Autumn

This course adapts curriculum originally designed for the various schools of modern improvisation (including the iO, the Annoyance and The Second City) and brings it into today’s Zoom world. Listening skills, the ability to work well with others as a team, and building scene work organically are highlighted. You will leave this class a better communicator, with interpersonal tools that support other facets of your life.

Looking at the writings of Charles Ludlum and his Ridiculous Manifesto, we will explore the role of camp, homage, collage and The Ridiculous. Students will stage existing works and be asked to create their own original scenes that use camp, collage and the ridiculous to explore current politics and ideas.

This course replaces Directing Study with an expanded quarterly lab for students working on theater and performance projects. Each quarter, the lab will be customized to serve directors, designers and dramaturgs who are working on current productions, preparing proposals for future productions, and/or in some way engaged in project development. The cohort will meet weekly to develop project ideas, build skills, experiment with methods of collaboration, receive and give feedback to each other, and receive individual mentorship from the course instructor. Instructor consent required. Interested students should complete the online application for the course (https://forms.gle/FWzL6FRjUNFmc6j77) and are encouraged to reach out the instructor with questions and ideas. Priority will be given to TAPS majors and minors.

Devised theater is created from a multitude of sources but, importantly, not a preexisting script. Rather the ‘script’ (whether or not it eventually takes written form) is developed in rehearsal. This studio course engages students in methods of generating and crafting devised material, including but not limited to physical action, moment work, and verbatim text. Additionally we will focus on the generative power of ‘problems’ as a motor of creation, which draws from core principles of clowning. Through solo and collaborative projects, students will explore how devised theater wrestles with conventionally discrete roles in theater-making (writer, director, performer, dramaturg, and designer). Other considerations will include strategies for making disparate material cohere and more broadly, what constitutes a story. Select readings and case studies of artists working in devised theater will supplement the practice-based focus of the course.

This course introduces students to the art of book writing for musical theater both on stage and in the current, digital landscape of live performance. Students will examine dramatic structure across a variety of genres and musicals, and will apply its lessons to their own original outlines and scenes to be workshopped and performed online. They will learn about adaptation by finding the story, character, and song moments in source materials ranging from poems and movies to historical and current events, and they will study character development by examining iconic musical theater roles and generating character descriptions and arcs of their own. Students will also practice working with existing music by writing from found albums or bodies of songs, and each will use the online spaces and tools of the professional theater world to present the rough draft of an original ten-minute libretto as well as a treatment and excerpt of a new, full-length work of musical theater.

This hybrid seminar focuses on American contemporary playwrights who have made a significant and commercial impact with regard to dramatic form in the past 20 years. Playwrights will include, Tracy Letts, Annie Baker, Lynn Nottage, Quiara Alegria Hudes, Ayad Akhtar, and Amy Herzog. Textual analysis is consistently oriented towards staging, design, and cultural relevancies. Work for the course will include research papers, presentations, and scene work.

This course introduces the basic elements of a literate screenplay, including format, exposition, characterization, dialog, voice-over, adaptation, and the vagaries of the three-act structure. Weekly meetings include a brief lecture period, screenings of scenes from selected films, extended discussion, and assorted readings of class assignments. Because this is primarily a writing class, students write a four- to five-page weekly assignment related to the script topic of the week.

This hybrid studio/seminar course offers an overview of the formal techniques, cultural contexts, and social trends that shape current dance practices. Through both scholarly and practical approaches to course content, students will gain a working knowledge of a wide range of formal and aesthetic approaches to dance. Other topics include the influence of pop culture, the role of cultural appropriation, and the privileging of Western-based perspectives within dance presentation, education, scholarship, and criticism. Selected readings and viewings will supplement movement practice. No previous experience with dance or performance is required. This course meets the general education requirement in the arts.

Approaching theatrical design as a visual art, we will achieve a basic understanding of the theory, methodology and artistic expression fundamental to each area of design for the stage—scenic, costume, lighting and sound. We will learn how each discipline approaches and executes visual (aural in the case of sound) communication involved in the design process. Students will learn the professional design process, from contracting through production. Projects for this course will be completed using a combination of mediums and materials. If students are away from campus, there will be discussions of what materials may suit each student best based on available resources. Creativity in execution of visual communication will be of great importance. Students will learn to show collaborators ideas instead of talking about them.l endeavor.

This course creates the first stage in a site-specific devised work process by engaging with a topic and texts and using the ensemble itself to generate work that is then considered critically. As a theme for the quarter, we will explore the interplay between horror, terror, and pleasure through in-class discussions of theoretical works and the possibilities of practical creative application. The paradox of the attraction to repulsion will be considered as well as the values of shock, suspense, and subtlety. Texts will include classic and contemporary drama, cult fiction, ghost stories, games, films, and theoretic source material. As a part of this foundation, we will question the intricacies of staging through in-class discussions of theoretical works (Aristotle, Brecht, Artaud, Stanislavski, and Bogart) and the possibilities of practical creative application. Working 4-dimensionally in outdoor on-campus locations, we will examine how theorized stagings can evoke suspense. This course will constantly question how analysis itself can be a performative practice and how performance can serve as a critical endeavor.