Academics

Theater

 

Paul Nelsen

Research Area: Performance History, Theory, Performance
Paul's specialty area is Shakespeare in Performance, from the Early Modern period to twenty-first century inventions.

Brenda Foley
Research Area: Theatre and Performance Studies
Brenda's specific areas of interest include popular culture, gender and performance, and contemporary plays and playwrights.

David Underwood
David's specialty is technical theatre, including light and set design, and theatre production.

The study of Theatre and Performance Studies is a process of creative engagement with the cultural, historical, and global forces that shape our world. Through an expansive range of coursework, advanced-level tutorials, and production projects, students explore the multifaceted and interdisciplinary world of theatre and performance. In classes that investigate various dramatic texts of diverse cultural significance and historical import, students gain an understanding of how the constitutive elements of form, content, and ideology can be employed as tools for creative expression. In studio courses students cultivate skills in acting, directing, designing, and writing. All studies involve an examination of ideas and messages integral to performance.

Core courses offered in theatre help students to develop skills in a range of theatre craft areas (Acting, Directing, Playwriting, Design, and Technology) and aim to cultivate knowledge of dramatic literature, theatre history, and performance theory and criticism. All theatre courses tend to explore the subject matter from broad perspectives. For example, an acting course may consider intellectual history or behavioral psychology; readings of Shakespeare may spawn inquiries into how different cultures have "appropriated" Shakespeare’s plays over the past 400 years; and investigations of stage lighting design may involve some probing of Renaissance painting and principles of physics.

We aim to build methods of learning and develop skills such as the ability to read critically, to research, to analyze and interpret, to formulate ideas and visualize concepts, to test and evaluate alternative perspectives, and to question rigorously one’s own judgments and those of our predecessors.

Faculty endeavor to expose students to as many opportunities as possible, to explore their own interests and expand their understanding, to act and direct, to write, and to develop means and methods of artistic control. Performance work is regarded as a craft, a discipline, and a medium for expression. Students are also encouraged to explore the world of theatre beyond the Marlboro campus.

The faculty encourages students to acquire a critical understanding of the history of theatre and art, and to expand pre-existing boundaries of style and substance.

By the time they graduate, students on Plan in theatre will normally complete the following course work:

Plans in theatre are usually a combination of:

Starting Points: Basic and Introductory Courses

Theatre Projects (ART502)
This is not a conventional course. "Projects" covers work by actors, directors, and stage managers on specific theatre productions or projects. (All levels)

Theatre Scenery Construction (ART531)
An introduction to set design and construction for the theatre. The course will include a series of hands-on projects enabling students to learn or expand knowledge and skills. Some design drawing and model making will be covered. (All levels)

From Script to Stage to Screen (CDS518)
We will read about a dozen or so scripts to explore how various dramatic elements – character, relationship, story – undergo interpretive mediations when the text is actually produced. (Introductory)

Acting I: Foundations (ART806)
This course focuses on the development of the actors’ instruments – body, voice, imagination, and observation – in the context of ensemble training. Through a series of evolving exercises and guided improvisations that engage both external and internal approaches to acting, we will strengthen our craft: physical and vocal presence and energy, compositional relationship to the space and to others, and our ability to analyze the dramatic text and understand and create a character. In tandem with group work, students will learn to choose and/or write a monologue for performance and perform monologues and scenes. (Introductory)

Light & Lighting (CDS503)
This course will examine "light" and its aesthetic relationship to theatre, visual art, photography and film. Studio sessions will explore applications of light to various disciplines and be complemented by laboratories dedicated to student projects. (Introductory)

Stagecraft (ART465)
All aspects of technical theatre production. Will include lighting, set design and construction, costume design, and make up. In-class design projects. Lab to include hands-on work with tools, materials and equipment. (Introductory)

Visions and Re-visions: Exploring Dynamics of Dramatic Interpretation (ART590) Writers compose visions into words, offering interpretation of life experience in literary form. Directors, actors, and designers, interpret scripts – converting written words into living expression presented to audiences. Audiences interpret performance – subjectively measuring experiential references against the evocation of performance. While interpretation is always mediated by individual values, tastes, education, cultural mores, and other factors, interpretive practice inevitably involves recognition of choices, making of judgments, and the application of craft, creativity, and critical refinement. Visions are subjected to "re-visions" – alternative perspectives, fresh retellings, reformed messages, or even total subversions. (Introductory)

