Dramatic Arts

This course reads and analyzes contemporary theater that focuses on going outside the box that is the standard form of poetry and theater. It focuses on playwrights such as Sarah Kayne and Debbie Tucker Green; and on "in your ear" theater, written in Britain, that highlights the discrepancy between what is heard and seen. 

The musical emerged at the end of the 19th century to become one of the most popular and commercially successful theatre forms in the world. This course looks at the long history of the musical, its many varieties (from musical comedy to the integrated musical, from the concept musical to the rock musical, from SHOWBOAT to HAMILTON); considering its pleasures and its politics, its representations of gender, race and sexuality, the relationship between the stage and film musical. The course looks at the artistic achievements of the music theater form and the peculiarities of its cultural form, the role of narrative, the relation between song and story, etc. The course will examine whether musicals are appropriate vehicle for serious content, whether its apparent frivolity might be of significance and value, and the political significance of kitsch, camp, escapism, and excess in the musical’s formation. 

This course examines how cultural interventions are used in areas of social development in local, national, and international contexts. Students examine how performance has been used to address issues which may include education, health, sexuality, gender, race, migration, disability, and social exclusion. Students consider case studies of theatre and performance work in action, theoretical frames to examine them, and current debates which inform and impact upon the field.

This course examines the power relations of theatre and performance, focusing on how artists engage with the politics of representation and identity formation. Discussions and readings will draw from key academic and political debates, which could include queer theory, post-colonial studies, critical race theory, feminism, disability studies, Marxism, etc. Through study of a wide range of play texts and performance traditions, students will examine how formal and aesthetic innovations in theatre relate to the social and economic conditions from which they emerge.

This course focuses on the different forms of live performance and their relationship to socio-historical contexts to construct a definition of what a live performance is through the study of five plays and a ballet. Works studied include Pierre Corneille'S LE CID (1636), Molière's L'ECOLE DES FEMMES (1662), Victor Hugo's HERNANI (1830), and Igor Stravinsky's LE SACRE DU PRINTEMPS (1913).

This course provides an introduction to Ibsen’s dramatic production, emphasizing its historical context. It analyzes the plays as part of and influenced by social, political, and cultural forces, and as part of changing aesthetic and artistic norms. The course examines selected works against the background of changing literary, theatrical, and cultural paradigms in Ibsen’s own time and pays special attention to Ibsen’s renewal of the dramatic tradition. It investigates his plays not only as dramatic texts but also through historical performances from Ibsen’s time.

This course provides foundation knowledge of the different aspects of, approaches and discursive contexts relating to the study and praxis of theater and performance. The course also introduces the various forms of classical and contemporary performance practices and their attendant modes of analyses: combining play analysis, theater history and theory. Using complementary content-centered lectures and practice laboratory, the course creates an environment where students simultaneously engage with content while investigating its relations to the creation of theater and performance. 

This course consists of an Italian theater workshop for international students which meets for two hours twice a week, and is taught by an Italian theater director. Activities include: basic theatrical training, co-creation of an Italian text, rehearsals, and a final performance at the end of the semester. The course is for students with little to no previous background in Italian language.

This course explores the many ways in which theater and film are distinct but closely inter-related mediums. The bulk of the course focuses on close analysis of texts that have been adapted from the stage to the screen, examining performativity within those texts and how the essential properties that define the stage and the screen contribute to and facilitate particular ways for performing such texts. Notions of theatricality and the cinema are interrogated, especially in relation to how cinema can be 'theatrical' and the theatre 'cinematic'. 

This course focuses on key figures and aspects of contemporary performance as a means of learning about innovative approaches to theatre practice. Taking the works of a significant dramatist, director, theorist or theatre/performance genre as their starting point, it investigates the resulting aesthetic and conceptual innovations, and explores their implications for current approaches to performance making more generally. As such, the course combines creative and critical practice, and features a variety of reflective, analytical and practical assessment tasks, including a group performance project.