TAPS

This course addresses techniques and modes of observation and their application to scene study. Observation study is used to strengthen acting choices, build the physical world of the play, and create original, vital characterizations. It also serves to deepen awareness of group dynamics; integrate symbolic, psychological, and physical meaning in a character's behavior; and guide the process of breaking down a scene. Students will perform observation exercises and apply their discoveries to scene work.

In this course we will explore the relations between dreaming and waking life using a broad interdisciplinary approach. Our point of departure will be psychological, cultural, and religious understandings of dreams. On the basis of the readings and the skills and backgrounds of participants, the class will develop a “performance installation” around the liminal spaces of dream and wakefulness. Readings will include literary texts by Apuleius, Calderon, Shakespeare, Schnitzler, and Neil Gaiman, and theoretical texts by Freud, Jung, Klein, and Winnicott.

This course employs a practice in the fundamental theory of play direction and the role of the director in collaboration with the development of textual analysis. By examining five diversely different texts using three different approaches to play analysis (Aristotle, Stanislavski, Ball) students begin developing a method of directing for the stage in support of the written text. In alternating weeks, students implement textual analysis in building an understanding of directorial concept, theme, imagery and staging through rehearsal and in-class presentations of three-minute excerpts from the play analysis the previous week. The culmination is a final five-minute scene combining the tools of direction with a method of analysis devised over the entire course.

This course incorporates the spontaneity and freedom allowed by improvisation into the writing process. In addition to focusing on the natural rhythms and nuances of modern communication, the class will also learn to write for individual performers and ensembles. Through these improvisations, the students focus on developing unique voices for each character. Students read scenes from contemporary plays which emphasize spontaneous and realistic dialogue. Students have weekly assignments that further explore the characters they are writing. Each class includes an active roundtable discussion of the weekly assignments as well as collaborative exercises that further explores the voices of their characters. In addition to the weekly assignments, students write three complete scenes that will receive readings by their classmates.

Never in the history of western theater has brevity gotten so much attention. Festivals around the world are devoted to plays five minutes in length or less; perhaps the most revered playwright of the 20th century, Samuel Beckett, guided his career towards the writing of smaller and smaller works; Chicago’s Neofuturists have profitably run their show of “thirty plays in sixty minutes” for over thirty years; Twitter accounts disseminate multiple two to three line scripts daily; and sketch comedy continues to evolve and thrive.

This course will give an overview of the development of the very short play over the last one hundred and twenty years, but will primarily focus on the writing and development of same, asking students to complete — through workshop prompts — 20 to 30 scripts by end of quarter. A particular effort will be made to bring “traditional” elements of standard-length plays — character, arc, anagnorisis, pathos, backstory, etc — to these miniatures, to test and expand their assumed limitations.

This experimental course builds on the emerging genres of “immersive performance,” “alternate reality,” and “Live Action Role Playing (LARP)” to investigate the dynamics of role-playing games through case studies, gameplay, and original student design. Our focus will include the 1913 Gettysburg reunion, parlor games including Parker Brother’s 1937 Jury Box, Society for Creative Anachronism in1966, Dungeons and Dragons (both its inception in 1974 and current resurgence), Brian Wiese's Hobbit War in 1977, Mind’s Eye Theater’s development of World of Darkness, and Ground Zero, which began the Nordic Larp movement in 1998. We will explore role of the game master, emergent narratives, improvised community formation as well as “bleed.” Previous course work in Games and Performance encouraged but not required.

This course traces the history of improvisation for performance, beginning with the "High Priestess" Viola Spolin's work exploring the educational and social benefits of play at Hull House through Paul Sill's development of The Compass Players in Hyde Park to include current companies including Second City, The Neo Futurists, The Annoyance, and IO. The course will include attendance at performances, student presentations, and practice-based workshops.

This course introduces students to the rewards and difficulties of adapting literary material to the big screen. In addition to reading short stories and viewing the films that were made from these stories, all students will be given the same short story to adapt into a 50-60 minute film. Progress on these scripts will be addressed through in-class readings, leading to final meetings with the instructor about your completed first drafts. Screenwriting experience is helpful, but not essential. Class size is limited to 10 students.

This two-quarter sequence is open only to fourth-year students who are majoring and/or minoring in theater and performance studies.

This two-quarter sequence is open only to fourth-year students who are majoring and/or minoring in theater and performance studies.