looking to various cultural locations from the Greek classical period to the contemporary moment, we will study how disability and embodied difference are performed and represented in spaces that have regularly de-privileged non-normative bodies. Our work together will often involve examining the complex relationship disability has to the history of medicine, always recognizing the co-generative nature of this relationship. Through lectures and discussions, we will engage in the study of critical social and cultural theories of disability, do close readings of historiographies of disability experiences, and analyze performance texts across a range of genres.

This course provides an overview of the role of ritual, theatre and performance in Latin America from the precolonial to the colonial period. It will look at the changing role of ritual in the region, from the qhapaq hucha of the Incas to the autos-de-fe of colonial Spanish America. With the advent of Spanish imperialism we will explore how theatre was deployed as part of a larger project of evangelization and colonization. The latter part of the course will examine theatre culture in colonial Latin America through dramatic texts by Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Juan Ruiz de Alarcon and others. Central to our discussion will be the relationship between ritual and theatre, performance and power, and the emergence of a baroque culture in the Americas.

The Honors Seminar in Theatre Studies focusses on a different topic in dramatic literature, theatre history, or performance studies each semester. The seminar offers intense and rigorous academic study with an emphasis on critical thinking and research skills. A substantial amount of critical writing is required, as is an oral presentation. Students apply for consideration, and a limited number are accepted. (THEATRE STUDIES C)

The honors thesis is a substantial piece of original research and critical writing. To write a Thesis, a student must have completed two Honors Seminars with grades of B or better in both, and must also have successfully proposed a thesis proposal to her/his perspective faculty mentor.

This course is designed as a practical introduction to some of the principles, techniques, and tools of acting as practiced in Tisch Drama. In the first half of the course we focus on developing the actor: we investigate what is required of an actor onstage, how to think about your body in space, how to interact with other actors, how to sharpen your observation, how to harness your imagination, and how to increase your "presence" onstage. In the second half of the course we focus on developing a character, and developing a rehearsal process. We will work on scenes from plays by Shepard, Shakespeare, and Chekhov to investigate what is required of the actor at all times vs. what is required of the actor in different situations and genres. By the end of this course students will have been introduced to several different schools of acting, and they will have developed their own method for creating a character.

A 2-unit companion course to THEA-UT 475, THEA-UT 480, or THEA-UT 485 to provide a combined total of 6-units.

Intensive, academic work, generally an extension of work done in a previous Theatre Studies class. Each point requires 2-3 hours of work per week for each of the fifteen weeks in the semester, and the final project must reflect that amount of study. The proposal must be sponsored by a faculty member who is available to monitor the student?s progress.

This course examines German theater of the twentieth century, from Expressionism to contemporary postdramatic forms of writing and performance. The course will first offer an overview of German theater traditions before 1900 and will then engage in analyzing specific developments in German theater starting with Max Reinhardt and his work at the Deutsches Theater Berlin. Other case studies will focus on Brecht’s epic theater, theater during the Third Reich, postwar theater trends in East and West Germany, and current developments in reunified Germany. Not only will we closely read relevant plays and theory by the theater makers of the respective periods but we will also explore aesthetics and performance issues as they have changed over time. As the involved practice of dramaturgy in Germany has greatly influenced theatrical developments, we will investigate this major aspect of theatrical work in Germany as a contribution to world theater and study how the extensive debate of ideas is being concretely realized in the theater through the choices being made in a production. An integral part of the course will include visits to Berlin theaters, attending performances, which we will analyze in class, and engaging in discussion with contemporary theater makers in Berlin.