Course Schedule

Assignments and Weekly Readings
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Introduction: What is Theatre?

Monday
2/1		 Introduction and Welcome
– Carefully review syllabus and establish class norms and expectations
 

Wednesday
2/3

 What is Theatre? Ritual Origins
– Syllabus QUIZ
– Introduce Performance Review AssignmentReading due:
– Fuchs, Eleanor. “EF’s Visit to a Small Planet: Some Questions to Ask a Play.” Theater. 34, no. 2 (2004). (available through BC Library HERE)

Assignment due:
– Introduction slide
 

Monday
2/8

 Dramatic Worlds & Structures

Reading due:
– Read Parks, Suzan-Lori. “Elements of Style.” The America Play and Other Works. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1995. (Available HERE on Internet Archive Open Library)

Optional but highly encouraged:
– Wooden, Isaiah Matthew. “How to Do Things with Stage Directions: Lessons from Contemporary African American Drama.” Theatre Topics, vol. 28, no. 3, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018, pp. 217–26. (Available through BC Library HERE)
 

Wednesday
2/10

 Foundations: Seeing and Being Seen

Reading due:
– PLAY #1: Venus, Suzan-Lori Parks (Available HERE on Internet Archive Open Library; PDF copy included in our course library)
– Watch: Zainab Jah on Suzan-Lori Parks’ Venus 

Unit 1: The Playwright & The Text

 

Monday
2/15 

  

NO CLASS 
 

Wednesday
2/17

 Early Dramatic Theory: Greece
QUIZ #2
Reading & Watching due:
– Watch: Crash Course Theater #2: Thespis, Athens, and The Origins of Greek Drama.
– Read: Aristotle, The Poetics (assigned excerpts) (HERE on Project Gutenberg, 2008)
– Read: Nietsche, Birth of Tragedy (assigned excerpts) (HERE on Project Gutenberg, 2016)
 

Monday
2/22

 Early Aesthetic Theory: The Rasas & The Flower
QUIZ #3 Reading and Watching due:
– Zeami, On The Art of the Noh Drama (assigned excerpts) (HERE on Internet Archive)
– Bharata Muni, Natyasastra (assigned excerpts) (HERE on Internet Archive)
– Watch: Crash Course Theatre #7: Nostrils, Harmony with the Universe, and Ancient Sanskrit Theater

Wednesday
2/24

 Greek Tragedy

Reading and Watching due:
– PLAY #2: watch: Medea, Euripedes
– Watch: Crash Course Theater #3: Tragedy Lessons from Aristotle
 

Monday
3/1

 Adaptation

Reading due:
– PLAY #3: The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea, Cherríe Moraga (PDF copy included in our course library).
 

Wednesday
3/3

 Tragedy
QUIZ #4Reading due:
– PLAY #4: Read or watch: Macbeth, Shakespeare (HERE on Project Gutenberg).
– Read Sawyer, Robert. 2016. ““All’s Well That Ends Welles”: Orson Welles and the ‘Voodoo’ “Macbeth””. Multicultural Shakespeare: Translation, Appropriation and Performance 13 (28):87-103. (Available HERE)

Monday
3/8

 Comedy

Reading due:
– PLAY #5 Watch: Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare (Public Theatre production)

Wednesday
3/10

 Theatre of Decadence

Reading due:
– PLAY #6: Read or watch: The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde (HERE on Project Gutenberg)

Monday
3/15

 Theatre of Crisis
QUIZ #5Reading due:
– PLAY #7: The Camp, Griselda Gambaro (HERE through The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics)

Unit 2: Acting & The Actor

Wednesday 3/17 Introduction to Acting & The Actor

Reading due:
– No reading, finish your playwriting assignment

Assignment due:
– End-of-Unit Short Playwriting Assignment 
Monday
3/22		 Acting & Memory: Stanislavski and Method Acting
QUIZ #6Reading and Watching due:
– Chapter 2 on “The Actor.” Theatrical Worlds, edited by Charlie Mitchell, University of Florida, 2014. (HERE)
– Watch: Crash Course Theater #34: Chekhov and the Moscow Art Theater
 

Wednesday
3/24

 Acting & The Body: Physical Theatre

Reading and Watching due:
– Suzuki, “Culture is the Body” in Acting (Re) Considered (163-67) (Available online through BC Library HERE)
– “Grotowski’s vision of the actor: the search for contact” in Twentieth Century Actor Training (191-208) (Available online through BC Library HERE)
– Watch: The Time of Your Life, Gecko Theatre 

