Winter

There are roughly 500 complete playscripts from England’s theatrical golden age— the period that begins with the establishment of the first public theatre in 1576 to the closure of the playhouses in 1642. Scholars estimate that five times that amount have disappeared, most without a trace. However, there are some tantalizing remainders. In this seminar-studio workshop, we will work collaboratively to piece them back together, and in the process, gain new fluency in the theatrical idioms and practices that defined Shakespeare’s age. Participants should anticipate taking on many roles in this pursuit. As dramaturgs, they will familiarize themselves with the works of the major and minor dramatists of Shakespeare’s age, as well as its chief dramatic sources. As theatrical detectives, they will track down and assemble examples of the gestures, props, costumes, and representational conventions that might have shaped a given work. As author-poets, they will script selected scenarios in the form and fashion of the time. And as actors, they will search out and perform the theatrical business appropriate to each scene. Coursework will take the form of weekly assignments blending historical theatre practice and research. The course will culminate in a presentation of scenes. In addition to Cardenio, Shakespeare’s missing dramatization of Cervantes’ Don Quixote, we will choose 3 or 4 more plays to partially reconstitute.

This course offers a critical introduction to theories of performance and performativity across a transnational scope. We will read theories of performance that explore the relationship between text, body and audience alongside the history of performative theory and its afterlives in queer and affect theory. Drawing on comparative literary method, this course presents texts both within and beyond the Euro-American canon, across languages, and across disciplines to consider how empire and post-coloniality, race and ethnicity, and gender and sexuality shape performances and the publics that they address. We will think about the relationship between performance and politics and how performance as both an aesthetic genre and theoretical concept shapes the relationship between text, language, and embodied experience and explore the role of the spectator and their participatory function in the making of performances.

In Winter quarter of fourth year, TAPS majors and minors are required to enroll in TAPS 29802 BA Colloquium II (100 credits), the second part of a two-quarter sequence devoted to the preparation of the TAPS BA project. The colloquium is a weekly forum in which students develop their projects with close mentorship from course instructors and other TAPS faculty and professional staff, with feedback and participation from their peers in a close-knit cohort, and in accordance with a carefully designed set of deadlines. During Spring Quarter of the fourth year, majors and minors will publicly present BA projects in the TAPS BA ‘new works festival’.

Audio storytelling insinuates itself into the day-to-day unlike other narrative forms. People listen to podcasts while they do the dishes, drive to work, or walk the dog. In this hands-on course, we will learn to produce a podcast from idea to final sound mix, and explore the unique opportunities that the podcast form affords the storyteller. Students will complete several short audio exercises, and one larger podcast project. The class will be held remotely, with an emphasis on remote recording techniques and what it means to document this moment using tools of non-fiction, fiction, and oral history.

This course places equal emphasis on the theory and practice of modern stage lighting. Applying real world observations and research with practical applications students will learn the mechanical properties of lighting equipment; how to create, read, and execute a lighting plot; the functions of lighting in a theatrical context; color and design theory; and how to read a text as a lighting designer. Diverse perspectives in designing with light include rigorous practicum requirements in group projects and exposure to various designers and philosophies.

This course is designed to introduce students to the theatrical art of scenic painting for the stage and film. A scenic artist is the hand of the theatrical designer, translating the small scale of the designer's rendering into full size theatrical environments. In this course, students will explore the unique tools and techniques used by scenic artists to create scenery. The end result of this class will be a basic mastery of painting "faux" surfaces and an understanding of how a scenic artist transforms the designer's ideas into realized pieces of theatrical art

This course has a strong component of movement practice and is open to students of any experience level who are willing to move with creativity and generosity. The course takes a broad look at dance improvisation, exploring in equal parts key theoretical readings, historic and contemporary performance examples, and movement practices in the classroom. On its surface, improvisation is often understood to be based on total freedom or openness, where any movement choice can be made. Here, the notion of freedom in improvisation is reconsidered through the sociopolitical realities of how dancers’ bodies move through society, and across the studio or stage.

This course approaches dance and dancing bodies as active sites of meaning-making—places where history, identity, politics, and imagination are negotiated through movement. Drawing on dance studies, dance history, performance studies, and ethnographic approaches, students will develop tools for observing, analyzing, and interpreting dance both as an art form and as a social practice that circulates onstage, in everyday life, and across media. Alongside reading scholarly texts and viewing live and recorded performances, students will engage in guided movement practices that treat the body as a mode of inquiry rather than simply an object of study. Through these embodied experiments, students will explore how knowledge is produced through sensation, repetition, gesture, and kinesthetic awareness. The course examines how dance participates in broader conversations around race, gender, sexuality, class, and power, and how specific dance forms emerge from distinct cultural and historical conditions. No prior dance training is required, but students should expect to move regularly and to reflect critically on their own embodied experiences. The course culminates in a final movement-based project that integrates analytical and creative work.

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 the classroom. 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.