Spotlight on Courses
Discover Just Some of the Theatre Program's Exciting Classes!
The Theatre Program offers classes across theatrical disciplines and, indeed, multidisciplinary courses, too. Below are just some of the courses we're spotlighting. (For a complete list of Theatre Program courses, go here.) Looking for a class? Look no further! All these courses count towards a Humanities cluster in English! Need further information? Just ask!
BOTH SEMESTERS
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THTR 130: Intro to Design for the Stage (Not offered in 26-27)
2 credits (1st half of each semester) | moreinfo
Space and how it is conceived and explored is fundamental to the telling of stories—onstage and elsewhere. This introductory course aims at giving students skills to create, translate and communicate a visual design/environment for performance. The class will focus on design fundamentals, materials, research and visual storytelling through class discussion, script analysis and practical work. Students will read a play, devise a concept for that play, research possible environments, and begin to produce drawings and other visual ideas for their design. Student's work will be presented and discussed in each class.
THTR 120: Production Experience
1 credit | moreinfo
Want to get your feet wet or hands dirty doing some exciting behind-the-scenes work on Theatre Program productions? A perfect hands-on way to explore the excitement, camaraderie, creativity, and skills needed for backstage work—in lighting, sound, costumes, scenery, or stage management—is to get involved in ENGL 126 Production Experience, a 1-credit, half semester course where you get to work on actual theatre productions in the brand-new Sloan Performing Arts Center through lab participation, joining run crews, or other practical ways. You’ll learn valuable skills while contributing to the excellence in production that the International Theatre Program is known for. You’ll play a real role in making theatre happen! No prior experience needed.
FALL
THTR 100: Playwriting
4 credits | Fall | more info
Not unlike the essay or laboratory experiment, a play is a tool that allows the curious mind to develop, test, and rethink ideas, and to grapple with significant issues (both public and private) in live, three-dimensional space. Playwriting introduces the beginning writer interested in exploring the discipline of live performance (and the seasoned writer wishing to develop his/her craft) to the exciting world of writing for the stage. Each semester, students in this course get the chance to study with a different guest playwright. In so doing, they get to experience instruction and guidance under the tutelage of some of the most exciting voices working professionally in the American theatre.
THTR 122: Costume Production
4 credits | Fall | more info
This course will introduce students to the process of creating and altering costumes for a theatrical production. Through a variety of projects, students will learn a myriad of techniques used in hand sewing, machine sewing, and fabric manipulation. Emphasis will be placed on the ability to create a costume from initial design to a fully realized garment. Students will use these skills on multiple projects throughout the course as well as lab time where they will refine these skills on a current theatrical production. Students will also get to discover the Costume Designer's process, from initial sketch through finished garment, and will get exciting opportunities to work with guest artists on actual theatrical productions, creating a better understanding of the process and function of a professional costume shop.
THTR 141: Consent & Performance
2 credits | Fall | more info
United States law says, “Consent and agency over one’s body is a given in the work space.” How, then, can the performance workspace acknowledge and honor our boundaries, while nurturing us to risk, grow, and create our truest, bravest work? How can we as artists learn strategies to poetize the uncomfortable while honoring our boundaries? In this course, we study the history and evolution of consent in performance, allowing students to learn about personal agency, self-advocacy, and how to foster and navigate healthy collaboration across disciplines. The class will give young artists the space to discover and articulate their boundaries through a variety of group exercises and opportunities for self-reflection. Lectures will cover intimacy direction and rehearsal tools, discussions and guest lecturers on gender and feminist theory in relation to performance art, theatre, film and dance. This course is a must for artistic collaborators from directors & choreographers, to actors, musicians, technicians, and performance artists!
THTR 142: Auditioning for Live Theatre & Film
2 credits | Fall | more info
Do you want to be on stage and screen, but wonder if you have the skills to land a gig? Auditioning for Live Theatre and Film will introduce students to the practice of auditioning for acting work. Throughout the semester students will learn to prepare monologues, analyze, and perform sides from theatre and film scripts and how to put together resumes, headshot and submissions for work. Each student will finish the class with two contrasting monologues, a headshot and resume and knowing how to slate and represent themselves in the room. The class will include a sample audition with professional directors and Q & A to help you learn how to put your best foot forward when you enter the audition room.
THTR 152: Acting for Camera
4 credits | Fall | more info
This course encourages you to bring your unique talent and personality to the screen with confidence and freedom. We will cover technical terminology and physical adjustments required for working in front of the lens. The first half of the semester will focus on "on camera" interviews, auditions and interview work. The second half will focus on 2-3 character "on camera” scene work. Every taped session will be followed up by feedback and discussion.
THTR 180: Directing
4 credits | Fall | more info
In today’s theatre, the director is generally considered to be the key creative figure in how a theatre production is conceived, explored and presented. But the director’s task is a difficult one, encompassing rigorous intellectual, theatrical and artistic knowledge and skills. This introductory directing techniques class, for aspiring directors, will explore the nature of the theatrical event, investigate conceptualization, visualization, text analysis, action and design as they pertain to the director's craft. In conjunction with a weekly scheduled lab.
SPRING
THTR 143: Improvisation
4 credits | Spring | more info
This course enables students to move progressively toward a stronger understanding of long form improvisation acting theory and skills related to listening, supporting others, heightening performance, and taking risks. By the end of this course, students will be able to work within a cast to create full-length, fully improvised plays that incorporate spontaneous monologues and scenes with recurring characters and themes. Particular focus will be paid to a format known as “The Harold”, which is widely considered the cornerstone of modern improv comedy.
THTR 150: Stage Combat
2 credits | Spring | more info
This course explores the concepts and techniques of theatrical violence for stage and screen. Students will stress safety and control as they learn to create the illusions of punches, kicks, throws, and falls. The course focuses on unarmed combat. In-class performances will be video recorded to study stage and film technique.
THTR 153: Acting with Objects
4 credits | Spring | moreinfo
In this semester-long course, students will explore traditional and contemporary puppetry traditions, including history, theory, design and performance. Class participants will learn Japanese Bunraku-style (3 puppeteers working together to move one puppet) puppetry and Kuruma Ningyo-style (one-person, cart puppetry), shadow puppetry, and object performance through hands-on manipulation and exploration of breath, eyeline, focus, and micromovement. Students will explore how to tell stories with these objects, incorporating design and non-verbal communication and gesture. This class is great training for actors, dancers, and performers to explore subtlety, nuance, and how to make your performance secondary, and in service to the puppet/object, which is the primary focus of storytelling. The course will culminate in a workshop performance of original puppet pieces made by students.
THTR 242: Musical Theatre Performance
4 credits | Spring | moreinfo
Musical Theatre is, indubitably, America's greatest home-grown theatrical form and one of the major accomplishments of American culture. From Carousel to Hadestown, Show Boat to Wicked, American musical theatre has defined, celebrated, and confronted our lives through song, dance, and dramatic character and action. The skills, techniques and talent needed to effectively embody characters from the repertoire challenge actors and singers in startling ways. This is a workshop-format, performance-based course devoted to the development of skills--both dramatic and musical--for musical theatre. We will take songs (and, potentially, scenes) from a range of musicals and explore them from a performer's point of view: investigating action, character, musicality, vocal technique, and more. The class follows a workshop model, with students performing material that is then critiqued and reworked. Students may get to work on both contemporary and Golden Age repertoire in both solo/monologue format and, potentially, in scenes or duets.
The class is intended for students with some background in musical theatre performance and is by audition only.
Want info about auditions? Here it is!
Explore ALL Theatre Program Courses!