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 (fall semester)

 

Technique    

 

Course:

THTR 107 A Introduction to Playwriting: The Theatrical Voice

Professor:

Daaimah Mubashshir 

CRN:

90348

Schedule:

 Tue      10:10 AM - 1:10 PM Fisher Performing Arts Center CONFERENCE

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts

Class cap:

12

Credits:

4

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.)

 

Course:

THTR 107 B Introduction to Playwriting: The Theatrical Voice

Professor:

Daaimah Mubashshir 

CRN:

90349

Schedule:

   Thurs    10:10 AM - 1:10 PM Fisher Performing Arts Center CONFERENCE

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts

Class cap:

12

Credits:

4

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.)

 

Course:

THTR 110 A Introduction to Acting: The Actor and the Moment

Professor:

Jack Ferver  

CRN:

90350

Schedule:

Mon  Wed     3:50 PM - 5:10 PM Fisher Performing Arts Center RESNICK

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts

Class cap:

16

Credits:

4

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.

 

Course:

THTR 110 B Introduction to Acting: The Actor and the Moment

Professor:

Jonathan Rosenberg  

CRN:

90351

Schedule:

 Tue  Thurs    10:20 AM - 11:40 AM Fisher Performing Arts Center RESNICK

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts

Class cap:

16

Credits:

4

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.

 

Course:

THTR 110 D Introduction to Acting: The Actor and the Moment

Professor:

Bhavesh Patel  

CRN:

90752

Schedule:

  Wed  Fri   10:20 AM - 11:40 AM Fisher Performing Arts Center STUDIO NO.

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts

Class cap:

12

Credits:

4

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.

 

Course:

THTR 203  Directing Seminar

Professor:

Jonathan Rosenberg  

CRN:

90353

Schedule:

 Tue  Thurs    12:10 PM - 1:30 PM Fisher Performing Arts Center RESNICK

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts

Class cap:

10

Credits:

4

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.

 

Course:

THTR 209  Intermediate Acting: Scene Study

Professor:

Bhavesh Patel  

CRN:

90354

Schedule:

  Wed  Fri   2:00 PM - 3:20 PM Fisher Performing Arts Center STUDIO NO.

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts

Class cap:

16

Credits:

4

This is the second in the sequence of acting classes in the Theater and Performance Program. In this class the concepts that have been explored in the introductory class -given circumstances, presence in the moment, theatrical imagination, and inhabiting personal truth- are used as a foundation to explore acting in scripts and with characters drawn from the work of contemporary American playwrights. Students will learn, and put into practice, such essential structural tools as script analysis, the use of objectives and actions, physical actions, the construction of character, and the collaborative rehearsal process. In this class students will rehearse and perform two substantial scenes drawn from the plays of a diverse group of contemporary writers including work from the global majority, as well as others from an earlier generation such as Suzan-Lori Parks, Tony Kushner, Diana Son, August Wilson, Arthur Miller, Thorton Wilder, Sam Shepard, Lorraine Hansberry, Clifford Odets, Caryl Churchill and Elizabeth Egloff. In addition, students research, rehearse, and perform a character study, the "˜Ancestor Project', which allows for the deep exploration of an actor's transformation into a character. The prerequisite for the class is the successful completion of Introduction to Acting: The Actor and the Moment.

 

Course:

THTR 243  Voice and Text

Professor:

Lindsey J. Liberatore  

CRN:

90355

Schedule:

   Thurs    2:00 PM - 5:00 PM Fisher Performing Arts Center STUDIO NO.

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

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.

 

Course:

THTR 252  Advanced Acting: Clown

Professor:

Geoffrey Sobelle  

CRN:

90364

Schedule:

    Fri   2:00 PM - 4:20 PM Fisher Performing Arts Center RESNICK

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts

Class cap:

12

Credits:

4

In each performer there is a clown. Your clown exists on the other end of the tether that begins with your generosity, honesty, vulnerability, and desire to be upon the stage and give to the audience what you value. The clown cannot be crafted but must be discovered. Through a series of warm-ups, exercises in kinesthetic and empathic response, and group and individual improvisations we will explore the students' ability to express physically and vocally, to soften the intellect fully, to play and to explore the physical dimensions of emotion. This course will use a pedagogy developed from the work begun by Jacques Lecoq in his Paris school. This technique focuses on helping the performer to become more physically alive, grandly expressive and ferociously honest on the stage; qualities that can translate to theatrical performance of all kinds. Students will read texts and analyze plays and live performances from a clown perspective. In the second half of the semester they will create a series of short individual and group performances. Pre-requisite: Introduction to Acting. For First Year students, please contact Professor Sobelle at gsobelle@bard.edu for permission. 