Pursuing Interests Intermediate and Thematic Courses

Shakespeare in the Movies (ART843)
This seminar will explore cinematic treatments and adaptations drawn from the works of Shakespeare. Films will range from Orson Welles’ Othello, to Olivier’s Hamlet, to Julie Taymor’s Titus, to Richard Loncraine’s Richard II, to Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing, As You Like It, and Henry V, to Baz Luhrman’s Romeo + Juliet, to Kurusawa’s RAN, to Kozintev’s King Lear, to Tim Blake Nelson’s 10 Things I Hate About You. Critical examination of films will be supplemented by readings and written exercises. (Intermediate)

Acting II: Scene Study and Solo Performance (ART822)
This is an intermediate course designed for the continuing training and development of actors with previous class/performance experience. Students choosing to focus on scene study can expect to work 3-4 challenging scenes by playwrights outside of the modern U.S. canon (i.e., Stoppard, Pinter, Coward, O’Neill, Williams, Shaw, Ibsen, Chekhov, Moliere). Students choosing to focus on solo performance will work toward the creation of a one- person show through a series of connected monologues, or a single, long-form piece. (Intermediate)

Acting Lab: Working with Directors (ART840)
This class is designed as a lab for experienced actors to work with a number of different directors on several small projects in the context of the Directing class. Meeting times will be approximately two hours on Tuesday afternoons plus additional outside rehearsals. Actors can anticipate working on a site-specific composition, an original play, and a "fully-produced" one-act to be showcased at the end of the semester. Note: Students registered in this course may not register for ART 53, "Directing." (Intermediate)

Directing (ART53)
This course is an intensive introduction to the practice and theory of directing and composition. Students will study the techniques and guiding principles of Bogart, Stanislavsky, Brecht, and Brook with a particular emphasis on directing as a collaborative process. We will experiment with generating theatre from a variety of sources, including dramatic text, images, sound, specific environments, and the actors themselves. Readings and discussion are accompanied by intensive in-class exercises and projects to guide students in determining their own style. Through in-class "directing workouts" we explore alternative approaches to the director’s process. Each student will design and direct a site-specific composition, develop a short original theater piece for the midterm presentation, and mount a one-act play for the final presentation. Note: Students registered in this course may not register for ART 840, "Acting Lab: Working with Directors." (Intermediate)

Culture and Diversity on the U.S. Stage (CDS545)
This course explores U.S. performance history and practice as reflected by African-American Theater, Latino Theater, and Asian-American Theatre. Sources include plays, production histories, writings by the artists, performance on film and video, and critical theory. We will examine theatre as a site for the public construction of racial, cultural, and national identity and theatrical models that both contribute to and subvert cultural stereotypes. We will ask whether theatre is always and necessarily about the politics of representation, and explore how different artists choose to work in a culturally diverse landscape. (Intermediate)

Expression and Performance (ART667)
This is an intermediate level acting course that will explore techniques of interpretation. Emphasis will be placed on ways of bringing text to voice. Assignments will include substantial memorization of dramatic text and poetry. (Intermediate)

Credit may be earned for work in technical theatre, dance, video/film production.

Special Topics Courses

Topics courses offer opportunities to study a specific playwright or period of theatrical history in depth.
Examples of a Topics Course include:

Shattered Rainbows: The Theatrical World of Tennessee Williams

Staging the Apocalypse

Postcolonial Plays and Performances

Good Foundation For Plan

We welcome interdisciplinary Plans of Concentration. As a rule of thumb, new students who arrive with a clear determination to do a Plan in theatre should take two theatre courses in a four-course schedule, one of which should involve critical study of literature. Production work is essential. All students should try to build a broad base of experience by working in various capacities on play production, both backstage and onstage.

Areas Of Interest For Plan-Level Work

Sample Tutorial Topics