Areas of Study: The Theater and Performance Program offers courses in Context, Technique, and Creative Practice and Research, and students are required to take classes in all three areas of study. Context courses include the history of theater and performance, contemporary practice, theories of theater and performance, dramatic literature, world theater. Technique courses include skills-based classes in playwriting, directing, acting, voice, movement, dramatic structure, performance, and composition. Creative Practice and Research comprises productions, performance laboratories, master classes and specialized workshops. All courses carry 4 credits except where otherwise indicated.

Moderation Requirements: The following 5 courses are required for students wishing to moderate into the Theater and Performance Program:

1. THTR 145 Introduction to Theater and Performance: Revolutions in Time and Space

2. THTR 110 Introduction to Acting: The Actor and the Moment

3. THTR 107 Introduction to Playwriting: the Theatrical Voice

4. THTR 244 Introduction to Theater Making (spring semester)

5. THTR 146 Introduction to Theater History

In addition, students participate in the creation and performance of a group-devised Moderation project.

TECHNIQUE:

92075

THTR 101

Acting for Non-Majors

Naomi Thornton

W 3:10 pm-5:10 pm

FISHER PAC RESNICK

PART

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. Class size: 12

92076

THTR 107 A

Intro to Playwriting

Brooke Berman

M 10:10 am-1:10 pm

FISHER STUDIO NORTH

PART

Cross-listed: Written Arts 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. All students welcome, preference to Theater majors. (No writing sample required.) Class size: 12

92077

THTR 107 B

Intro to Playwriting

Brooke Berman

M 1:30 pm-4:30 pm

FISHER STUDIO NORTH

PART

See above. Class size: 12

92078

THTR 107 C

Intro to Playwriting

Jorge Cortinas

Th 10:10 am-1:10 pm

AVERY 338

PART

See above. Class size: 12

92079

THTR 110 A

The Actor & the Moment

Jonathan Rosenberg

T Th 10:10 am-11:30 am

FISHER PAC RESNICK

PART

In this class we examine how an actor brings truth to the smallest unit of performance. The richness of the moment is created by the imaginative, physical, psychological, intellectual and emotional qualities that the actor brings to it. We explore ways to gain access to richly layered authenticity through games, improvisations, individual creations and exercises in given circumstance. Students are given tools to transcend accepted logic, embrace risk-taking, and live fully in the present. Class size: 16

92080

THTR 110 B

The Actor & the Moment

Jean Wagner

T Th 3:10 pm-4:30 pm

FISHER PAC RESNICK

PART

See above. Class size: 16

92081

THTR 110 C

The Actor & the Moment

Jack Ferver

W F 1:30 pm-2:50 pm

FISHER PAC RESNICK

PART

See above. Class size: 16

92082

THTR 203

Directing Seminar

Jonathan Rosenberg

W 10:10 am-1:10 pm

FISHER PAC CONFERENCE

PART

Cross-listed: Film & Electronic Arts This class introduces students to fundamental practical and theoretical concepts in directing. The art and craft of the director involves the close analysis of texts, the conceptualizing of a production, the translation of the text into the language of the stage, and the work with collaborators including actors and designers. The exploration in this class includes exercises examining the language of the stage, analytical and practical work on texts, and an examination of the work and writings of seminal directors. There will be weekly assignments of work that will be brought in and examined in class and one longer more substantial project for the end of the semester. Class size: 12

92083

THTR 209

Scene Study

Ally Sheedy

F 2:00 pm-5:00 pm

FISHER PAC SSR

PART

A course intended for students who have taken one semester of Intro to Acting and would like to continue their study. The course deals with movement from a games oriented curriculum into work with theatrical texts and discovery of the processes of scene study. Class size: 16

92084

THTR 243

Voice and Text

Lindsey Liberatore

T 1:30 pm-4:30 pm

FISHER STUDIO NORTH

PART

This course introduces actors and performers to the fundamentals of voice work and text analysis. Students first develop their vocal apparatus by applying a range of techniques (including Fitzmaurice Voicework, Linklater, and yoga) to access greater range and variety of vocal character and to rid the body of tension and free the authentic voice. We will learn safe warm ups and preparatory exercises that can be used in rehearsals and in private practice. Students will be taught to approach text by seeking out dynamic phasing, operative words, and arc, creating a profound connection between body, breath, voice, and language. While the course is primarily intended for Theater & Performance students, it may be of interest to others who which to develop their public speaking skills. This course fulfills a Technique requirement in the Theater & Performance Program. Class size: 15

