CRN

94437

Distribution

F  */ (Practicing Art)

Course No.

THTR 101 A

Title

Introduction to Acting

Professor

Lynn Hawley

Schedule

Tu Th            10:00 am - 11:20 am     Fisher Ctr

3 credits  This course, intended for prospective theater majors, focuses on accessing the beginning actor’s imagination and creative energy.  Using theater games, movement work, and improvisational techniques, the intent is to expand the boundaries of accepted logic and to encourage risk-taking in the actor.  Course work includes intensive classroom sessions, individual projects designed to promote self-discovery, and group projects focused on the process of collaborative work.

 

CRN

94438

Distribution

F */ (Practicing Art)

Course No.

THTR 101 B

Title

Introduction to Acting

Professor

Lynn Hawley

Schedule

Tu Th            11:30 am - 12:50 pm     Fisher Ctr

3 credits    See description above.

 

CRN

94439

Distribution

F */ (Practicing Art)

Course No.

THTR 101 C

Title

Introduction to Acting

Professor

Naomi Thornton

Schedule

Th                 3:20 pm -  5:20 pm       Fisher Ctr

2 credits    Scene preparation and beginning scene technique.  Emphasis on relaxation, breathing, and concentration.  Teaching the actor to make choices and implement them using sense memory and to integrate this work with the text.  Group and individual exercises and improvisations. Continuous work on the acting instrument stressing freedom, spontaneity, and individual attention. Materials: poems, monologues, stories, and scenes.  Reading of American plays, 1930 to present.

 

CRN

94440

Distribution

F */ (Practicing Art)

Course No.

THTR 131 A

Title

Voice for Majors

Professor

Elizabeth Smith

Schedule

Tu Fr             1:30 pm -  2:30 pm       Fisher Ctr

2 credits    This course is designed to develop an awareness of the importance of physical relaxation, breath capacity and control, resonance and placement.  There will also be an emphasis on clarity of articulation and the use of vocal range and inflection.  This course is intended for moderated and prospective theater majors.

 

CRN

94441

Distribution

F */ (Practicing Art)

Course No.

THTR 131 B

Title

Voice for Non-Majors

Professor

Elizabeth Smith

Schedule

Tu Fr             3:00 pm -  4:00 pm       Fisher Ctr

2 credits This course will concentrate on basic voice and speech work to enable the students to communicate with greater clarity and confidence.  Some of the demands of speaking in public will also be addressed.

 

CRN

94442

Distribution

F */ (Practicing Art)

Course No.

THTR 141 A

Title

Alexander Technique

Professor

Judith Youett

Schedule

Mon               9:30 am - 11:00 am      Fisher Ctr

1 credit.  A world-respected technique developed over 100 years ago; the Alexander Technique is a valuable tool for performers, writers, scholars, and artists.  It is a simple and practical approach to improving balance, coordination and movement.  During this course we will learn about habits of thinking and moving that cause stress and fatigue.  This awareness will enable different choices to be made in ourselves and how we respond to the environment.    Register for one 90-minute group per week, THTR 141A or THTR 141B.

 

CRN

94443

Distribution

F */ (Practicing Art)

Course No.

THTR 141 B

Title

Alexander Technique

Professor

Judith Youett

Schedule

Wed               9:30 am - 11:00 am      Fisher Ctr

1 credit.    See description above.

 

CRN

94444

Distribution

F */ (Practicing Art)

Course No.

THTR 142

Title

Alexander Technique II

Professor

Judith Youett

Schedule

Mon               11:00 am - 12:30 pm     Fisher Ctr

1 credit    Level II deepens the study of Alexander Technique including the developmental movements that children make from birth to upright posture. 

 

CRN

94447

Distribution

F */ (Practicing Art)

Course No.

THTR 207

Title

Playwrighting I

Professor

Dominic Taylor

Schedule

Tu                 1:30 pm -  3:50 pm       Fisher Ctr

4 credits   An introductory course that focuses on discovering the writer’s voice. Through writing exercises based on dreams, visual images, poetry, social issues, found text, and music, each writer is encouraged to find his or her unique language, style, and vision.  A group project will explore the nature of collaborative works.  Students learn elements of playwriting through writing a one-act play, reading assignments, and class discussions.

 

CRN

94448

Distribution

F */ (Practicing Art)

Course No.

THTR 208

Title

Playwrighting II

Professor

Dominic Taylor

Schedule

Wed               10:00 am - 12:50 pm     Fisher Ctr

4 credits   This course will function as a writer’s workshop. After writing a short play, students focus on developing a full-length play, with sections of the work-in-progress presented in class for discussions. Students grow as playwrights by being exposed to diverse dramatic literature and doing a short adaptation project either of a classic play or a short story.

Prerequisite: Playwrighting I.

 

CRN

94446

Distribution

A */ (Analysis of Art)

Course No.

THTR 211

Title

History of Theater II

Professor

Jean Wagner

Schedule

Mon  Wed        11:30 am -  12:50 pm  OLIN 305

4 credits   This course looks at the major periods of dramatic literature, from the renaissance to the twentieth century. Plays will be read with particular reference to historical context and dramatic convention informing theater practice during these periods. Along with the plays, we’ll look at critical and theoretical essays that elucidate these social and aesthetic conditions.  Playwrights will include Moliere, Ibsen, Chekhov, Brecht and Beckett.

 

CRN

94449

Distribution

F */ (Practicing Art)

Course No.

THTR 227

Title

Neutral Masks

Professor

Shelley Wyant

Schedule

Mon               1:30 pm -  4:30 pm       Fisher Ctr

2 credits  The roots of mask work come from a diverse system of traditions including the Balinese, the great teachers and the theorists Pierre LeFevre, Michel St. Denis, Jaques LeCoq and Francis Delsarte.  Neutral Masks is an exploration of the world of the mask and all the freedom it has to offer performers, using tools of breath and focus.  Students learn to identify the elements that contribute to physical expression.

