The Theatre Ensemble is an experiential-learning course in which students will have various opportunities to apply theoretic knowledge to practice through participation in a faculty mentored or faculty directed theatre production on campus. Course content will include CLA main stage productions, as well as other ensemble productions that perform or develop theatre performances covering a range of genres, periods and cultures. Students will be expected to write, create and/or analyze texts as well as participate as actors, designers, and technicians.

The course is designed to provide students with a foundation in major dramatic and performance theories including works by Aristotle, Stanislavsky, Brecht, Grotowski, and a variety of other contemporary theorists and practitioners. In addition to surveying the work of key dramatic and performance theorists and theories, the course will engage students in the application of these theories in the study and analysis of play texts from a variety of periods, genres and cultures. Students will analyze these texts from the perspective of both the logistic and aesthetic requirements of production (as actors, directors and designers).

This course examines the director’s creative process in translating a dramatic text into a theatre production. Key to this process is the need to develop deep capability in text analysis and interpretation, along with strong skills to meet the challenges brought on by the practical needs of production. Combining lecture and discussion with text analysis assignments and in-class exercises, students will learn how to approach the creation of a director’s production concept for a text, and then explore, through rehearsals and staging, the process of bringing a dramatic story to life on stage in an engaging and compelling manner. Particular emphasis will be placed on how to synthesize different elements with one another to create a coherent expression designed to elicit intellectual, emotional, and critical responses from audiences. Course will culminate with each student presenting a scene or short on-act play fully staged for peer and instructor feedback. Leadership, collaboration, presentation skills, creative problem-solving, and project management will be taught as crucial elements of the process.

Allows examination of a special problem or topic area in the theatre, dance, music, visual arts, and other performing and fine arts. Topics and specific content and methods vary from term to term. Each term’s offering, however, features an introduction to a historical period, movement, phenomenon, practitioner(s), or other subfield of study within performing arts and/or visual culture. In so doing, students develop theoretical and experiential knowledge of an artistic period, movement, phenomenon, practitioner(s) or other subfield of study within performing arts and/or visual culture.