91612

THTR 250

Dramatic Structure

Gideon Lester

T Th 1:30 pm-2:50 pm

OLINLC 120

ELIT

Cross-listed: Literature In this seminar we will explore the dynamics, mechanics, and fundamental building blocks of drama, and discover how analysis of a play's structure can be indispensable and revelatory for theater artists and scholars. We will investigate models of dramatic structure from Aristotle and the Greeks, through Shakespeare, neoclassicism, and modernism, to contemporary experimental and “post-dramatic” theatre. We will consider plays, dramatic theories, and performances, as well as practical methods for putting structural discoveries to use in rehearsal and production. Students will become adept at several modes of structural analysis of texts and performance events. Assigned work includes substantial reading, a series of written exercises, and a comprehensive structural map of at least one full-length play with an accompanying written analysis and plan for production.

Class size: 16

92085

THTR 308

Advanced Scene Study

Naomi Thornton

Th 1:30 pm-3:30 pm

FISHER STUDIO NORTH

PART

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. Prerequisite: Introduction to Acting. Class size: 12

CONTEXT:

92086

THTR 145 A

Intro to Theater & Performance

Miriam Felton-Dansky

T Th 11:50 am-1:10 pm

FISHER STUDIO NORTH

AART

This course introduces a sequence of key concepts and ideas in world theater, and should ideally be taken at the start of a student’s journey through the Theater and Performance curriculum. We will base our discussions on primary and secondary texts and modes of performance from 2,500 years of world theater, starting with Aristotle and the Greek tragic playwrights and approaching the cutting edge of contemporary performance practice. We will ask questions about interpretation, ephemerality, and reenactment, investigate how great artists from across the centuries have controlled our experience of theatrical time and space, and examine such topics as the representation of reality on stage, the relationship between performance and audience, and the constantly evolving interplay of theater and democracy. Class size: 22

92087

THTR 145 B

Intro to Theater & Performance

Jean Wagner

T Th 1:30 pm-2:50 pm

FISHER PAC RESNICK

AART

See above. Class size: 25

92088

THTR 146

Intro to Theater History

Miriam Felton-Dansky

W F 11:50 am-1:10 pm

FISHER STUDIO NORTH

AART

Where should a study of theater begin, and how did pre-modern models of theater change, as successive societies revised, rejected, and appropriated the forms that had gone before? This course will investigate selected periods in world theater, beginning with the massive communal festivals of ancient Greece and culminating in the philosophical upheavals of the Enlightenment. Paying close attention to connections between drama, stagecraft, and modes of spectatorship, we will ask how the theater has shored up political power; how the stage has served as a scale model for the known world; and what has been at stake in changing notions of classicism. Through analytical essays, class presentations, and a final performance project, we will cultivate a critical vocabulary for discussing theaters of the past—and discover their often-surprising legacies in modern and contemporary performance.

Class size: 15

92089

THTR 329

Theater, Surveillance, AND THE Internet AGE

Miriam Felton-Dansky

T 1:30 pm-3:50 pm

FISHER PAC CONFERENCE

AART

Cross-listed: Experimental Humanities From Twitter-speak to virtual realities, streaming video to globally dispersed performance, the aesthetics and politics of the Internet age have left a deep imprint on contemporary theater. This course will explore the intersection of twenty-first century performance with digital culture, focusing on the ways in which contemporary artists open up questions of surveillance, identity, anonymity, and public space. We will explore how artists have used new technologies to upend fundamental assumptions about theater; how live actors and audiences have been placed in conversation with global networks; and how technologies of surveillance have been used to interrogate questions of power and representation. Artists under examination will include Big Art Group, Annie Dorsen, Gob Squad, Forced Entertainment, Richard Maxwell, Blast Theory, and Christoph Schlingensief. Students will attend the Fisher Center’s fall 2016 symposium about theater and surveillance, and travel to New York City to see new work. Assignments will include performance responses, a research paper, and a creative project in dialogue with the themes of the class. Class size: 16