 

 

 Context

 

Course:

THTR 145  Introduction to Comtemporary Performance

Professor:

Tania El Khoury  

CRN:

90357

Schedule:

  Mon Wed   2:00 PM – 3:20 PM Fisher Performing Arts Center Resnick Studio

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts

Class cap:

25

Credits:

4

This course introduces a sequence of key concepts and ideas in contemporary performance, and should ideally be taken at the start of a student’s journey through the Theater & Performance curriculum. No prior Theater & Performance courses are required, and non-majors are welcome. We will explore modes of contemporary performance through viewings, readings, written responses, and practical exercises. We will ask questions about ephemerality, liveness, risk, and audience by looking at the work of iconic artists such as Pina Baush, Forced Entertainment, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, amongst others. We will investigate how artists have shifted the theatrical experience by examining topics such as the line between fiction and reality, and the constantly evolving interplay of performance and politics.

 

Course:

THTR 204  Introduction to World Theater Traditions

Professor:

Miriam Felton-Dansky  

CRN:

90359

Schedule:

Mon  Wed     10:20 AM - 11:40 AM Fisher Performing Arts Center RESNICK

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art

Class cap:

16

Credits:

4

The theater has always been a scale model of the known world: a microcosm of society, geography and cosmic space; a space where ritual practice and artistic practice meet and where political and social power can be performed, enacted, and contested. It has been a site of both hierarchical power and anti-hierarchical resistance, a mode of enforcing racial, gendered, and colonial domination and conquest; and an artistic realm where subversion and dissent find form and where alternate worlds can be imagined. This course traces these themes and topics through a survey of selected world theater traditions, dramatic texts, and performance practices created and developed before 1700. Topics under exploration will include Greek tragedy, classical Sanskrit drama, classical Chinese drama, Japanese Noh theater, Mayan performance traditions, medieval European drama, and more. Assignments will include short papers analyzing plays and performance texts in historical context and a production proposal for reinventing classical performance in our contemporary era. Note: this course replaces "Introduction to Theater History" in the sequence of pre-moderation requirements for Theater & Performance majors.

 

Course:

THTR 249  Black Experience in American Theater

Professor:

Nilaja Sun

CRN:

90358

Schedule:

 Tue      10:10 AM - 1:10 PM Fisher Performing Arts Center STUDIO NO.

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art

D+J Difference and Justice

Class cap:

12

Credits:

4

Cross-listed:  Africana Studies; Historical Studies

This course will study the history and dramatic literature of Black American theater, focusing particularly on the ways Black playwrights have told their stories and woven them into the soul of American culture.  We will employ close readings of dramatic texts, historical research, and performances to study the 20th century plays of Zora Neale Hurston, August Wilson, Suzan-Lori Parks, Anna Deveare Smith, as well as more contemporary writers such as Dominique Morrisseau, Branden Jacobs Jenkins, Mfoniso Udofia, and others.  Students will write research papers positioning the works of these playwrights in a broader dramaturgical and historical context.  The semester will culminate with dramaturgical proposals for plays we have read, with students collaborating as producers, directors, dramaturgs, designers, and curators to generate ideas for staging them in today's world.

 

Course:

THTR 364  (Post)Pandemic Theater: New York and Berlin

Professor:

Miriam Felton-Dansky  

CRN:

90360

Schedule:

 Tue      10:20 AM - 12:40 PM Olin 306

Distributional Area:

AA Analysis of Art

Class cap:

15

Credits:

4

Cross-listed:  Experimental Humanities

The year 2020-2021 witnessed profound and historic changes in the relationships among theater making, media, and society: from productions abruptly cancelled, to a powerful racial justice movement in the theater community, to new hybrid theater forms emerging on social media. This course investigates theater of the past year and a half, asking how contemporary theater's relationship to its own social and political moment has changed, perhaps for good, at a time when audiences cannot gather in person. We will explore questions of institutional shift, examine significant digital performances made during the COVID-19 pandemic and trace movements for racial justice in the theater world. Our semester-long project will be the creation of a digital archive of New York-based pandemic theater, in collaboration with a team-taught class based at Bard College Berlin, which will be conducting a parallel investigation into pandemic theater in Berlin. We will hold virtual meetings with Berlin-based students and faculty, discuss the stakes and cultural implications of archival practice, and compare notes about how to document, describe, and understand the history we have all been living through together.

