This course introduces fundamental concepts of performance in the theater with emphasis on the development of creative faculties and techniques of observation, as well as vocal and physical interpretation. Concepts are introduced through directed reading, improvisation, and scene study.
This course introduces students to a range of theatrical concepts and techniques, including script analysis and its application to staging, design and acting. Throughout, we investigate how theater – as a collaborative art form – tells stories. Students will act, direct, and design. In doing so, they will gain an understanding of a variety of processes by which scripts are realized in the theater, with an emphasis on the text’s role in production rather than as literature.
This two-quarter sequence is open only to fourth-year students who are majoring and/or minoring in theater and performance studies.
This seminar explores the interplay of history, fantasy, and theatricality in one of the masterpieces of early Qing chuanqi drama, Changsheng dian 长生殿 (Palace of Lasting Life, 1688), Hong Sheng's 洪昇dramatization of the famous tragic romance between the Tang Emperor Xuanzong and his most favored concubine Lady Yang Yuhan. The play alternates between a restaging of the An Lushan rebellion based on the playwright’s research into historical sources and the creation of a parallel fantastical universe in the forms of purgatory and paradise. These seemingly contradictory trends—the increased concern with historical accuracy in drama and the fascination with spectacular, supernatural worlds—are fundamental to many seventeenth-century chuanqi plays. To understand the play’s genealogy, we will read influential earlier treatments of the Xuanzong/ Lady Yang romance, but we will also examine the play in light of its relationship to contemporary events, particularly the fall of the Ming, and to contemporary debates on historical drama and the role of the playwright in the publication and production of theatrical works. The course will include consideration of the “afterlife” of the play by screening some dvds of important live performances
Prerequisites: Good command of classical Chinese.
This two-quarter sequence is open only to fourth-year students who are majoring and/or minoring in theater and performance studies.
Augusto Boal argues that theatre is “rehearsal for the revolution.” Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed provides key strategies for collaboratively crafting dramatic narrative. These strategies challenge the conventional Aristotelian structure that privileges a single protagonist and subordinates other stories. Instead, Boal structures a poetics in which the “spect-actor” contributes their voice. Students will engage in devising and embodiment exercises in Image Theatre, Newspaper Theatre, Forum Theatre, and more, by interpreting texts (e.g., religious texts, constitutional documents, or political manifestos), interrogating current events, exploring public narratives, and valuing diverse learning styles. Students will contextualize destinations for the course material according to the aesthetic and academic questions that they bring into the classroom. To consider ethical concerns surrounding participatory theatre, we will examine arts groups past and present that employ the techniques of the Theatre of the Oppressed. Readings include Boal, Freire, Jan Cohen-Cruz, Michael Rohd, bell hooks, and Knight and Schwarzman.
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 gives students the opportunity to learn repertory and new works by professional guest choreographers and faculty, culminating in a weekend of performances at Logan Center for the Arts. Within an immersive quarter-long production schedule, students will be exposed to a wide array of movement vocabularies, choreographic methods and performance aesthetics, while also gaining practical skills within the many facets of professional production work. Readings, viewings, and weekly journals will supplement studio and production work, connecting each student’s experience to broader conversations within dance and performance studies. With a range of performance and production opportunities, this course will accommodate and challenge both trained dancers and movement-curious beginners.
The goal of this playwriting workshop is for each student to end the quarter with a first draft of a full-length play. In addition to generating new material on a weekly basis, students will be expected to attend two Chicago-based productions for in-class discussion and criticism.
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.
