FYE 101: Performance and Society
It’s often said that the performing arts mirror a society’s soul. Evolved from religious rituals at which communities gathered to share an enacted experience, the performing arts throughout history have helped human beings to examine themselves by reflecting with special insight the societies that produced them. In this class we will look at significant trends in popular twentieth century and contemporary performance, sometimes relating them to earlier forms. Is American Idol, for instance, our contemporary version of a Roman gladiator game? Does reality television indicate a lack of purpose in contemporary drama, an uncertainty about the current role of storytelling? Why have home theatres grown in popularity since 9/11? What function does Beyonce fulfill in our culture, and what does her performance of our national anthem add to a presidential inauguration? Why are we fascinated by the Batman films or The Lord of the Rings? How did Charlie Chaplin’s work give films a new significance? Will live performance survive in an age of technology? We will explore topics like these in class and attempt through our research, oral presentations, discussions, and writing to identify the role the performing arts currently play in our communal search for meaning.
THEA 111: Backstage Production
Explores methods of theatre stage craft through experiential learning. Students work directly in support of a department production as both individuals and members of a collaborative team. Focuses on the elements of planning, drafting, tools, and scenic construction. Limited outside reading, but laboratory work required outside class time.
THEA 125: Acting 1:Basic Tools
Explores the challenges facing actors of realistic drama: living truthfully within a play’s specific imaginary world. Focuses on the ability to discern, define and embody given circumstances, dramatic action and character. Special emphasis on goals, obstacles, tactics and expectations.
THEA 126: Acting in Song
This course will explore the relationship of singing to the process of acting, examining the dramatic intention of a vocal line, including phrasing and text, and its interaction with the full musical score as both relate to the fundamentals of acting technique, particularly circumstances, inner monologue, and action. Assignments will include solos, duets, and scene work. The class will be equally suitable for singers seeking to understand acting and actors seeking increased comfort with singing.
THEA 131: Theatre and Culture II
This course explores the evolution of Western theatre during a period of enormous change and upheaval: from the Spanish Golden Age through the dawn of the 21st century. Readings and discussions will endeavor to help students develop a sense of continuity and the broad shape of development across many periods.Students will learn how discerning the stylistic nature and original social significance of a play is foundational to both creating and understanding productions in the contemporary theatre. The use of video and other production documentation will assist the class in understanding and conceiving a broad range of approaches to dramatic texts.
THEA 152: America and Its Musicals
Throughout its history, the American musical has embodied the ever-changing society that has produced it. The most collaborative of theatrical forms, the musical brings together teams of creative artists from many different backgrounds, all of them influenced by their own life experiences and by contemporary movements in their areas of artistic expertise. Any new development in any area of the arts will ultimately reveal itself in the collaborative process that creates a musical. More significantly, the social and cultural forces that shape the arts will manifest themselves as well, in the form and content of the script and score and in the physical realization of this material through production and performance. More than any other theatrical form, the musical is created in rehearsal, and, while the script and score may have an afterlife in subsequent productions, our sense of any musical is inextricably linked to our impressions of its design, choreography, direction, and original performance. What we see onstage is a living distillation of our world, made manifest through the shared sensibilities of the artists who have created the work. In this course, we will examine seventy-five years of American musical theatre from many different perspectives – sociological, political, cultural, economic, and artistic. We will analyze the work of significant writers, composers, designers, directors, choreographers and performers on productions that have embodied elements of our changing national identity over a period of time. We will examine our evolving multicultural society and its interactions with the musical theatre that has reflected it, influenced it, and been shaped by it.
THEA 215: Play Analysis
This is a course in play analysis that seeks to develop the analytic, interpretive, and communication skills used by theatre practitioners in the creation of live theatre. The techniques at the heart of the course lay the foundation for thoughtful understanding of drama and perceptive creativity in production.
THEA 295: Practicum
Theoretical and practical work in one of the following areas: costuming, lighting, sound, properties management, makeup, scene painting, box office, house management, publicity, film festival staff and stage management. All practicums include work on a mainstage production with documentation of outcomes presented in a digital portfolio.
THEA 320: Acting in Shakespeare
The course explores the relationship of Shakespeare’s uses of language and form to action and acting. The student will be guided in the process of bringing the self to the specific demands of formally structured material and in identifying the tools for action-playing in various text structures and styles. Beginning with the imaging process underlying spoken thought, the course will examine the methodologies of Elizabethan rhetoric and prosody, the development of blank verse drama, scansion, the relationship of metrics and prosody to actor intention, the relationship of imagery to character circumstances, and the implications of verse structures for character action.
Courses Taken:
THEA 100: The Wonder of Dance (SPST 114)
To develop an awareness and appreciation for dance as art and expression, through an exploration of history, social themes, contemporary trends, cutlural insights, personalities, smaple dance class experiences and choreographic projects.
THEA 101: Modern Dance I (SPST112)
An introduction to the art of modern dance, designed for students with little or no dance or modern experience. This dance form, with its philosophy based in the expression of personal and contemporary social concerns, will explore various movement techniques including those of Martha Graham, Erick Hawkins, Doris Humphrey and Jose Limon.
Types of Dance:
- Ballet- 13 years
- Jazz- 7 years
- Musical Theater- 6 years
- Tap- 5 years
- Irish- 3 years
- Modern- 2 years
- Hip Hop- 1 year
- African- 5 months
Official transcripts availble upon request.