***Also: Read over End-of-Unit Autodrama assignment
Monday
3/29		  

NO CLASS MEETING – SPRING BREAK
Wednesday
3/31		  

 NO CLASS MEETING – SPRING BREAK
 

Monday
4/5

 Acting & The Soul: Black Acting Methods: Holistic Training and Ritual Process
QUIZ #7Reading and Listening due:
– Chapter 7 ”Remembering, rewriting and re-imagining: Afrocentric approaches to directing new work for the theatre” in Luckett, Sharrell and Tia M. Shaffer. Black Acting Methods: Critical Approaches. London: Routledge, 2017. (HERE)
– Listen: HOWLROUND Theatre History Podcast #50 “Opening Up New Approaches to Acting with Dr. Sharrell D. Luckett”
– PLAY #8: What to Send Up When it Goes Down, Alishea Harris (PDF in Course Library)Optional by highly encouraged:-
Luckett and Shaffer, “Introduction: the Affirmation” in Black Acting Methods (1-16) and “Rituals, processes, methods” in Black Acting Methods (203-212) (Available through BC Library)
 

Wednesday
4/7

 Acting & The Mind: Expressionism and The Theatre of Cruelty
QUIZ #8
Reading and Watching due:
– Watch: Crash Course Theater #38 Expressionist Theater
– Artaud, “Theatre of Cruelty” (assigned excerpts) (HERE on Internet Archive)
– Paul Kornfeld, “Epilogue to the Actor” and “From The Inspired and the Psychological Being” in Twentieth-Century Theatre: A Sourcebook (HERE on Internet Archive)
– PLAY #9: O’Neill, Thirst (HERE on Internet Archive)

Unit 3: Directing & The Director

 

Monday
4/12

 Autodrama Performance Share

Reading due:
-No reading.
Assignment due:
– End-of-Unit Autodrama Performance Assignment due
 

Wednesday
4/14

 Intro to Directing

Reading and Watching due:
– Chapter 3 on “The Director”, Theatrical Worlds, edited by Charlie Mitchell, University of Florida Press, 2014. (HERE)
– Watch: National Theatre 5 Truths Videos
 

Monday
4/19

 Intro to Directing, cont.

Reading due:
– No reading. Work on production reviews.
 

Wednesday
4/21

 Brecht’s Epic Theatre
QUIZ #9Reading due:
– Bertolt Brecht readings in Twentieth-Century Theatre: A Sourcebook (110-117) (HERE on Internet Archive)
– Watch: Mother Courage documentary “Theater of War” (dir: John Walter, 2008) (HERE on Vimeo)
Monday
4/26		 Brecht in Practice

Reading due:
– No reading. Work on group director presentation.
Wednesday
4/28		 Applied Theatre & Ethnotheatre
QUIZ #10Reading and Watching due:
– Boal, “Theatre of the Oppressed”  in Twentieth-Century Theatre: A Sourcebook (335-340) (HERE on Internet Archive)
– Guillermo Gomez-Pena “The Border as Performance Lab” in Twentieth-Century Theatre: A Sourcebook (351-355) (HERE on Internet Archive)
– Anna Deavere Smith, “Part I: The Word Becomes You” in Zarilli, Acting (Re)considered : A Theoretical and Practical Guide (Available HERE on BC Library Website)
– Watch at least 2 characters worth: Anna Deveare Smith, “Fires in the Mirror”
 

Monday
5/3

 Group Director Presentations

– No reading
Wednesday
5/5		 Group Director Presentations

– No reading

Unit 4: Design & The Designer

 

Monday
5/10

 Scene, Light & Sound Design

READ:
– Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl (HERE on Internet Archive)

WATCH:
– “Working In The Theatre: Scenic Design”
– “Working in the Theatre: Lighting Design”
 

Wednesday
5/12

 Costume Design

WATCH:
– Working in the Theatre: Costumes
– Working in the Theatre: MakeupOptional:
– Working in the Theatre: Prop Master
 

Monday
5/17 

 LAST CLASS – Spectacle & Musical Theatre

NO READING
Assignment due:
– Performance review due
 

Monday
5/25

 NO CLASS

– Final Paper/Project DUE

 

 

 

 

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