 

Creative Practice and Research

 

Course:

THTR 207  Writing Plays with Ghosts and Demons

Professor:

Chiori Miyagawa  

CRN:

90362

Schedule:

 Tue      2:00 PM - 5:00 PM Fisher Performing Arts Center STUDIO NO.

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts

Class cap:

10

Credits:

4

Cross-listed:  Written Arts

This is a playwriting workshop. The students will write plays that feature ghosts and/or demons of their own creation.  Along the way, the class will explore the concept of ghosts and demons.  Why do all cultures believe in some form of ghosts?  Why does society need demons and how does it create them?   We will read and adapt some Japanese ghost stories from the Edo era (1603 -1868) and Noh plays (14th century) into short plays.  In the process,  the students will encounter the basic components of Noh Theater briefly, including its history, the craft (masks and kimonos),  traditions that accompany this performance practice, and the concept of karma that infuse the original texts—the Buddhist belief in reincarnation. We will also spend time examining selected U.S. literature with a prominent ghost presence.  As a group, we will discover stories from around the world and write short plays inspired by them.  Prerequisite: Introduction to Playwriting OR 1 creative writing  workshop in any genre at Bard College. Students who are interested should email Prof. Miyagawa at miyagawa@bard.edu a brief paragraph of interest prior to registration.

 

Course:

THTR 224  Design Studio

Professor:

David Szlasa  

CRN:

90363

Schedule:

Mon       10:10 AM - 1:10 PM Fisher Performing Arts Center CONFERENCE

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts

Class cap:

12

Credits:

4

Cross-listed:  Architecture

This course will introduce students to the conceptual framework and implementation of design for stage. We will track the integration of technology in performance, and how mechanical advances and digital reproduction have shaped interpersonal interactions on stage and off. Readings include Walter Benjamin, Marshall McLuhan, Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky, Miranda July and others. Through a series of case studies, we will explore the design choices of notable productions and discuss the technical apparatus at work. In parallel units, students will engage in a rendering practice of scenic and costume designs based on classic and contemporary texts. Projection, sound and lighting techniques will be introduced. The course will culminate in a final project which will combine dramaturgical research and rendering techniques acquired over the semester.

 

Course:

THTR 310  Solo Performance

Professor:

Nilaja Sun

CRN:

90561

Schedule:

  Thurs    10:10 AM - 1:10 PM Fisher Performing Arts Center STUDIO NO.

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts

Class cap:

12

Credits:

4

This course introduces solo performance through the review and discussion of several solo pieces, their unique structures and the performers such as Spalding Gray, Anna Devere Smith, John Leguizamo and Mike Daisy who created them. Through writing, theatre, and improvised exercises, students explore their own stories, those which have been woven into the fabric of their lives and craft a personalized solo piece. Pre-requisite: Intro to Acting: The Actor and the Moment. 

 

Course:

THTR 366  Community-Inclusive Performance

Professor:

Sxip Shirey and Coco Karol

CRN:

90366

Schedule:

    To be announced

Distributional Area:

PA Practicing Arts

Class cap:

16

Credits:

1

This class will offer in-depth look at how guest artists Sxip Shirey and Coco Karol, as well as a range of other contemporary artists, create community-inclusive immersive performances. Students will experiment with creating work based on source material from their own embodied, personal narratives, using Karol's methodology of embodied inquiry that addresses the body as an archive of memory and knowledge. Students will learn compositional tools based around Shirey's approach to object-oriented composition and task-based composition, which engages with the ontology of objects and task-based scores. We will use tools from postdramatic and cultural theory and learn methods for applying these creatively in practice. Following Shirey and Karol's model, students will be invited to create compositions based on stories/histories from their own communities. Assignments will include object-oriented and task-based compositions, site-specific and dramaturgical exercises, and participation in collaborative creations.

 

Course:

THTR 406  Senior Project Colloquium

Professor:

Jack Ferver  

CRN:

90367

Schedule:

 Tue      5:40 PM - 8:00 PM Fisher Performing Arts Center STUDIO NO.

Distributional Area:

 

Class cap:

20

Credits:

0

Senior Project Colloquium is an integral component of the eight credits Theater & Performance students earn for Senior Project. This yearlong course creates a dynamic space to allow for an array of dramaturgical feedback from classmates, advisors, faculty in (and potentially out of) Theater and Performance; as well as maintaining dialogues with Fisher Center and Old Gym staff as Seniors move towards the production of their Senior Project. In a bi-weekly seminar format, Seniors will present their work in progress, inclusive of their research; discuss their projects with their class for moderated feedback; liaison work with advisors, faculty, and production staff; discuss their research papers; and hold post mortems on completed work with their cohorts.