Prerequisite: Introduction to Acting

 

CRN

94450

Distribution

F */ (Practicing Art)

Course No.

THTR 228

Title

Character Mask

Professor

Shelley Wyant

Schedule

Wed               1:30 pm -  4:30 pm       Fisher Ctr

2 credits.  Building on the work of Neutral Mask, students will work with masks that have very stylized and recognizable expressions.  This leads the performer into liberation behind the mask that assists in the development of characters.  Through the body, the story of the person in the mask is explored.

Prerequisite: THR 227

 

CRN

94452

Distribution

F  */ (Practicing Art)

Course No.

THTR 303

Title

Directing Seminar

Professor

Rebecca Guy

Schedule

Mon               10:00 am -  1:00 pm      Fisher Ctr Wed               10:00 am - 11:30 am     Fisher Ctr

4 credits   This is a studio course that covers the practice of directing from text analysis, “table work”,  imagining the world of the play, design, casting, space, rehearsal and blocking in different configurations. The work will proceed from scenes to a full-length work.  By permission of the instructor.

 

CRN

94453

Distribution

F */ (Practicing Art)

Course No.

THTR 303CO

Title

Acting Company

Professor

Rebecca Guy

Schedule

Mon               10:00 am -  1:00 pm      Fisher Ctr

Wed               10:00 am - 11:30 am     Fisher Ctr 

4 credits    Corresponding with Directing Seminar, actors work with student directors on scene work for in-class presentation.  Open to first year students.

 

CRN

94455

Distribution

F */ (Practicing Art)

Course No.

THTR 327 A

Title

Advanced Acting

Professor

Lynn Hawley

Schedule

Wed               1:30 pm -  4:30 pm       Fisher Ctr

4 credits     This is a studio acting class where students will explore scenes from challenging plays of varied styles.  Extensive rehearsal time outside of class is required. 

Pre-requisites: Intro to Acting and Scene Study.  Maximum enrollment: 12 students.

 

CRN

94456

Distribution

F */ (Practicing Art)

Course No.

THTR 327 B

Title

Advanced Acting

Professor

Naomi Thornton

Schedule

Th                 1:00 pm -  3:00 pm       Fisher Ctr

3 credits    Scene Technique with work on specific rehearsal tasks and practice of their application. Continued work on the acting instrument, understanding the actor as artist and deepening the physical, emotional, intellectual connection and availability of each actor. Advanced individual exercises, scenes, and monologues from all dramatic literature. Intended for Upper College students, others by permission. Repeatable for credit.  Prerequisite: Introduction to Acting

 

CRN

94457

Distribution

F  */ (Practicing Art)

Course No.

THTR 340

Title

Voice in Performance

Professor

Elizabeth Smith

Schedule

Fr                  11:00 am - 12:50 pm     Fisher Ctr

2 credits This course is designed for those students who have already had some training in voice and will concentrate on addressing demands which occur in performance such as speaking over underscoring, sustaining dialogue in fights or dances, and developing power and range.  Technical exercises will be used to promote coordination of speech and movement.

 

 

SURVEY OF DRAMA

Survey of Drama courses study the major styles and periods in drama from a literary, stylistic, and performance perspective, and are at the center of the Theater Program. They are practical courses, applying text to scene work. All theater majors are expected to take three courses over two years from the Survey of Drama. Each course carries 4 credits.

 

CRN

94454

Distribution

B  */ ( Lit in English)

Course No.

THTR 310 A

Title

Survey of Drama:The Greeks

Professor

JoAnne Akalaitis

Schedule

Mon               1:30 pm -  4:30 pm       Fisher Ctr

Cross-listed: Classical Studies

4 credits    The three great Greek playwrights, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides created drama that is the greatest source of inspiration in the history of theater.  They are the inventors of Western drama.  These playwrights created a unique form of theater that combines music, poetry, and chorus, psychologically complex characters and mercurial gods that intersect to create “the tragic event" in dramatic form.  The stories in our terms are epic, enormous, enlarged versions of repeated tales of family, love, blood feuds, war, human sacrifice and transformation, using the most economical of means, little action on stage,  central characters and chorus who usually tell of a violent action offstage.  This dramatic form has never since been duplicated yet it has continual resonance in modern theater (consider the many adaptations of Greek plays) This course will study Athenian tragedy in the context of playwrights who commanded the attention of the entire community and dramatized visions of issues that affected their society.  Special consideration will be given to the social and political context of the plays, the creation of powerful women characters who act between the extremes of good and evil, and the chorus which changed significantly from the relative simplicity of Aeschylus to the radical experimentation of Euripides. Readings include: The first extant trilogy, The Oresteia by Aeschylus, Sophocles' Oedipus Cycle and Philoctetes, Iphegenia in Aulis and Taurus, The Bacchae and Media by Euripides.  Knowledge of Aristotle’s' Poetics is required. Open to lower and upper college students.

Scene works, papers, and a visit to Metropolitan Museum of Art.

 

CRN

94154

Distribution

B */ (Lit in English)

Course No.

LIT 2503

Title

Studies in Shakespeare

Professor

Elizabeth Frank

Schedule

Wed Th         1:30 pm -  2:50 pm       OLIN 203

Cross-listed:  Theater

This course will be an intensive examination of selected plays in every genre in which Shakespeare wrote: comedy, tragedy, history and romance.  Although we will remain open to a variety of approaches and questions, we will ground our discussion throughout the semester in the close reading of actual texts.  Plays include A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Troilus and Cressida, Hamlet, King Lear, Henry IV (Parts I and II), Richard III, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest.