TAPS 1:
Introduction to Theater and Performance Studies
TAPS 1 provides you with a solid foundation in Theater Studies and traces the development of the burgeoning field of Performance Studies. We will consider a range of canonical plays and emerging performance forms, and explore how performance can also function as an interpretive framework for analyzing a broad range of social behaviors, sites, and institutions. Through a series of close readings, discussions, written and practical exercises, and viewings of live performance, this course will help you achieve a richer understanding of the performances you see and the performances you may wish to make. This quarter, TAPS 1 will serve as the platform for the Theater & Performance Studies professionalization series. We will host several guest speakers (directors, actors, playwrights, and dance practitioners), who will give you some real connections in the theater world and will provide you with information and skills to help you build a career in the arts.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
TAPS 11N:
Dramatic Tensions: Theater and the Marketplace
Preference to freshmen. The current state of the American theater and its artists. Conventional wisdom says that theater is a dying art, and a lost cause, especially in an age of multi-media entertainment. But there are more young playwrights, actors, and directors entering the field today than at any other time in American history. Focus is on the work of today's theater artists, with an emphasis on an emerging generation of playwrights. Students read a cross-section of plays from writers currently working in the US and UK, covering a spectrum of subjects and styles from serious to comic, from the musical to the straight play. Hits and misses from recent seasons of the New York and London stages and some of the differences of artistic taste across the Atlantic. Hands-on exploration of the arts and skills necessary to make a play succeed. Students develop their own areas of interest, in guided projects in design, direction or performance. Conversations with playwrights, designers ,and directors. Labs and master classes to solve problems posed in areas of creative production. Class meets literary managers and producers who are on the frontlines of underwriting new talent. Class trips include two plays at major Bay Area Stages.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
TAPS 11Q:
Art in the Metropolis (ARTSINST 11Q)
This seminar is offered in conjunction with the annual "Arts Immersion" trip to New York that takes place over the spring break and is organized by the Stanford Arts Institute (SAI). Participation in the trip is a requirement for taking part in the seminar (and vice versa). The trip is designed to provide a group of students with the opportunity to immerse themselves in the cultural life of New York City guided by faculty and the SAI programming director. Students will experience a broad range and variety of art forms (visual arts, theater, opera, dance, etc.) and will meet with prominent arts administrators and practitioners, some of whom are Stanford alumni. For further details and updates about the trip, see http://arts.stanford.edu.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
TAPS 12N:
To Die For: Antigone and Political Dissent (CLASSICS 17N)
(Formerly CLASSGEN 6N.) Preference to freshmen. Tensions inherent in the democracy of ancient Athens; how the character of Antigone emerges in later drama, film, and political thought as a figure of resistance against illegitimate authority; and her relevance to contemporary struggles for women's and workers' rights and national liberation. Readings and screenings include versions of Antigone by Sophocles, Anouilh, Brecht, Fugard/Kani/Ntshona, Paulin, Glowacki, Gurney, and von Trotta.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-ER
TAPS 17N:
Acting for Activists
Acting for Activists is designed for students who are interested in combining acting with activism, performance with politics. We will work with theatre that responds to specific political events and crisis such as hate crimes or war through the performance of activist texts. We will also explore works that challenge inequalities of income, race, gender and sexual orientation. By the end of the course students will cultivate a critical vocabulary for discussing and critiquing work within acting/activist contexts and develop new strategies for creating theatre in relation to issues they are passionate about. Acting for Activists encourages students to think about what they want to say and helps them craft how they want to say it.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 19AX:
Experimental Dance Theater with Parijat Desai
A course for dancers, actors and theater designers to gain a multi-faceted immersion into the process of NYC-based experimental dance theater. Through studying dance and movement technique and a discussion of the themes of justLikeThat/Maya, a dance theater work by Parjiat Desai, students will engage ideas about the relationship between language and state power in a democracy, to research and generate dialogue, movement/gesture, song and dance. justLikeThat/Maya, which explores how news and official language obfuscates and disconnects us from lived reality is situated between experimental theater and dance, and was previewed in 2017 in at Harlem Stage. The piece is in part inspired by a Hindustan Times article about activist Sharmila Irom, who challenged India¿s Armed Forces Special Powers Act. (The AFSPA allows the army to attack civilians in the name of national security.) She also draws from George Orwell's essay "Politics of the English Language," and other sources of news-, or official-, or corporate-speak, to inquire into the way postcolonial English operates. nDuring Fall of 2018, Desai will be culminating development of an evening-length production, and with support from Center for Performance Research in Williamsburg, NY, collaborate with designers to create costume, set, and projection. Students, along with Desai and principle creative collaborators will delve into the development process and consider methods of creating experimental theater from a dance and chorographic perspective. nStudents will also have the opportunity to learn dance technique from Parijat Desai, India-born, New York-based choreographer who strives to cross boundaries of culture, identity, and nation through dance performance. She draws on contemporary dance, bharata natyam, theater and other forms to create hybrid movement languages.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 2
TAPS 20A:
Acting for Non-Majors
A class designed for all interested students. Creative play, ensemble work in a supportive environment. Designed for the student to experience a range of new creative skills, from group improvisation to partner work. Introductory work on freeing the natural voice and physical relaxation. Emphasis on rediscovering imaginative and creative impulses. Movement improvisation, listening exercises, and theater games release the energy, playfulness and willingness to take risks that is the essence of free and powerful performance. Course culminates with work on dramatic text. This version of the class is offered in summer only. During the year, students should register for TAPS 124D.
Terms: Sum
| Units: 2
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 20AX:
A Raisin in the Sun
Set on Chicag's South Side, the plot revolves around the divergent dreams and conflicts within three generations of the Younger family: son Walter Lee, his wife Ruth, his sister Beneatha, his son Travis, and matriarch Lena. When her deceased husband's insurance money comes through, Mama Lena dreams of moving to a new home and a better neighborhood in Chicago. Walter Lee, a chauffeur, has other plans: buying a liquor store and being his own man. Beneatha dreams of medical school. The tensions and prejudice they face form this seminal American drama. The Younger family¿s heroic struggle to retain dignity in a harsh and changing world is a searing and timeless document of hope and inspiration.nnStudents cast in the production must enroll in the associated Arts Intensive course; the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education will cover tuition costs associated with enrollment. Cast members and other key creative roles will be offered two units of credit through the Arts Intensive program and will be housed on campus for rehearsals which start during the Arts Intensive program period (September 4-21, 2018) and continue into Fall quarter, culminating in performances in Roble Studio Theater on October 25-27 and November 1-3, 2018.)
Terms: Sum
| Units: 2
TAPS 20N:
Prisons and Performance
Preference to Freshmen. This seminar starts with the unlikely question of what can the performing arts ¿ particularly dance and theater ¿ illuminate about the situation of mass incarceration in America. Part seminar, part immersive context building, students will read and view a cross-section of dance and theater works where the subject, performers, choreographers or authors, belong to part of the 2.4 million people currently behind bars in US prisons. Class includes conversations with formerly incarcerated youth, prison staff, juvenile justice lawyers and artists working in juvenile and adult prisons as well as those who are part of the 7.3 million people currently on parole or probation. Using performance as our lens we will investigate the unique kinds of understanding the arts make possible as well as the growing use of theater and dance to affect social change and personal transformation among prison inmates. Class trips will include visits to locked facilities and meetings with artists and inmates working behind bars.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
TAPS 21:
StoryCraft
StoryCraft is a hands-on, experiential workshop offering participants the opportunity, structure and guidance to craft compelling personal stories to be shared in front of a live audience. The class will focus on several areas of storytelling: Mining (how do you find your stories and extract the richest details?); Crafting (how do you structure the content and shape the language?); and Performing (how do you share your stories with presence, authenticity and connection?)
Terms: Aut, Spr
| Units: 2
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 21N:
The Idea of Virtual Reality
What is virtual reality and where is it heading? Was there VR before digital technology? What is the value of the real in a virtual culture? How, where, and when do we draw the line between the virtual and the real, the live and the mediated today? Concentrating on three aspects of VR simulation, immersion, and interactivity this course will examine recent experiments alongside a long history of virtual performance, from Plato's Cave to contemporary CAVEs, from baroque theatre design to Oculus Rift.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
TAPS 21S:
StoryCraft: On Relationships (FEMGEN 21S)
This class prepares students to tell their stories in front of the audience for Beyond Sex Ed: Intimacy & Relationships in Spring 2018. Do we need love? And if so, what does it look like? In this class, students will learn about relationships from the inside-out: through an examination and telling of their lived experiences. We will explore various perspectives on intimacy and relationships that illuminate different aspects of our lives, and then dive into our own stories to discover the many facets of intimacy. Due to the personal nature of the topic, we will emphasize safety, trust, and confidentiality throughout. The class offers the structure and guidance to 1) mine your life for stories, 2) craft the structure and shape of your stories, and 3) perform with presence, authenticity, and connection.
Terms: Win
| Units: 2
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 21T:
StoryCraft: On Sexuality (FEMGEN 21T)
What is "sexuality education", and what could it be? How do I tell a compelling story? In this class, students will learn about sexuality and storytelling from the inside out. We will explore various perspectives on sexuality that illuminate different aspects of our lives and then dive into our own stories to discover the richness and vibrancy of human sexuality. Due to the personal nature of the topic, we will emphasize safety, trust, and confidentiality throughout. The class offers the structure and guidance to 1) mine your life for stories, 2) craft the structure and shape of your stories, and 3) perform with presence, authenticity, and connection. Students will be selected from this class to tell their stories in Beyond Sex Ed: Consent & Sexuality at Stanford during NSO 2018. Before enrolling, ensure that you will be on campus Sept 20-22, 2018 for rehearsal and performance. Email the TA, Eisa, with any questions, eqalshamma@stanford.edu. Class will be held in KINGSCOTE Gardens First Floor Conference Room.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 2
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 22:
Scene Work
For actors who complete substantial scene work with graduate directors in the graduate workshop.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1-2
| Repeatable
for credit
TAPS 28:
Makeup for the Stage
Techniques of make-up application and design for the actor and artist including corrective, age, character, and fantasy. Emphasis placed on utilizing make-up for development of character by the actor. Limited enrollment.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 2
TAPS 29:
Theater Performance: Acting
Students cast in department productions receive credit for their participation as actors; 1-2 units for graduate directing workshop projects and 1-3 units for major productions (units determined by instructor). May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1-3
| Repeatable
for credit
TAPS 30:
Introduction to Theatrical Design
Introduction to Theatrical Design is aimed at students interested in exploring the fundamentals of design for the stage. Students are introduced to the practical and theoretical basics of design and are challenged to answer the question: What makes good design? Students should expect to try their hand at communicating their ideas visually through research, drawing, sketching and model making. Readings, field trips, guest lecturers and class discussion will complement these projects. This course is intended as a gateway to more specialized courses in set, costume and lighting design and is also an excellent primer for actors, directors and scholars who wish to know more about design. Collaboration will be emphasized. No prior experience in these areas is necessary.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 31:
Introduction to Lighting and Production
Good visual storytelling begins and ends with good lighting. All visual storytelling forms--from photos to films to stage productions--provide a canvas in which lighting paints the scene. Lighting sets a mood, a tone, and can shape character and stories. This course teaches critical thinking, how to conduct thorough research, practical skills, and a mindfulness for live artforms.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
TAPS 32F:
Godiva to Gaga: A Survey of Western Fashion and Societal Implications
The evolution of fashion and costume with an emphasis on the relationship between social, cultural, and political events and clothing style. Attention to major designers and creators and their shaping of resultant fashion and artistry in clothing.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 4
TAPS 33:
Introduction to Technical Theater and Production
A fun, collaborative, hands-on course subjecting students to the basics of scenery, props, painting, rigging, sound, lighting, costumes, and other production elements used in theater. This class is good for all types of theater students interested in producing theater at Stanford and beyond.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 2-3
TAPS 34:
Stage Management Techniques
The production process, duties, and responsibilities of a stage manager. Skills needed to stage manage a production.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
TAPS 39:
Theater Crew
For students working backstage, on run crew, or in the theater shops on TAPS department productions. Night and weekend time required. Pre-approval from Jane Casamajor (janecasa@stanford.edu) is required for enrollment.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1-3
| Repeatable
4 times
(up to 15 units total)
TAPS 39D:
Small Project Stage Management
For students Stage Mananging a TAPS Senior Project or Assistant Stage Managing a TAPS department production. Pre-approval by Laxmi Kumaran (laxmik@stanford.edu) required for enrollment.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 2-4
| Repeatable
for credit
TAPS 42:
Costume Construction
Course will cover the basics of costume and garment construction. Includes hand and machine skills as well as basic patterning ideas that may be applied to more advanced projects. Lecture/Lab
Terms: Win
| Units: 2
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 50:
Arts in Context: The Process of Cultural Production (ARTSINST 50, MUSIC 50)
A combination of practical skill-building and discussions with practicing arts professionals, this course will provide students with the foundational skills necessary to produce programs on campus and/or work in the arts. The talks and workshops will cover topics including curatorial practice and programming (for both visual and performing arts); grant writing and other fundraising methodology; budgeting and financial management; contracts and other legal considerations; and public relations and marketing. Every session is open for drop-in attendance, or students may take the entire series for credit. May be repeat for credit.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 1-2
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 4 units total)
TAPS 60:
Singing: How it's done, how to learn to do it, and how to work with people who do it.
A weekly lecture course for singers, pianists, directors, conductors, and anyone who is interested in the art and craft of the voice. Students will learn about the vocal instrument, how to use it efficiently and keep it healthy, how to lead and participate in vocal productions and ensembles of all periods and styles. Ability to sing and/or read music is not required; this is not a voice class. Required readings. Taught by Music Department Faculty; coordinated by Wendy Hillhouse.
| Units: 1
TAPS 101P:
Theater and Performance Making (TAPS 371P)
A creative workshop offering a range of generative exercises and techniques in order to devise, compose and perform original works. Students will explore a variety of texts (plays, poems, short stories, paintings) and work with the body, object and site. nnStudents will be encouraged to think critically about various compositional themes and ideas including: the relationship between form and content, aesthetics, space, proximity, and audience. Students will work independently and collaboratively creating original performances.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 103:
Beginning Improvising
The improvisational theater techniques that teach spontaneity, cooperation, team building, and rapid problem solving, emphasizing common sense, attention to reality, and helping your partner. Based on TheatreSports by Keith Johnstone. Readings, papers, and attendance at performances of improvisational theater. Limited enrollment. Improv, Improvisation, creativity and creative expression. All who sign up are placed on a waitlist. Official enrollment will be determined after the first day of class. Attendance at the first class session is mandatory to be considered for enrollment in the course.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 104:
Intermediate Improvisation
This class is the continued study of improvisational theater with a focus on stage skills, short and long form performance formats, and offstage applications of collaborative creativity. It is open to any students who have taken TAPS 103 or have previous onstage improv experience AND consent of the instructor. May be repeat for credit.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 6 units total)
TAPS 108:
Introduction to Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (AMSTUD 107, CSRE 108, FEMGEN 101)
Introduction to interdisciplinary approaches to gender, sexuality, queer, trans and feminist studies. Topics include the emergence of sexuality studies in the academy, social justice and new subjects, science and technology, art and activism, history, film and memory, the documentation and performance of difference, and relevant socio-economic and political formations such as work and the family. Students learn to think critically about race, gender, and sexuality from local and global perspectives.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
TAPS 115:
Musical Theater (MUSIC 183D)
In this workshop we will traverse the landscape of world of Musical Theater. It will serve as an introduction for the beginning actor and singer, and expand the more experienced performer's range in this genre. The world of Musical Theater is filled with stories of love, passion, joy, violence, heartbreak and rage. The class will include an introduction to vocal and movement skills for musical theater, beginning with exercises to build an ensemble and encourage a sense of play and relaxation in supportive environment. Our class must be a place where everyone feels safe. As ensemble members, we will be responsible for each other in this environment. nStudents will choose one solo song, and perform in a group number from this exciting discipline. The instructor will work with the actors on technique, utilization of action, specificity of language, personalization, and emotional truth. A professional coach from the theater community will conduct vocal coaching. Physical warm-ups and choreography will be suited for both the dancer and non-dancer.nThe class will culminate in the last week with live performance for friends and family.nSTUDENTS ARE ENCOURAGED TO BRING THEIR OWN SUGGESTIONS. (Isn't there a role you've always wanted to sing?)nRequired text: Broadway Musicals Show by Show: Sixth Edition - Stanley Green; Paperback
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1-3
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 119:
Modern Theatre (GERMAN 319, TAPS 319)
Modern theatre in Europe and the US, with a focus on the most influential works from roughly 1880 to the present. What were the conventions of theatrical practice that modern theatre displaced? What were the principal innovations of modern playwriting, acting, stage design, and theatrical architecture? How did modern theatrical artists wrestle with the revolutionary transformations of the modern age? Plays by Büchner, Ibsen, Strindberg, Shaw, Chekhov, Wilde, Wedekind, Treadwell, Pirandello, Brecht, O¿Neill, Beckett, Smith, Parks, and Nottage.
Last offered: Spring 2017
| Units: 1-5
TAPS 120A:
Acting I: Fundamentals of Acting
A substantive introduction to the basics of the craft of acting, this course gives all incoming students the foundation of a common vocabulary. Students will learn fundamental elements of dramatic analysis, and how to apply it in action. Topics include scene analysis, environment work, psychological and physical scoring, and development of a sound and serviceable rehearsal technique. Scene work will be chosen from accessible, contemporary, and realistic plays. Outside rehearsal time required.
Terms: Aut, Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 120B:
Acting II: Advanced Acting
Learn how to expand character work, beyond what is immediately familiar. Continuing basic practices from the first part of the sequence, in this quarter they will look beyond the strictly contemporary, and may begin to approach roles drawn from more challenging dramatic texts. This might include plays chosen from mid-century American classics, World Theater, or other works with specific historic or cultural requirements. Actors begin to learn how a performing artist researches and how that research can be used to enrich and deepen performance. Prerequisite: 120A or consent of instructor. Priority given to TAPS majors and minors.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 121C:
Physical Characterization
A practical course in movement, acting and character development for stage or screen. This course is appropriate for all artists; no prior movement training is required. We will explore expressive possibilities in the body in order to build characters with nuanced physicality and rich emotional life. Students will learn strategies for awakening the body, find a greater range of expression, and widen the variety of characters they can inhabit. We will conduct live observations and take inspiration from photographs, memories, dramatic texts and other sources to build vivid portraits of character in performance. Actors will work independently and as an ensemble, learning techniques derived from Michael Chekhov. We will also practice physical conditioning for the actor through a daily warm-up sequence that improves strength, flexibility and alignment.
Last offered: Autumn 2015
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 121P:
Period and Style:Acting
This course is designed for the actor and theater-lover who has completed 120a or an equivalent basic acting class. Students will develop their acting skills towards the ability to perform in some of the major classics of the theater, from Shakespeare's plays through the fast-paced physical comedies of twentieth-century farce. Acting in "big" plays without damaging the voice, working physically with safety, how to research like an artist, and rehearse like a professional are all topics that will be covered. Class culminates in an open Scene Showing of Period Plays.
Last offered: Spring 2014
| Units: 3
TAPS 121V:
Voice for the Actor
This course will focus on releasing a voice that effectively reaches the listener and is responsive to the actor¿s thoughts and feelings. Through work on breath awareness, alignment, resonance, and muscularity, students will learn to identify habits that help or hinder performance. Students will practice exercises to develop vocal strength, clarity, ease, and expressiveness while exploring the vocal demands of various texts and performing environments. Course will culminate in a presentation of classical and contemporary monologues. This course is a good preparation for auditions, rehearsal, and performance, and is appropriate for all levels. Priority space reserved for TAPS majors and minors.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 122A:
Expressive Techniques in Multimedia Installation And Live Art (ARTSTUDI 122A)
The course focus on multimedia installation and live performances. The theme of the course will be an offshoot of the campus wide celebration of the 200th year anniversary of the ¿Frankenstein¿ novel written by Mary Shelly. For the course the issues of advance medical science in the areas of artificial life forms, stem cell research, biological ethical questions, fictional and non fictional approaches and mythical creation stories will be included. Students will obtain an understanding of alternative ways to speak to issues using various art forms.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
TAPS 122P:
Undergrad Performance Project: Life is a Dream
The Undergraduate Performance Project provides students the opportunity to study and perform in major dramatic works. The Winter 2018 Undergraduate Performance Project presents Life is a Dream. Students learn to form an artistic ensemble, develop dramaturgical materials, learn professional arts protocols and practice, devise within the ensemble, and develop live performance ability. Audition required. Preference to majors/minors. Maybe repeated for credit. 3 maximum completions allowed. If repeated, 15 total units allowed.
Terms: Win
| Units: 1-9
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
| Repeatable
3 times
(up to 15 units total)
TAPS 124D:
Acting for Non-Majors
Formerly TAPS 20. Creative play, ensemble work in a supportive environment. Designed for the student to experience a range of new creative skills, from group improvisation to partner work. Introductory work on freeing the natural voice and physical relaxation. Emphasis on rediscovering imaginative and creative impulses. Movement improvisation, listening exercises, and theater games release the energy, playfulness and willingness to take risks that is the essence of free and powerful performance. Course culminates with work on dramatic text.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1-3
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE, way_ce
TAPS 125:
Acting Shakespeare
This course explores the unique demands of playing Shakespeare on the stage. Through deep exploration of language and performance techniques in sonnets, speeches and scenes, the student will learn how to bring Shakespeare's passions to life through research, analysis, and a dynamic use of voice, body and imagination. This course is designed to increase the actor's physical, vocal, emotional, and intellectual responsiveness to the demands, challenges and joys of playing Shakespeare.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 3
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 6 units total)
TAPS 125C:
Acting Chekhov
Playwright Anton Chekhov helped revolutionize the theater with his naturalistic representation of life onstage. In this course, students will explore the creation of character and ensemble by doing scenes from Chekhov's plays with a particular focus on relationship, subtext, sensory life, and Russian history and culture in 1900. Students will practice the improvisational technique of Active Analysis to connect with and embody characters and events, as well as exploring various exercises of Michael Chekhov's such as the Psychological Gesture, and exercises involving tempo-rhythm, physical centers, and archetypes. Prerequisite: Acting 120A. Priority given to TAPS majors and minors.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
TAPS 125S:
Shakespeare Now: An Actor's Lab
This active workshop will provide the actor with skills for performing Shakespeare with clarity, joy and power. Actors work with scenes and monologues to develop ease with scansion, freedom of voice, and to expand their physical and imaginative range. nnWe will also become acquainted with some of the ways that Shakespeare and other classic texts are being re-invigorated at the hands of modern writers and adapters. We will investigate the world of styles and approaches an actor may encounter in new takes on classic plays in our own time.nn(Priority to TAPS majors-minors. Previous acting class required, or instructor permission.)
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3
TAPS 126:
Sound Stories
This special seminar is designed for students interested in creating stories for radio, podcast, and other sound media. Students will learn both the core principles of telling strong stories, whatever the medium, and the strategies of telling entertaining, persuasive stories for the ear. Just like film or the novel, sonic stories offer a fascinating mix of constraints and opportunities, and you'll learn how to invite listeners into an experience or insight that combines theories, facts and feelings into a single space of empathy. This is a hybrid class - equal parts classic seminar and creative workshop - and students will create stories from start to finish and learn skills from pitching and interviewing to writing, editing, and digital production. Students will work in small groups to document places through the stories that inhabit them - from the Menlo Park Police department to local shelters and community centers. Recommended for students interested in creative nonfiction, documentary, film, and even sound art. No prior experience necessary. Students wishing to enroll in this course must complete the following survey: nhttp://web.stanford.edu/~jwarga/S17TAPS126.fb (Cardinal Course certified by the Haas Center)
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 127:
Movement for the Actor
This course is an exploration of movement techniques for the actor, designed to provide a foundation for performance practice. Students will develop a more grounded sense of ease and breath onstage, learn fundamentals of physical partnership, and acquire an expanded physical vocabulary. Areas of study include Laban movement analysis, observation and embodiment, basic contact improvisation, and physical characterization. Students will also engage a personalized warmup process for rehearsal and performance. All coursework will be entirely experiential, practical, and participatory. No previous experience necessary. Some outside rehearsal/investigation time required.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 8 units total)
TAPS 127C:
Introduction to Stage Combat
A course designed to cover the fundamental techniques to safely and convincingly create the illusion of violence. Stressing safety, storytelling, and partnering, this class will explore the most commonly used unarmed combat techniques, including fighting with found objects and comedic violence. Additionally, students will explore the essential techniques and vocabulary for theatrical broadsword including parries, cuts, thrusts, footwork and evasions. Students will have the opportunity to take a "skills proficiency test" in both disciplines for recognition as a beginning theatrical combatant with Dueling Arts International. This class will be taught by Dave Maier.
Last offered: Spring 2017
| Units: 3
TAPS 127S:
Acting Through Song
How does a singer develop the strategies to shape nuanced, emotional performances? What clues does the singer mine from lyrics and a score in order to communicate through song? This is a studio course in acting and movement techniques for vocal performers who want to expand their expressive range, refine multi-faceted performances, and cultivate compelling stage presence. nnThis course is suitable for any vocalist; classical singers, a cappella performers, musical theater actors and others are all welcome. The three foundational underpinnings of our work will be actor personalization technique, basic movement training and text analysis strategies. We will develop flexibility, relaxation and the freedom to follow expressive impulses while also deepening our knowledge of character, narrative and theme.nnStudents should be prepared to engage in intensive work with performance pieces, selected according to each student¿s preferred style and tradition. We will focus on close textual analysis and find connections between the ways performers use various written scores (for spoken dialogue, song lyrics and musical composition) as the blueprints for dynamic performances that tell a powerful story. The course will culminate in a public performance of material from a musical performance genre.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 2-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 127W:
Introduction to Clown
This course is an introduction to the world and play of the theatrical clown, constructed for actors to explore truth in size, vulnerability, and a personal sense of humor. Students will develop their ability to play with the audience, a greater capacity for freedom and abandon onstage, and a healthier relationship to failure and human idiocy. Areas of study include partnership and status play, comic rhythm and timing, the structure and development of comic material, and the beginnings of a personal eccentric Clown character. All coursework will be experiential and practical. Some stage experience is recommended but not required. Some outside rehearsal/investigation time required.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
TAPS 130:
ReDesigning Theater: Live & Digital Performance
This quarter¿s version of ReDesigning Theater looks at Live and Digital Performance. We will examine the use of digital technology in collaboration with live performance. Students will learn and employ the design thinking process as well as improv and theatrical techniques. We aim to create user-centric, interactive experiences where technology enables the audience to become part of and/or influence the outcome of the story or its presentation. Student projects will begin with the concepts enabled by personal technology such as smart phones and expand to animation, video projection, and other media. Students will work in small groups to investigate and experiment with formats that blur the lines between live and digital, performer and audience, and physical and virtual platforms. This project-based course is accessible to students of all backgrounds interested in exploring and transforming the frontiers of technology, art, and live performance.
Last offered: Autumn 2013
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 131:
Lighting Design
With the tools newly acquired from the previous quarter, this hands-on course features laboratory projects in lighting and designing live stage productions. Prerequisite TAPS 31.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
TAPS 132:
Costume Design
This course introduces the goals, directives and techniques of designing costumes for performance. From the first reading of the script to opening night, all aspects will be covered including director/designer relationships, design approach, research, rendering, fabric selection, procurement or construction of costumes, fittings and final dress rehearsals. Each student will work on, or be assigned one main project of their choice. This class can coincide or be taken in advance of a student¿s involvement in a campus show, utilizing the campus project as their main project in the class. Smaller exercises will be given throughout the quarter to emphasize principles and invigorate design discussions. All students will be required to attend the performances of their peers¿ projects. One field trip to a professional theater may be planned.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 133:
Stage Scenery Design
Craft and Theory of stage scenery design including visual research, spatial organization, basic drafting, sketching and model-building. Prerequisite: 30, or consent of instructor.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 8 units total)
TAPS 133D:
Set Design Practicum
This course is intended for students who are in the process of designing scenery for a Stanford club or department production and seek guidance in developing and refining their design. It is also open to students who have not yet committed to a fully realized set design project but would like to in the future, or anyone who would like to focus on the practical aspects of set design in general. Each week students present their work on a current or future set design and receive feedback and suggestions from classmates and the instructor. Also, the instructor will create project oriented assignments adapted to the needs and timeline of each individual project and student. Topics include: visual research, sketching, computer and hand drafting, and model making. During the first two weeks of the course students and instructor will determine a final project, such as a color model or design drafting, which will be required for completion of the course.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3-4
TAPS 133T:
Transgender Performance and Performativity (FEMGEN 133)
This course examines theater, performance art, dance, and embodied practice by transgender artists. Students will learn the history and politics of transgender performance while considering the creative processes and formal aesthetics trans artists use to make art. We will analyze creative work in conversation with critical and theoretical texts from the fields of performance studies, art history, and queer studies.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
TAPS 134:
Stage Management Project
For students stage managing a production in the Department of Theater and Performance Studies.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 3-5
| Repeatable
for credit
TAPS 135C:
Theory & Craft of the Scenographic Model
Students learn studio techniques for constructing dimensional models for stage designs. Students will work with their hands using common materials such as cardboard, paint and wood. Use of Stanford's Product Realization Lab encouraged for specialty items such as miniature furniture depending on departmental coordination.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
TAPS 135M:
Introduction to Media Production
Students will explore ways to incorporate video and other multimedia tools in their theatrical work. We will analyze the use of prerecorded sound, video and slides in theater productions, both as scripted and as staged -- from Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape to The Wooster Group's Hamlet to Young Jean Lee's Untitled Feminist Show. Hands-on practical instruction will cover the fundamentals of cinematography, sound recording, picture and sound editing, directing for camera, and producing (planning, budgets, scheduling, permits, fair use, rights and clearances). Students will work in teams to create multimedia projects that can be used in a theatrical production.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
TAPS 136S:
Hidden Gems: Bay Area Theater Architecture post 1906
An active investigation of Bay Area theater architecture through a close look at five buildings built specifically for performance and how their use has changed over time. Students uncover building histories by researching drawing plans, photographs and other contextual documents in public and university archives in addition to site visits when possible. Particular attention will be paid to understanding shifting attitudes toward the proscenium arch in American popular culture. Possible buildings to be included: California Theater (San Jose), Memorial Auditorium (Stanford), Lucie Stern Theater (Palo Alto), Fox Theater (Redwood City) and The Curran Theater (San Francisco).
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 3
TAPS 137:
Hand Drafting for Designers
Fundamentals of hand-drafting. Standard drawing conventions; the use of line weight, color, composition, and graphic style. Creation of construction documents for real-world applications.May be repeated for credit.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 3
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 6 units total)
TAPS 140:
Introduction to Projects in Theatrical Production
A seminar course for students performing significant production work on Theater and Performance Studies Department or other Stanford University student theater projects. Students serving as producers, directors, designers or stage managers, who wish mentorship and credit for their production work sign up for this course and contact the instructor, Laxmi Kumaran. nPrerequisite: consent of instructor.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1-4
| Repeatable
for credit
TAPS 150G:
Performing Race, Gender, and Sexuality (CSRE 150G, FEMGEN 150G)
This theory and practice-based course will examine performances by and scholarly texts about artists who critically and mindfully engage race, gender, and sexuality. Students will cultivate their skills as artist-scholars through written assignments and the creation of performance-based works in response to the assigned material. Attendance and written reflection on the TAPS Vital Signs: Performance Art in the 21st Century performance art series are required. The practical component of the class will also incorporate meditation into the process of preparing for, making, and critiquing performance. We will approach mindfulness as method and theory in our own practice, as well in relation to the works studied, while attending to the ethics and current debates concerning its use. Examples of artists studied include James Luna, Nao Bustamante, William Pope.L, Yoko Ono, Cassils, Adrian Piper, Guillermo Gomez-Peña, Nikki S. Lee, and Ana Mendieta.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE, WAY-EDP
TAPS 151:
Dramaturgy (TAPS 315)
In this seminar, we will take the conventional idea of dramaturgy for narrative performance as developed in Western European theater since the enlightenment, and investigate its relation to non-narrative forms of performance in 20th and 21st (performance art, conceptual dance). Further, we will use dramaturgical procedures to explore the ideological content of performance and position of art institutions in our society. Finally, the students will get acquainted with production dramaturgy and get necessary tools to take the role of dramaturgs in actual performance productions.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
TAPS 152:
Introduction to Improvisation in Dance: From Salsa to Vodun to Tap Dance (AFRICAAM 52, CSRE 152)
This seminar introduces students to Dance Studies by exploring the topic of improvisation, a central concept in multiple genres of dance and music. We will survey a range of improvised dance forms¿from salsa to vodun to tap dance¿through readings, video viewings, discussion, and movement exercises (no previous dance experience required). When studying each genre, we will examine how race, gender, sexuality, citizenship, and other power structures affect the practices and theorizations of improvisation. Topics include community and identity formation; questions of technique versus ¿natural¿ ability; improvisation as a spiritual practice; and the role of history in improvisers¿ quest for spontaneity. Course material will focus on improvised dance, but we will also read pertinent literature in jazz music, theatre, and the law.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
TAPS 153:
Revenge: From Aeschylus to ABC
How has the topic of revenge inspired some of theatre history¿s most dramatic masterpieces? Covering works from ancient Greek and Roman tragedy to Chinese Opera, from Japanese samurai intrigues to Renaissance drama, and from nineteenth-century comedy to postcolonial plays, this course examines how the powerful impetus to take revenge has spurred or stymied some of theatre¿s most compelling characters. Blending theory and practice, we will experiment with an array of theatrical forms and styles; we will also discuss the philosophical dimensions and moral implications of revenge, including various cultural understandings of retribution and redress.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 4
TAPS 153M:
Mechanics of the Theater: The Technologies of Stagecraft
This course explores the history of technologies vital to the theatre: traps, lifts, lights, and sounds have been crucial for creating stage illusion. Divided into three main sections, Mechanics and Machines, Lighting and Projections, and Acoustics and Sound, we will examine the history of technological innovation and theatrical experimentation from the Enlightenment to the present. We will also be conducting case studies for each section with a core text or texts. We will cover Shakespeare's Hamlet, Ibsen's Ghosts, Chekhov's The Seagull, and Dreamgirls, The Musical. n nTechnologies such as mechanical traps, electrical lights, and sound machines have been used to create stunning illusions and spectacular theater. Many of these technologies were also significant for the histories of industrialization and modernization. We will ask: How did theater makers develop and innovate using technological innovations? What role does technological aesthetics play in understanding human culture? What are the relationships between theater, technology, and society? In class, we will be reading, experimenting, and performing with various technological artifacts. We will be conducting experiments alongside our reading practice to better understand our historical subjects.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-SI
TAPS 154G:
Black Magic: Ethnicity, Race, and Identity in Performance Cultures (AFRICAAM 154G, CSRE 154D, FEMGEN 154G)
In 2013, CaShawn Thompson devised a Twitter hashtag, #blackgirlmagic, to celebrate the beauty and intelligence of black women. Twitter users quickly adopted the slogan, using the hashtag to celebrate everyday moments of beauty, accomplishment, and magic. In contrast, #blackmagic is used to describe everything from the uncanny to the personal. This course examines the discursive phenomenon of "black magic" and its permutations throughout Anglo-American histories. We will investigate the binaries of black/dark, white/light magic that has entered our contemporary lexicon, reading material on religion, magic performance, and theater.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
TAPS 155:
Social Sculpture (ARTSTUDI 155)
This course investigates the immediacy of the body as material and sculpture in order to investigate private and social spaces. Actions are often used to understand or question the function and psychological aspects of a space and are documented for the perpetuation of these ideas. Throughout the quarter we will investigate the body as material and develop site specific performances enacted for: Private/Domestic and Public Space; Constructed Space & Physical Space; ecological systems; and generate both Individual & Collaborative based Actions, Interventions, & Events."
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 156:
Performing History: Race, Politics, and Staging the Plays of August Wilson (AFRICAAM 156, CSRE 156T, TAPS 356)
This course purposefully and explicitly mixes theory and practice. Students will read and discuss the plays of August Wilson, the most celebrated and most produced contemporary American playwright, that comprise his 20th Century History Cycle. Class stages scenes from each of these plays, culminating in a final showcase of longer scenes from his work as a final project.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE, WAY-EDP
TAPS 156A:
Warhol: Painting, Photography, Performance (ARTHIST 156A, ARTHIST 356A, TAPS 356A)
This course focuses on the career of Andy Warhol as a means to consider the broader history of American art and culture since 1950. It examines little-studied aspects of Warhol¿s visual production (e.g. his career as a commercial artist in the 1950s and his everyday photographs of the 1970s and 1980s) alongside his now-canonical Pop paintings of the 1960s. Warhol?s critical and scholarly reception will be scrutinized in detail, as will published interviews of and writings by the artist. Finally, we will consider Warhol¿s legacy and wide-ranging influence on American culture in the decades since his death in 1987.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
TAPS 156V:
Vital Signs: Performance in the 21st Century (ARTSTUDI 256V, TAPS 256V)
The first decade and a half of the 21st century have been transformative for performance art. On the one hand, it brought an unprecedented cultural acceptance of this art form, which is now featured in most prestigious museums and art festivals; on the other, the most recent generation of performance artists is showing a great awareness of the historicity and complexity of this form. In this class, we will try to recognize and investigate these and other prominent features of performance art produced since the turn of the millennium. We will use as our primary case studies performances that will be featured in the series Vital Signs: Contemporary Performance Art Series, hosted by TAPS in 2017-2018. The primary objective of the series is to highlight and showcase underrepresented performance forms such as experimental performance art, durational art, and body art, among others, by artists from communities that remain invisible or underrepresented in mainstream performing arts. The series is curated by the Los Angeles-based artist Cassils, who has been listed by the Huffington Post as 'one of ten transgender artists who are changing the landscape of contemporary art' and has achieved international recognition for a rigorous engagement with the body as a form of social sculpture. Cassils's curatorial vision is to present established performance artists alongside emerging artists. Each quarter, a pair of artists will visit Stanford for two days (Thursday-Friday). On day one of their visit they will offer a workshop or a public performance, and on the second day they will engage in a public dialogue. The class will meet each quarter for three weeks: before, during, and after the artists' visit. This way, the students will have an opportunity to prepare for the visit, engage with the visiting artists, and reflect on their work. They will receive their grades upon completion of the class, in the spring of 2018.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1
TAPS 157:
World Drama and Performance (TAPS 357)
This course takes up a geographically expansive conversation by looking at modern and contemporary drama from nations including Ghana, Egypt, India, Argentina, among others. Considering influential texts from the Global South will also enable us to explore a range of themes and methodologies that are radically re-shaping the field of Performance Studies. We will examine the relationship between colonialism and globalization, empire and capital, cosmopolitanism and neoliberalism. Re-situating our perspective from the Global South and the non-western world, we will 'provincialize Europe' and probe the limits of its universalizing discourses.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
TAPS 160:
Performance and History: Rethinking the Ballerina (DANCE 160, FEMGEN 160, TAPS 260)
The ballerina occupies a unique place in popular imagination as an object of over-determined femininity as well as an emblem of extreme physical accomplishment for the female dancer. This seminar is designed as an investigation into histories of the ballerina as an iconographic symbol and cultural reference point for challenges to political and gender ideals. Through readings, videos, discussions and viewings of live performances this class investigates pivotal works, artists and eras in the global histories of ballet from its origins as a symbol of patronage and power in the 15th century through to its radical experiments as a site of cultural obedience and disobedience in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender, WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
TAPS 160M:
Introduction to Representations of the Middle East in Dance, Performance, & Popular Culture (CSRE 160M, DANCE 160M, FEMGEN 160M)
This course will introduce students to the ways in which the Middle East has been represented and performed by/in the 'West' through dance, performance, and popular culture in both historical and contemporary contexts. A brief look through today's media sources exposes a wide range of racialized and gendered representations of the Middle East that shape the way the world imagines the Middle East to be. As postcolonial theorist Edward Said explains, the framework we call Orientalism establishes the ontological character of the Orient and the Oriental as inherently `Other'. Starting with 19th century colonialism and continuing into the post-9/11 era, this course will trace the Western production, circulation, and consumption of representations of the Middle East as 'Other' in relation to global geopolitics. We will further examine dance forms produced in mid-twentieth century Iran and Egypt, with particular attention to nation-state building and constructions of gender. Finally, we will examine artistic productions and practices from the Middle East and Middle Eastern diasporic communities that respond to colonialism, war, displacement, secularism, and Euro-American Empire. Using dance studies, postcolonial feminist, and critical race theoretical frameworks, we will consider the gender, racial, political, and cultural implications of selected performance works and practices in order to analyze how bodies produce meaning in dance, performance art, theater, film, photography, and new media. Students will engage in multiple modes of learning; the course will include lectures, engaged group discussions, viewing of live and recorded performance, embodied participation in dance practice, student oral presentations, and a variety of writing exercises. Course assignments will culminate in a final research project related to class themes and methods.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
TAPS 161D:
Introduction to Dance Studies: Dancing Across Stages, Clubs, Screens, and Borders (CSRE 61, DANCE 161D, FEMGEN 161D)
This introduction to dance studies course explores dance practice and performance as means for producing cultural meaning. Through theoretical and historical texts and viewing live and recorded dance, we will develop tools for analyzing dance and understanding its place in social, cultural, and political structures. This uses dance and choreography as a lens to more deeply understand a wide range of identity and cultural formations, such as gender, race, sexuality, (dis)ability, (trans)nationality, and empire. We will analyze dancing bodies that move across stages, dance clubs, film screens, and border zones. We will examine dance from diverse locales and time periods including ballet, modern and contemporary dance, contact improvisation, folkloric dance, burlesque, street dance, queer club dance, drag performance, music videos, TV dance competitions, and intermedia/new media performance. In addition to providing theoretical and methodological grounding in dance studies, this course develops performance analysis skills and hones the ability to write critically and skillfully about dance. No previous experience in dance is necessary to successfully complete the course.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
TAPS 161H:
Dance, History and Conflict (DANCE 161H)
This seminar investigates how moving bodies are compelling agents of social, cultural, and political change.Through readings, videos, discussions and viewings of live performances this class questions the impact of social conflict and war on selected 20th and 21st century dances and dance practices. This class asks to what extent dance, in its history as well as contemporary development, is linked to concepts of the political and conflict.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 4
TAPS 162H:
Baroque Modernities: Dance, Theater, Film, Political Theory (DANCE 162H)
What do seventeenth-century choreography and dramaturgy contribute to (mean to) choreographic and theatrical modernity? How can we explain the recurrent baroque phenomenon across the twentieth century -- becoming particularly prominent in the 1980s -- beyond the historicist accounts of theatrical reconstruction? How does the baroque locate itself within cultural modernity?nnThis seminar asks this question of choreography at several junctures: The analysis of seventeenth century baroque spectacle that fashioned dance and theatre into political tools of monarchical sovereignty; Twentieth-century literature on the Baroque that destabilizes received notions of subjectivity and political sovereignty; Twentieth-century choreography and film that deploys baroque figures and techniques.nnThus, our material shall range from seventeenth-century dance and theater to contemporary dance, film and literature.
| Units: 4
| Repeatable
4 times
(up to 16 units total)
TAPS 164H:
Performance and Gender (FEMST 164, FEMST 364, TAPS 364H)
The intersectionality of race, sex, gender, and class in the formation of gendered performance. Readings from the work of Judith Butler, Eve Sedgwick, David Savran, Judith Halberstam, and David Eng. Case studies include: M. Butterfly, The Crying Game, Paris is Burning, Angels in America, and American Idol..
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, GER:EC-Gender
TAPS 164T:
Queer Art and Performance (TAPS 364T)
Examines the late 19th, 20th and 21st century forms of performance-- including examples from drama, theater, cabaret, and performance art -- through the perspectives of contemporary critical gender and queer theories. Texts and movements range from early avant-garde (Dada, Futurism) to gay and lesbian drama (Lillian Hellmann, Joe Orton, Tony Kushner) to post-liberation Queer performance and video (Split Britches, Carmelita Tropicana, Kalup Linzy). Theorists include Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick.
Last offered: Spring 2013
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: GER:EC-Gender
TAPS 165:
Introduction to Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (CSRE 196C, ENGLISH 172D, PSYCH 155, SOC 146)
How different disciplines approach topics and issues central to the study of ethnic and race relations in the U.S. and elsewhere. Lectures by senior faculty affiliated with CSRE. Discussions led by CSRE teaching fellows. Includes an optional Haas Center for Public Service certified Community Engaged Learning section.
Terms: Win
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP, WAY-SI
TAPS 165C:
Ancient Dance and its Modern Legacy (CLASSICS 137, CLASSICS 237, TAPS 265C)
Descriptions of dance in the Greek and Greco-Roman world; theories about dance in antiquity; dance and the senses; modern and modernist dancers and choreographers discussing ancient dance
Last offered: Winter 2015
| Units: 3-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II
TAPS 167:
Introduction to Greek Tragedy: Gods, Heroes, Fate, and Justice (CLASSICS 112)
(Formerly CLASSGEN 110.) Gods and heroes, fate and free choice, gender conflict, the justice or injustice of the universe: these are just some of the fundamental human issues that we will explore in about ten of the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
TAPS 167H:
Revolutions in Theater (TAPS 267)
This course surveys the period from the turn of the 20th century until WII, during which the European avant-garde movements transformed modern art. This period in history is marked by dynamic political events that had a deep impact on experimental art and on culture in general. This interaction between poetics and politics makes the first decades of the 20th century the formative period of western and global theater.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
TAPS 168H:
Poor Theater (TAPS 268H)
The goal of this class is not to offer a survey of Happenings and other happening-related art of the late twentieth century. Instead, we will use Happenings as a paradigm of "poor theater" and "poor art" - umbrella terms for a number of experimental performance and art practices that emerged in the aftermath of the WWII. We will use the idea of poor theater as an organizing principle in our investigation of the main currents in the experimental performance in the last five decades. The class has a tripartite structure. First we will outline the paradigm of happenings, then trace the origins of Happenings in music, visual arts and theater of the mid twentieth century, and finally look at Happenings' immediate impact, as well as at its ripple effects that continued to reverberate long after the disappearance of this new art form. This course counts as a Writing in the Major course for TAPS in 2016-17.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 4
TAPS 170:
Directing and Dramaturgy: Composition and Adaptation for Theatre (TAPS 370)
This course explores dramaturgy and directing in the research and production of theatre primarily through practical creative projects with secondary readings on dramaturgy as a discipline. In this course we will consider the role of the dramaturg in its broadest sense, running across theatrical production from research to playwriting, adaptation, choreography, devising and directing. Students will work individually and in small groups researching, adapting, crafting and workshopping material.
Last offered: Spring 2013
| Units: 4-5
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
TAPS 170A:
The Director's Craft (TAPS 370A)
This workshop class guides students through the directing process from investigating the big ideas of a play and analysing the action to organizing and running rehearsals to building up the world of the play through character work and visual composition. Over the quarter we will look at the use of creative visualization and improvisation alongside working with actors on ideas, emotions, relationships, textual analysis and blocking. This course also attends to the process of communicating with designers and production teams as well as structuring rehearsals, run-throughs and technical and dress rehearsals. Each student will select a theatrical text to work from across the quarter. In many cases the student¿s text will be a play that they are planning to direct in future, such as productions for student groups like Ram¿s Head or Stanford Shakespeare Company, TAPS capstone projects, TAPS 2nd year grad shows and/or TAPS Second Stage productions. No previous directing experience in necessary.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 170B:
Directing Workshop: The Actor-Director Dialogue (TAPS 372)
This course focuses on the actor-director dialogue. We will work with actors and directors developing approaches to collaboration that make the actor-director dialogue in theater.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-CE
| Repeatable
for credit
TAPS 171:
Performance Making (TAPS 371)
A studio course focused on creative processes and generating original material. Students will be encouraged to think critically about the relationship between form and content exploring the possibilities of site specific, gallery and theatre settings. Students will reflect throughout on the types of contact and communication uniquely possible in the live moment, such as interaction or the engagement of the senses. The emphasis is on weekly experimentation in the creation of short works rather than on a final production.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 173D:
Theater Production Lab: Dramaturgy and Development (TAPS 373)
173/373: In this course students will explore general dramaturgical history and methodology as well as engaging in applied dramaturgy from evaluating works for a productions seasons, to developing dramaturgical materials for specific productions. Students will agree the focus of their course-work with the instructor depending on their specific interests. The TAPS 2nd year grad students enrolled in this course will act as a dramaturgical team, supporting the TAPS winter production of The Tempest in Pigott Theater March 2-11 2017, directed by Amy Freed. Students will support the actors and the creative team through providing research materials and presentations and helping actors with guided research, write program essays for general audiences, attend rehearsals and provide constructive notes, and curate and/or present on a Preface panel prior to opening night.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 174V:
Staging Change: from A Doll's House to Votes for Women!
A practice-led exploration of women in theater at the rise of feminism and realism: 75% workshop 25% seminar with 2 public table reads and a class production (play TBD depending on class size and constituency) to be staged in Roble or Pigott theater at the end of Fall quarter. Students will use Hill's new book Sex, Suffrage and the Stage (2017) for historical context in their readings and scene work on 12 iconic plays that transformed stage representations of women, including A Doll's House, The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith, A Woman of No Importance, Mrs Warren's Profession and Votes for Women!
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 175T:
Collaborative Theater-Making (TAPS 275T)
Instructor Young Jean Lee is a playwright and director who will have two plays premiering on Broadway in 2018-2019. In this workshop, students will collaborate on the creation of one of these plays, which explores the intersection of class and race. The point of this class will be to replicate as closely as possible Lee's process for developing a new play in a professional setting. Students will "learn by doing" as they serve as actors, assistant directors, and dramaturgs in the same way that her actual actors, assistant directors, and dramaturgs would do. Please note that this is not designed to be an acting class with lots of fun moving around. There is no guarantee that every student will have a chance to perform. Also, Lee's new play development process is challenging, slow, and often requires sitting around a table having gruelingly intense conversations for hours at a time. This class is designed to teach students skills they need to succeed in a professional theater environment. Please contact the instructor ASAP at yjl@stanford.edu for an application, which will be be due on March 1, with notifications being sent out on March 15. If you find out about this class after the application deadline and send the instructor an email asking her to allow you to apply late, you must present a convincing explanation for why an exception should be made in your case. Nobody who misses the first class will be permitted to take the course.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 2-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 176N:
The Inside Story
The Inside Story is a workshop that focuses on the generation of autobiographical material by exploring the connections between biology and biography. Students will gather autobiological and autobiographical material, investigate stories of their bodies and explore `gut feelings¿. They will work on individual and group exercises looking at cellular and body memory from which they will create text, gesture, image, performance and installation. The exercises will include autobiographical writing prompts, body memory exercises, Yin Yoga, and body mapping.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 177:
Dramatic Writing: The Fundamentals (CSRE 177, FEMGEN 177, TAPS 277)
Course introduces students to the basic elements of playwriting and creative experimentation for the stage. Topics include: character development, conflict and plot construction, staging and setting, and play structure. Script analysis of works by contemporary playwrights may include: Marsha Norman, Patrick Shanley, August Wilson, Suzan-Lori Parks, Paula Vogel, Octavio Solis and others. Table readings of one-act length work required by quarter's end.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-CE
TAPS 177C:
Creating a Musical (MUSIC 184D)
This practical, hands on class in the making of musicals explores all aspects of creating musical theater, including writing, composing, producing, directing, designing, and casting this most American of theater genres. The class will include direct engagement and discussion with the producers and artists of TheatreWorks Silicon Valley¿s production of The Bridges of Madison County, book by Marsha Norman and music by Jason Robert Brown, including off-campus field trip to rehearsal of the show. The class will explore the creation of several renowned musicals including Stephen Sondheim¿s Merrily We Roll Along, and will include live Skype interviews with Broadway composers Andrew Lippa (The Wild Party), Paul Gordon (Jane Eyre), and David Hein and Irene Sankoff (Come from Away, winner of the 2017 Drama Desk Award for Best Musical). The quarter will culminate in the creation, production, and performance of several mini-musicals created by members of the class. Instructor Robert Kelley is the Founding Artistic Director of TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, where he has directed 170 productions, including many world and regional premieres.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
TAPS 177W:
Workshop with Young Jean Lee (CSRE 177I, TAPS 277W)
Instructor Young Jean Lee is a playwright and director who will have two plays premiering on Broadway in 2018-2019. In this workshop, students will help to collaboratively perform, direct, and rewrite the script of one of these plays, which is about the intersection of class and race. The class will involve acting for students who want to act, directing for students who want to direct, and writing for students who want to write. The current character breakdown is as follows: 2 black women, 1 Asian-American woman, 1 Colombian woman, 1 Mexican-American man, 2 black men, 2 white women, 2 white men.
Terms: Win
| Units: 2-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 178B:
Intensive Playwriting (CSRE 178B, TAPS 278)
Intermediate level study of fundamentals of playwriting through an intensive play development process. Course emphasizes visual scripting for the stage and play revision. Script analysis of works by contemporary playwrights may include: Suzan-Lori Parks, Tony Kushner, Adrienne Kennedy, Edward Albee, Maria Irene Fornes and others. Table readings of full length work required by quarter¿s end.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 178C:
Writing a Full-Length Play (TAPS 278C)
Instructor Young Jean Lee is a playwright and director who will have two plays premiering on Broadway in 2018-2019. This workshop will guide students through the process of writing a full-length play, and will focus on helping students to find their own voices. Students will be required to write every week and share their work with the class, completing a full-length first draft by the end of the term. This class will be geared towards generating new material, rather than on editing in response to critiques, which will be covered in a spring course, EDITING A FULL-LENGTH PLAY. Topics to be discussed: the relationship between naturalistic and experimental theater; writing about unfamiliar subjects; and writing what you are afraid to write. Students must contact the instructor at yjl@stanford.edu ASAP in order to obtain an application for the class, which will be due on December 1.
Terms: Win
| Units: 2-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 178D:
Editing a Full-Length Play (TAPS 278D)
To participate in this workshop, students must bring in a draft of a full length straight play for revision, which was written in part one of this course, WRITING A FULL-LENGTH PLAY. In conjunction with a variety of other editing techniques, students will focus on editing in collaboration with others. They will learn how to edit in response to hearing their plays read aloud; how to give and solicit the most useful kinds of feedback; how to cope with harsh criticism; what to do when people are offended by what they have written; how to know which notes to pay attention to and which notes to ignore; and how to let go of ideas and text that are not working. Other topics to be discussed: getting your work produced vs. self-producing; directing your own work vs. working with a director; and starting your own theater company. Enrollment for this course is closed.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1-4
TAPS 180P:
Color (ARTSTUDI 180)
Hands-on study of color to develop color sensitivity and the ability to manipulate color to exploit its expressive potential. Guided experimentation and observation. Topics include color relativity, color and light, color mixing, color harmony, and color and content. (lower level)
Last offered: Autumn 2013
| Units: 3-4
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 180Q:
Noam Chomsky: The Drama of Resistance
Preference to sophomores. Chomsky's ideas and work which challenge the political and economic paradigms governing the U.S. Topics include his model for linguistics; cold war U.S. involvements in S.E. Asia, the Middle East, Central and S. America, the Caribbean, and Indonesia and E. Timor; the media, terrorism, ideology, and culture; student and popular movements; and the role of resistance.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-ER, WAY-SI
TAPS 183C:
Interpretation of Musical Theater Repertoire (MUSIC 183C)
By audition only: Contact instructor prior to enrolling (bnies1@gmail.com). Ability to read music expected, but students with experience singing in musical theater can be accepted. For singers and pianists as partners. Performance class in a workshop setting along with lecture/discussion of important eras of musical theater history. Composers include Kern, Porter, Gershwin, Rodgers, Sondheim, Lloyd Weber, Jason Robert Brown and others. May be repeated for credit a total of 2 times. Enrollment limit: 20 (ten singers maximum). Prerequisite: consent of instructor. Recommended prerequisite: 170 (pianists).
Terms: Aut
| Units: 1-2
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 4 units total)
TAPS 183E:
Singing for Musicals (MUSIC 183E)
This course provides training in vocal technique, stylistic musical phrasing, and acting for students interested in performing musical theater. Students will learn about the physical process of singing, including posture, breath support, and vocal exercises. They will incorporate vocal technique with the study of phrasing in different styles of Broadway repertoire, and apply both to the art of acting the song. Each student will work on solo selections and ensembles, and sing in most classes. Through understanding vocal technique, students will become more confident and joyful performers. The course will culminate in a final public workshop performance
Terms: Win
| Units: 2
| Repeatable
4 times
(up to 8 units total)
TAPS 184C:
Dramatic Vocal Arts: Songs and Scenes Onstage (MUSIC 184C)
Studies in stagecraft, acting and performance for singers, culminating in a public performance. Repertoire to be drawn from the art song, opera, American Songbook and musical theater genres. Audition or consent of instructor required. May be repeated for credit a total of 4 times. Zero unit enrollment option available with instructor permission. See website: (http://music.stanford.edu) for policy and procedure. By enrolling in this course you are giving consent for the video and audio recording and distribution of your image and performance for use by any entity at Stanford University.
Terms: Win
| Units: 1-2
| Repeatable
4 times
(up to 8 units total)
TAPS 190:
Special Research
Individual project on the work of a playwright, period, or genre. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1-5
| Repeatable
for credit
TAPS 191:
Independent Study
Individual research with a faculty member. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1-18
| Repeatable
for credit
TAPS 192:
Nitery Board Practicum (TAPS 292)
Credit given for student board members of the Experimental Nitery Studio. Undergraduate students should enroll in TAPS 192. Ph.D. students should enroll in TAPS 292.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1
| Repeatable
6 times
(up to 6 units total)
TAPS 200:
Senior Project
All TAPS Majors must complete a Senior Project that represents significant work in any area of theater and/or performance. The project must be an original contribution and can consist of any of the following: devising a performance, choreographing a dance, stage managing a production, designing a large theater work, performing a major role, writing a play, directing a show, or researching and writing a senior essay. Work for this project normally begins in Spring Quarter of the junior year and must be completed by the end of the senior year. Students receive credit for senior projects through TAPS 200. A minimum of 4 units is required, but additional units are available for larger projects. Students pursuing senior projects must submit a two-page proposal to a faculty advisor of their choice, which must be approved by the Undergraduate Advisor and the department faculty no later than the end of Spring Quarter of the junior year.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 2-9
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Amarotico, K. (PI);
Casamajor, J. (PI);
Elam, H. (PI);
Flatmo, E. (PI);
Freed, A. (PI);
Hill, L. (PI);
Klein, D. (PI);
Kumaran, L. (PI);
Looser, D. (PI);
Rehm, R. (PI);
Smith, M. (PI);
Sunderman, E. (PI)
TAPS 201:
Theater History
A survey of the history of theatre and dance from the ancient Greeks to the modern world. While primarily intended to help TAPS graduate students prepare for their Comprehensive Exam, this course may also be taken by undergraduates or non-TAPS graduate students in order to gain a broad understanding of some of the seminal plays, dances, theories, and performance practices of the past 2500 years.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
TAPS 202:
Honors Thesis
An advanced written project to fulfill the requirements for the Honors degree in TAPS. There are two ways to undertake an honors thesis. The first is to write a 40-50 page essay, which presents research on an important issue or subject of the student's choice. The second option is a 30-page essay that takes the student's capstone project as a case study and critically analyzes the creative work. Students are expected to work consistently throughout the year with their advisor, whom they identify at the time of application. Advisors can be selected from Academic Council faculty or artists-in-residence. Students should enroll in TAPS 202 each quarter during the senior year (1 unit in Autumn; 1 unit in Winter; 2 units in Spring).
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1-2
| Repeatable
for credit
TAPS 210V:
Vocal Production and Audition
An introductory study of the vocal mechanism and the development of voice and articulation for the stage. Students will be introduced to the actor's tools of phonetics, verbal action and text analysis. Vocal technique will then be applied to the actor's process in preparation for audition. Actors will fully participate in the audition process, from beginning to end. Emphasis will be on relaxation, selection of appropriate material, and versatility to show contrast and range.
Last offered: Autumn 2013
| Units: 1-3
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 6 units total)
TAPS 220A:
Being John Wayne (AMSTUD 220B, FILMSTUD 220)
John Wayne's imposing corporeality and easy comportment combined to create an icon of masculinity, the American West, and America itself. Focus is on the films that contributed most to the establishment, maturation, and deconstruction of the iconography and mythology of the John Wayne character. The western and war film as genres; the crisis of and performance of masculinity in postwar culture; gender and sexuality in American national identity; relations among individualism, community, and the state; the Western and national memory; and patriotism and the Vietnam War.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 5
TAPS 231:
Advanced Stage Lighting Design
Individually structured class in lighting mechanics and design through experimentation, discussions, and written reports. Prerequisite: 131 or consent of instructor.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1-5
| Repeatable
55 times
TAPS 232:
Advanced Costume Design
Individually structured tutorial for costume designers. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: 132 or consent of instructor.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-5
| Repeatable
for credit
TAPS 233:
Advanced Scene Design
Individually structured workshop. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: 133 or consent of instructor.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-5
| Repeatable
for credit
TAPS 234:
Advanced Stage Management Project
For students stage managing a Department of Drama production. Prerequisite: 134.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 2-9
TAPS 248:
Family Drama: American Plays about Families (ENGLISH 148)
Focus on great dramas about family life (Albee, Kushner, Shephard, Vogel, Kron, Nottage, Parks). Communication in writing and speaking about conflict central to learning in this class.
Last offered: Autumn 2013
| Units: 5
| UG Reqs: GER:DB-Hum, WAY-A-II
TAPS 250J:
Baldwin and Hansberry: The Myriad Meanings of Love (AFRICAAM 250J, AMSTUD 250J, CSRE 250J, FEMGEN 250J)
This course looks at major dramatic works by James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry. Both of these queer black writers had prophetic things to say about the world-historical significance of major dramas on the 20th Century including civil rights, revolution, gender, colonialism, racism, sexism, war, nationalism and as well as aesthetics and politics.
| Units: 4
TAPS 252:
Objects and Things: Theater, Performance, and Material Culture
Objects, devices, machines, technologies--how do we engage with the material things that come across our research, into our performances, and out of our lives? This course examines how various scholars, theorists, and practitioners have defined and engaged with material culture. We will read popular theories of thing-ness including but not limited to object-oriented ontology (Bill Brown and Jane Bennett), commodity things (Arjun Appadurai), actor-network theory (Bruno Latour), scriptive things (Robin Bernstein), and prop theory (Andrew Sofer). The course will use their theories as lenses on the objects of our own research, countering the Western historiography through case studies, alternative readings, and in-class presentations. New work from performance studies (Uri McMillian etc.) will also provide current case studies in scholarship. Focusing on theater and performance studies, this class will also draw on sociology, anthropology, the history of technology, and art history.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
TAPS 253T:
Virtual Realities: Art, Technology, Performance
Contemporary virtual reality extends a long-standing quest to create a fully immersive, multisensory environment, a quest that may go back to the earliest cave paintings and includes such projects as cathedrals, operas, panoramas, theme parks, video games, and multimedia "happenings." What is VR's relation to this long and varied history? What are the ethics, aesthetics, promises, and perils of this new medium? What is meant by "immersion," "interactivity," and "presence," and how is VR changing those terms? How might VR relate to contemporary immersive theater and installation art - as well as to the mediatization of society more generally?
Terms: Spr
| Units: 2-4
TAPS 256V:
Vital Signs: Performance in the 21st Century (ARTSTUDI 256V, TAPS 156V)
The first decade and a half of the 21st century have been transformative for performance art. On the one hand, it brought an unprecedented cultural acceptance of this art form, which is now featured in most prestigious museums and art festivals; on the other, the most recent generation of performance artists is showing a great awareness of the historicity and complexity of this form. In this class, we will try to recognize and investigate these and other prominent features of performance art produced since the turn of the millennium. We will use as our primary case studies performances that will be featured in the series Vital Signs: Contemporary Performance Art Series, hosted by TAPS in 2017-2018. The primary objective of the series is to highlight and showcase underrepresented performance forms such as experimental performance art, durational art, and body art, among others, by artists from communities that remain invisible or underrepresented in mainstream performing arts. The series is curated by the Los Angeles-based artist Cassils, who has been listed by the Huffington Post as 'one of ten transgender artists who are changing the landscape of contemporary art' and has achieved international recognition for a rigorous engagement with the body as a form of social sculpture. Cassils's curatorial vision is to present established performance artists alongside emerging artists. Each quarter, a pair of artists will visit Stanford for two days (Thursday-Friday). On day one of their visit they will offer a workshop or a public performance, and on the second day they will engage in a public dialogue. The class will meet each quarter for three weeks: before, during, and after the artists' visit. This way, the students will have an opportunity to prepare for the visit, engage with the visiting artists, and reflect on their work. They will receive their grades upon completion of the class, in the spring of 2018.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1
TAPS 258:
Black Feminist Theater and Theory (AFRICAAM 258, CSRE 258, FEMGEN 258X)
From the rave reviews garnered by Angelina Weld Grimke's lynching play, Rachel to recent work by Lynn Nottage on Rwanda, black women playwrights have addressed key issues in modern culture and politics. We will analyze and perform work written by black women in the U.S., Britain and the Caribbean in the 20th and 21st centuries. Topics include: sexuality, surrealism, colonialism, freedom, violence, colorism, love, history, community and more. Playwrights include: Angelina Grimke, Lorriane Hansberry, Winsome Pinnock, Adrienne Kennedy, Suzan- Lori Parks, Ntzoke Shange, Pearl Cleage, Sarah Jones, Anna DeVeare Smith, Alice Childress, Lydia Diamond and Zora Neale Hurston.)
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-A-II, WAY-EDP
TAPS 260:
Performance and History: Rethinking the Ballerina (DANCE 160, FEMGEN 160, TAPS 160)
The ballerina occupies a unique place in popular imagination as an object of over-determined femininity as well as an emblem of extreme physical accomplishment for the female dancer. This seminar is designed as an investigation into histories of the ballerina as an iconographic symbol and cultural reference point for challenges to political and gender ideals. Through readings, videos, discussions and viewings of live performances this class investigates pivotal works, artists and eras in the global histories of ballet from its origins as a symbol of patronage and power in the 15th century through to its radical experiments as a site of cultural obedience and disobedience in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 4
TAPS 262:
Performance and the Text
Formal elements in Greek, Elizabethan, Noh, Restoration, romantic, realistic, and contemporary world drama; how they intersect with the history of performance styles, character, and notions of action. Emphasis is on how performance and media intervene to reproduce, historicize, or criticize the history of drama.
| Units: 5
TAPS 265C:
Ancient Dance and its Modern Legacy (CLASSICS 137, CLASSICS 237, TAPS 165C)
Descriptions of dance in the Greek and Greco-Roman world; theories about dance in antiquity; dance and the senses; modern and modernist dancers and choreographers discussing ancient dance
Last offered: Winter 2015
| Units: 3-5
TAPS 267:
Revolutions in Theater (TAPS 167H)
This course surveys the period from the turn of the 20th century until WII, during which the European avant-garde movements transformed modern art. This period in history is marked by dynamic political events that had a deep impact on experimental art and on culture in general. This interaction between poetics and politics makes the first decades of the 20th century the formative period of western and global theater.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
TAPS 268H:
Poor Theater (TAPS 168H)
The goal of this class is not to offer a survey of Happenings and other happening-related art of the late twentieth century. Instead, we will use Happenings as a paradigm of "poor theater" and "poor art" - umbrella terms for a number of experimental performance and art practices that emerged in the aftermath of the WWII. We will use the idea of poor theater as an organizing principle in our investigation of the main currents in the experimental performance in the last five decades. The class has a tripartite structure. First we will outline the paradigm of happenings, then trace the origins of Happenings in music, visual arts and theater of the mid twentieth century, and finally look at Happenings' immediate impact, as well as at its ripple effects that continued to reverberate long after the disappearance of this new art form. This course counts as a Writing in the Major course for TAPS in 2016-17.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 4
TAPS 275T:
Collaborative Theater-Making (TAPS 175T)
Instructor Young Jean Lee is a playwright and director who will have two plays premiering on Broadway in 2018-2019. In this workshop, students will collaborate on the creation of one of these plays, which explores the intersection of class and race. The point of this class will be to replicate as closely as possible Lee's process for developing a new play in a professional setting. Students will "learn by doing" as they serve as actors, assistant directors, and dramaturgs in the same way that her actual actors, assistant directors, and dramaturgs would do. Please note that this is not designed to be an acting class with lots of fun moving around. There is no guarantee that every student will have a chance to perform. Also, Lee's new play development process is challenging, slow, and often requires sitting around a table having gruelingly intense conversations for hours at a time. This class is designed to teach students skills they need to succeed in a professional theater environment. Please contact the instructor ASAP at yjl@stanford.edu for an application, which will be be due on March 1, with notifications being sent out on March 15. If you find out about this class after the application deadline and send the instructor an email asking her to allow you to apply late, you must present a convincing explanation for why an exception should be made in your case. Nobody who misses the first class will be permitted to take the course.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 2-4
TAPS 277:
Dramatic Writing: The Fundamentals (CSRE 177, FEMGEN 177, TAPS 177)
Course introduces students to the basic elements of playwriting and creative experimentation for the stage. Topics include: character development, conflict and plot construction, staging and setting, and play structure. Script analysis of works by contemporary playwrights may include: Marsha Norman, Patrick Shanley, August Wilson, Suzan-Lori Parks, Paula Vogel, Octavio Solis and others. Table readings of one-act length work required by quarter's end.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 4
TAPS 277W:
Workshop with Young Jean Lee (CSRE 177I, TAPS 177W)
Instructor Young Jean Lee is a playwright and director who will have two plays premiering on Broadway in 2018-2019. In this workshop, students will help to collaboratively perform, direct, and rewrite the script of one of these plays, which is about the intersection of class and race. The class will involve acting for students who want to act, directing for students who want to direct, and writing for students who want to write. The current character breakdown is as follows: 2 black women, 1 Asian-American woman, 1 Colombian woman, 1 Mexican-American man, 2 black men, 2 white women, 2 white men.
Terms: Win
| Units: 2-4
TAPS 278:
Intensive Playwriting (CSRE 178B, TAPS 178B)
Intermediate level study of fundamentals of playwriting through an intensive play development process. Course emphasizes visual scripting for the stage and play revision. Script analysis of works by contemporary playwrights may include: Suzan-Lori Parks, Tony Kushner, Adrienne Kennedy, Edward Albee, Maria Irene Fornes and others. Table readings of full length work required by quarter¿s end.
Last offered: Spring 2016
| Units: 4
| UG Reqs: WAY-CE
TAPS 278C:
Writing a Full-Length Play (TAPS 178C)
Instructor Young Jean Lee is a playwright and director who will have two plays premiering on Broadway in 2018-2019. This workshop will guide students through the process of writing a full-length play, and will focus on helping students to find their own voices. Students will be required to write every week and share their work with the class, completing a full-length first draft by the end of the term. This class will be geared towards generating new material, rather than on editing in response to critiques, which will be covered in a spring course, EDITING A FULL-LENGTH PLAY. Topics to be discussed: the relationship between naturalistic and experimental theater; writing about unfamiliar subjects; and writing what you are afraid to write. Students must contact the instructor at yjl@stanford.edu ASAP in order to obtain an application for the class, which will be due on December 1.
Terms: Win
| Units: 2-4
TAPS 278D:
Editing a Full-Length Play (TAPS 178D)
To participate in this workshop, students must bring in a draft of a full length straight play for revision, which was written in part one of this course, WRITING A FULL-LENGTH PLAY. In conjunction with a variety of other editing techniques, students will focus on editing in collaboration with others. They will learn how to edit in response to hearing their plays read aloud; how to give and solicit the most useful kinds of feedback; how to cope with harsh criticism; what to do when people are offended by what they have written; how to know which notes to pay attention to and which notes to ignore; and how to let go of ideas and text that are not working. Other topics to be discussed: getting your work produced vs. self-producing; directing your own work vs. working with a director; and starting your own theater company. Enrollment for this course is closed.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1-4
TAPS 279C:
Chroniclers of Desire: Creative Non-Fiction Writing Workshop (CSRE 179C, CSRE 279C, FEMGEN 179C)
This course emphasizes the study and practice of personal memoir writing and literary journalism. The class will explore those writings that contain a public and private story, navigating an intimate and institutional world. Student writers will serve as public chroniclers whose subjective point of view and experience attempt to provide a truth greater than what ¿the facts¿ can offer.
Last offered: Spring 2013
| Units: 3-5
TAPS 284:
Empathy Lab (ANTHRO 379)
This lab-based class examines the ways in which various disciplines and art forms conceive of, and tell stories about, the experiences and stories of others. With permission of instructor.
Last offered: Winter 2015
| Units: 5
TAPS 289A:
Interactive Art / Performance Design (ME 289A)
This class is for those who want the experience of designing and creating interactive art and performance pieces for public audiences, using design thinking as the method, and supported by guest speakers, artist studio visits and needfinding trips to music festivals, museums and performances.nnDrawing on the fields of design, art, performance, and engineering, each student will ideate, design, plan and lead a team to build an interactive art and/or performance piece to be showcased to audience of 5000 at the Frost Music and Art Festival held on the Stanford campus on May 17th 2014. Projects can range from interactive art to unconventional set design, and from site-specific sculpture to immersive performance.nnThis is a two-quarter long commitment during which students will first learn the design, planning, story boarding, budgeting, engineering, proposal creation and concept pitching of projects for applying for grants and presenting to funders. The second quarter will concentrate on prototyping, maquette making, testing, team forming, project management, creative leadership, construction, site installation and documentation.nPart one of a two course series: ME 289A&B.
Last offered: Winter 2014
| Units: 2
TAPS 289B:
Interactive Art / Performance Creation (ME 289B)
This class is the continuation of ME289A where students experience the designing and creating of interactive art and performance pieces for public audiences, using design thinking as the method, and supported by guest speakers, artist studio visits and needfinding trips to music festivals, museums and performances.nnDrawing on the fields of design, art, performance, and engineering, each student will ideate, design, plan and lead a team to build an interactive art and/or performance piece to be showcased to audience of 5000 at the Frost Music and Art Festival held on the Stanford campus on May 17th 2014. Projects can range from interactive art to unconventional set design, and from site-specific sculpture to immersive performance.nnDuring this second quarter students will concentrate on prototyping, maquette making, testing, team forming, project management, creative leadership, construction, site installation and documentation.nPart two of a two course series : ME 289A&B.