92072

THTR 353

Performing Queer

Jorge Cortinas

W 1:30 pm-4:30 pm

FISH CONFERENCE

D+J

AART

DIFF

Cross-listed: Art History, Gender & Sexuality Studies Theater and performance artists who are interested in upending hetero-normative constructions of gender have long used a powerful array of performance strategies such as camp, cross dressing, cabaret, utopic longing, disidentification and radical re-imaginings of both private and public sex acts. This seminar will conduct close readings of critical readings grounded in feminism, post-colonialism, and queer studies, and then explore how those texts illuminate and complicate the work of artists such as Justin Bond, Split Britches, Taylor Mac, Nao Bustamante and Charles Ludlam. In addition to written and oral assignments throughout the semester, students will complete a final project that unpacks and demonstrates familiarity with these queer performance strategies. The final project may be an academic paper or a creative project. The focus and form of the final project must be approved by the instructor. Class size: 15

CREATIVE PRACTICE AND RESEARCH

92091

THTR 241

Performance Composition

Jack Ferver

Th 2:00 pm-5:00 pm

FISHER SSR

PART

Cross-listed: Dance A Creative Practice course in which students develop original movement- and text-based performances, using a series of exercises to locate and deepen self-expression. The semester begins with stretch and placement techniques and core work to develop a neutral and ready body, followed by a sequence of impulse-based improvisation techniques enabling students to find authentic movement and push past their physical limitations. These improvisations will lead into original phrase work, training students to develop their own unique choreographic and performance styles. The second half of the semester is focused on writing composition. Students will complete timed writing exercises in class, designed to free the creative voice, and will then be given individual guidance and dramaturgical assignments, leading to the development and performance of an original text and movement score.

Class size: 12

92093

THTR 331

Devised Theater Lab

Geoffrey Sobelle

M 2:00 pm-5:00 pm

FISHER SSR

PART

This class will explore the innovative and adventurous process of devising performance works for the stage. Through practical exercises including improvisations, composition exercises, and ensemble techniques, students will learn how to generate ideas, research, shape, organize and create new works for the stage. Students will experiment with creating work based on non-dramatic, fictional source material, both for theater spaces and site-specific locations. Theories of narrative and dramatic structure will be examined, and students will experiment with methods and techniques for applying these creatively in practice. We will examine how several contemporary artists and ensembles generate new works. Assignments will include composition and dramaturgical exercises of various lengths and levels of complexity, and active participation in collaborative creations. Class size: 12

92114

THTR 342

Performing Difficult Questions: RACE, SEX AND RELIGION ON CAMPUS

Roger Berkowitz

Jonathan Rosenberg

T Th 11:50 am-1:10 pm

FISHER PAC RESNICK

MBV

D+J

HUM

Cross-listed: Human Rights, Political Studies This hybrid politics/human rights/theater seminar and studio course explores the theatrical

performance of non-dramatic texts concerning racial, sexual, and religious discrimination and identities. The performance of political speeches, poetry readings, academic lectures, or courtroom transcripts requires inhabiting and emboding arguments that humanize the original author – a process that can be artistically, ethically, and politically complex, even paradoxical. We will study performances by artists working in this tradition, such as Anna Deavere Smith, Pieter Dirk Uys, and Tectonic Theater Project. Students will also generate their own texts and performances. In conjunction with the 2016 Hannah Arendt Center Conference, “How do we Talk about Difficult Questions?” we will make particular study of the environment of the university campus as a safe space for difficult questions, and examine how the presentation of controversial topics may interfere with equality even as it stimulates thinking. Students are required to attend parts of the Arendt Center Conference on Oct. 20-21 and some students may have an opportunity to perform monologues at the Conference. Authors include Claudia Rankine, Mary Gaitskill, Jennifer Doyle, Greg Lukianoff, Jeannie Suk, Shelby Steele, Hannah Arendt, and more. Class size: 16

92092

THTR 354

Live Art Installation

Justin Vivian Bond

M 1:30 pm-4:30 pm

FISHER PAC RESNICK

PART

This advanced studio course in live art is primarily intended for students in Theater & Performance and Studio Arts, though is open to all. Working individually and collaboratively, students will develop projects at the intersection of performance and installation. Participants will be encouraged to locate and amplify their singular artistic voices, exploring techniques from live art, text, movement, video, sound, installation, and performance. Students will create work each week, both during and outside class, for presentation and critique. We will study the work of pioneering artists from across genres, including Jerome Caja, Colette, the Cockettes, Derek Jarman, Cindy Sherman, Nina Simone, Benjamin Smoke, and Elizabeth Swados. Class size: 12