Theater & Music Theater

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Introduction to Theater Making is a working laboratory, which gives students hands-on experience with theater's fundamental building blocks—writing, design, acting, directing, and producing. Throughout the semester, students read, watch and discuss five different theater works. We will analyze how these plays and events are constructed and investigate their social and political implications. In-class artistic responses provide hands-on exploration as students work in groups to create and rehearse performances inspired by our course texts.

This course develops skills needed to successfully approach all acting styles and centers the actor as a lead creative artist. We will concentrate on how the voice, body, and imagination can build a performance. The goal is fluency in these tools, stronger stage presence, and collaborative rehearsal skills. Each class is made up of individual and ensemble-based physical and vocal exercises to bolster creative thinking and to ready the body and voice for performance. We will find inspiration in readings and short performance texts. Students will leave the semester with a strong foundation for further acting courses or projects in all genres.

This is a workshop in the fundamentals of writing plays. Through writing prompts, exercises, study and reflection, students will be guided in the creation of original dramatic material. Attention will be given to character, structure, dramatic action, monologue, dialogue, language and behavior.

FRE/THR 211 will offer students the opportunity to put their language skills in motion by exploring French theater and acting in French. The course will introduce students to acting techniques while allowing them to discover the richness of the French dramatic canon. Particular emphasis will be placed on improving students' speaking skills through pronunciation and diction exercises. At the end of the semester, the course will culminate in the presentation of the students' work.

In a universe filled with movement, how and why and where might we find relative stillness? What are the unique aesthetic, political, and daily life possibilities while school as we know it is on pause? We’ll dance, sit, question, and create practices and projects. We’ll play with movement within stillness, stillness within movement, stillness in performance and in performers' minds. We’ll look at stillness as protest and power. We’ll wonder when stillness might be an abdication of responsibility. We'll read widely within religions, philosophy, performance, disability studies, social justice, visual art, sound (and silence).

This course is an embodied exploration of Hip-Hop feminism as scholarship, praxis, and performance. At once a multimedia research lab and a performance workshop, the course positions students as both critical investigators and creative practitioners. Students will engage the contributions of women in Hip-Hop including MC Lyte, Queen Latifah, Lauryn Hill, Bahamadia, Eternia, and more.

This course allows students, working at their own experience level, to analyze, rehearse and perform songs from the canon of dramatic musical theater. Using anything from lyrical arias to power ballads, we will approach lyrics and accompanying music as keys to creating character. We will investigate the "want" that drives a song.

In this course, we'll examine the musicals of Stephen Sondheim from West Side Story (1957) to Road Show (2009) as a lens onto America. We'll explore how Sondheim and his collaborators used the mainstream, popular, and commercial form of musical theatre to challenge, critique, deconstruct, and possibly reinforce some of America's most enduring myths.

The first half of Shakespeare's career, with a focus on the great comedies and histories of the 1590s, culminating in a study of Hamlet.

This workshop will introduce students to the craft of writing words and music for the musical theatre. The workshop will culminate with a presentation of works-in-progress.

Why do people love Broadway musicals? How do audiences engage with musicals and their stars? How have fan practices changed since the 1950s alongside economic and artistic changes in New York and on Broadway? In what ways does "fan of" constitute a social identity? How do fans perform their devotion to a show, to particular performers, and to each other? This class examines the social forms co-created by performers and audiences, both during a performance and in the wider culture. Students will practice research methods including archival research, ethnographic observation, in-depth interviewing, and textual and performance analysis.

This course offers an exploration of visual storytelling, research and dramaturgy, combined with a grounding in the practical, collaborative and inclusive skills necessary to create physical environments for live theater making. Students are mentored as designers, directors or project creators on realized projects in our theaters, or on advanced paper projects. Individualized class plans allow students to imagine physical environments for realized and un-realized productions, depending on their area of interest, experience and skill level. Students will see one or two shows off campus, typically in NYC, during the course of the semester.

The course is designed to encourage the development of directors for theater and music theater. The course will incorporate a strong practical element, giving student directors the opportunity to explore and hone their own practices, developing useful and appropriate style and language as they move forward in their work as young directors.

Students will work with professional director Nikoo Mamdoohi and a professional music director in exploration and rehearsals towards performances of Heather Christian's Oratorio for Living Things. This music theater piece infuses a classical oratorio with a captivating blend of blues, gospel, jazz and soul. Both otherworldly and achingly intimate, the work delves into the intricacies of human memory alongside the powerful forces that shape the universe. Students interested in being considered for roles should reach out to Solon Snider Sway. Performances will be held early November in the Berlind Theater.