Last offered: Spring 2014
| Units: 3-4
TAPS 290:
Special Research
Individual project on the work of a playwright, period, or genre.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1-5
| Repeatable
for credit
TAPS 292:
Nitery Board Practicum (TAPS 192)
Credit given for student board members of the Experimental Nitery Studio. Undergraduate students should enroll in TAPS 192. Ph.D. students should enroll in TAPS 292.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr
| Units: 1
| Repeatable
6 times
(up to 6 units total)
TAPS 311:
Performance and Historiography
This graduate seminar introduces you to advanced methodologies in two key areas of theatre and performance studies research: historiography and ethnography. The course is divided into two sections. The first concentrates on questions of historiography and the archive as they relate to studies of theater, dance, and performance. We will think about how events have been historicized, how absence has been represented, and how bodies are re-figured and remembered, and we will investigate important principles and best practices of performance documentation and historiography. The second part of the course explores the relationship between performance and ethnography. We will discuss different critical perspectives on ethnographic methods and data gathering, including participant-observation fieldwork and interview techniques. This course purposefully blends theory and practice, connecting philosophical discussions to concrete case studies, field trips, and your own research practices. In this spirit, you will also be encouraged to conduct research and present findings in different modes and media.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
TAPS 313:
Performance and Performativity (ENGLISH 313, FEMGEN 313)
Performance theory through topics including: affect/trauma, embodiment, empathy, theatricality/performativity, specularity/visibility, liveness/disappearance, belonging/abjection, and utopias and dystopias. Readings from Schechner, Phelan, Austin, Butler, Conquergood, Roach, Schneider, Silverman, Caruth, Fanon, Moten, Anzaldúa, Agamben, Freud, and Lacan. May be repeated for credit.
Terms: Win
| Units: 1-4
| Repeatable
for credit
TAPS 314:
Performing Identities (FEMGEN 314)
This course examines claims and counter-claims of identity, a heated political and cultural concept over the past few decades. We will consider the ways in which theories of performance have offered generative discursive frameworks for the study of identities, variously shaped by vectors of race, gender, sexuality, religion, class, nation, ethnicity, among others. How is identity as a social category different from identity as a unique and personal attribute of selfhood? Throughout the course we will focus on the inter-locking ways in which certain dimensions of identity become salient at particular historical conjunctures. In addition, we will consider the complex discourses of identity within transnational and historical frameworks. Readings include Robin Bernstein, Ann Pellegrini, Tavia Nyong'o, Jose Munoz, Michael Taussig, Wendy Brown, Talal Asad, Jasbir Puar, among others. Note: This course satisfies the Concepts of Modernity II requirement in the interdisciplinary graduate program in Modern Thought and Literature.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
TAPS 315:
Dramaturgy (TAPS 151)
In this seminar, we will take the conventional idea of dramaturgy for narrative performance as developed in Western European theater since the enlightenment, and investigate its relation to non-narrative forms of performance in 20th and 21st (performance art, conceptual dance). Further, we will use dramaturgical procedures to explore the ideological content of performance and position of art institutions in our society. Finally, the students will get acquainted with production dramaturgy and get necessary tools to take the role of dramaturgs in actual performance productions.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
TAPS 319:
Modern Theatre (GERMAN 319, TAPS 119)
Modern theatre in Europe and the US, with a focus on the most influential works from roughly 1880 to the present. What were the conventions of theatrical practice that modern theatre displaced? What were the principal innovations of modern playwriting, acting, stage design, and theatrical architecture? How did modern theatrical artists wrestle with the revolutionary transformations of the modern age? Plays by Büchner, Ibsen, Strindberg, Shaw, Chekhov, Wilde, Wedekind, Treadwell, Pirandello, Brecht, O¿Neill, Beckett, Smith, Parks, and Nottage.
Last offered: Spring 2017
| Units: 1-5
TAPS 321:
Proseminar
Prepares PhD students for the academic profession by honing skills in presenting and publishing research, navigating the job market, and managing a career.
Terms: Win
| Units: 3
TAPS 335:
Introduction to Graduate Production
This course introduces first-year TAPS PhD student to the TAPS production process and resources. Meetings will be scheduled ad hoc.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 1
TAPS 336:
Comprehensive 1st Year Exam
Required course for first-year Ph.D. students in Theater & Performance Studies. Credits for work toward the Comprehensive 1st-year Exam taken in late February or Early March.
Terms: Win
| Units: 2
TAPS 344A:
Gender and Performance (FEMGEN 434, FILMSTUD 434, MUSIC 434)
This seminar seeks to investigate relationships between performance, gender, and the body politic through a discussion of embodiment, body cultures, queerness, desire, representation. Through a weekly engagement with film texts from across the world as well as theoretical perspectives on gender and performance in various geo-political contexts, we will explore the intersections of gender with race, class, national discourse, and performance traditions. The seminar is conceived to be interdisciplinary and participants are encouraged to introduce and work with texts from other disciplines, including visual arts, theatre, dance, literature etc. No prior engagement with film studies is required. Screening times may range from 90 to 180 minutes.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 5
TAPS 351:
Great Books: Dramatic Traditions
The most influential and enduring texts in the dramatic canon from Sophocles to Shakespeare, Chekhov to Soyinka. Their historical and geopolitical contexts. Questions about the power dynamics involved in the formation of canons. This course counts as a Writing in the Major course for TAPS in 2016-17.
Last offered: Spring 2017
| Units: 4
TAPS 356:
Performing History: Race, Politics, and Staging the Plays of August Wilson (AFRICAAM 156, CSRE 156T, TAPS 156)
This course purposefully and explicitly mixes theory and practice. Students will read and discuss the plays of August Wilson, the most celebrated and most produced contemporary American playwright, that comprise his 20th Century History Cycle. Class stages scenes from each of these plays, culminating in a final showcase of longer scenes from his work as a final project.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
TAPS 356A:
Warhol: Painting, Photography, Performance (ARTHIST 156A, ARTHIST 356A, TAPS 156A)
This course focuses on the career of Andy Warhol as a means to consider the broader history of American art and culture since 1950. It examines little-studied aspects of Warhol¿s visual production (e.g. his career as a commercial artist in the 1950s and his everyday photographs of the 1970s and 1980s) alongside his now-canonical Pop paintings of the 1960s. Warhol?s critical and scholarly reception will be scrutinized in detail, as will published interviews of and writings by the artist. Finally, we will consider Warhol¿s legacy and wide-ranging influence on American culture in the decades since his death in 1987.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 4
TAPS 356T:
Intro to Psychoanalysis as a Critical Method (ENGLISH 356T)
Primary reading in Freud, Lacan, Laplanche, Irigaray and Kristeva. Secondary readings in film theory (Mulvey to Silverman), art history (Bryson, Bersani) and poststructuralism (Derrida, Foucault, Butler).
Terms: Spr
| Units: 3-5
TAPS 357:
World Drama and Performance (TAPS 157)
This course takes up a geographically expansive conversation by looking at modern and contemporary drama from nations including Ghana, Egypt, India, Argentina, among others. Considering influential texts from the Global South will also enable us to explore a range of themes and methodologies that are radically re-shaping the field of Performance Studies. We will examine the relationship between colonialism and globalization, empire and capital, cosmopolitanism and neoliberalism. Re-situating our perspective from the Global South and the non-western world, we will 'provincialize Europe' and probe the limits of its universalizing discourses.
Terms: Spr
| Units: 4
TAPS 359:
The Other Body/The Body Other
Writing creatively through critical thinking. Writing critically through creative imagination. Advanced Creative/Critical Writing course, designed for those "other" creative writers and thinkers who want to use language in original, innovative and embodied introspective ways to respond to (and from) non-dominant cultures, themes and identities. All genres. Readings, performances, films assigned to provoke an(other) response. Permission of Instructor.
Last offered: Winter 2015
| Units: 4
TAPS 364H:
Performance and Gender (FEMST 164, FEMST 364, TAPS 164H)
The intersectionality of race, sex, gender, and class in the formation of gendered performance. Readings from the work of Judith Butler, Eve Sedgwick, David Savran, Judith Halberstam, and David Eng. Case studies include: M. Butterfly, The Crying Game, Paris is Burning, Angels in America, and American Idol..
| Units: 3-5
TAPS 364T:
Queer Art and Performance (TAPS 164T)
Examines the late 19th, 20th and 21st century forms of performance-- including examples from drama, theater, cabaret, and performance art -- through the perspectives of contemporary critical gender and queer theories. Texts and movements range from early avant-garde (Dada, Futurism) to gay and lesbian drama (Lillian Hellmann, Joe Orton, Tony Kushner) to post-liberation Queer performance and video (Split Britches, Carmelita Tropicana, Kalup Linzy). Theorists include Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick.
Last offered: Spring 2013
| Units: 4-5
TAPS 370:
Directing and Dramaturgy: Composition and Adaptation for Theatre (TAPS 170)
This course explores dramaturgy and directing in the research and production of theatre primarily through practical creative projects with secondary readings on dramaturgy as a discipline. In this course we will consider the role of the dramaturg in its broadest sense, running across theatrical production from research to playwriting, adaptation, choreography, devising and directing. Students will work individually and in small groups researching, adapting, crafting and workshopping material.
Last offered: Spring 2013
| Units: 4-5
TAPS 370A:
The Director's Craft (TAPS 170A)
This workshop class guides students through the directing process from investigating the big ideas of a play and analysing the action to organizing and running rehearsals to building up the world of the play through character work and visual composition. Over the quarter we will look at the use of creative visualization and improvisation alongside working with actors on ideas, emotions, relationships, textual analysis and blocking. This course also attends to the process of communicating with designers and production teams as well as structuring rehearsals, run-throughs and technical and dress rehearsals. Each student will select a theatrical text to work from across the quarter. In many cases the student¿s text will be a play that they are planning to direct in future, such as productions for student groups like Ram¿s Head or Stanford Shakespeare Company, TAPS capstone projects, TAPS 2nd year grad shows and/or TAPS Second Stage productions. No previous directing experience in necessary.
Terms: Aut
| Units: 4
TAPS 371:
Performance Making (TAPS 171)
A studio course focused on creative processes and generating original material. Students will be encouraged to think critically about the relationship between form and content exploring the possibilities of site specific, gallery and theatre settings. Students will reflect throughout on the types of contact and communication uniquely possible in the live moment, such as interaction or the engagement of the senses. The emphasis is on weekly experimentation in the creation of short works rather than on a final production.
Last offered: Autumn 2016
| Units: 4
TAPS 371P:
Theater and Performance Making (TAPS 101P)
A creative workshop offering a range of generative exercises and techniques in order to devise, compose and perform original works. Students will explore a variety of texts (plays, poems, short stories, paintings) and work with the body, object and site. nnStudents will be encouraged to think critically about various compositional themes and ideas including: the relationship between form and content, aesthetics, space, proximity, and audience. Students will work independently and collaboratively creating original performances.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
TAPS 372:
Directing Workshop: The Actor-Director Dialogue (TAPS 170B)
This course focuses on the actor-director dialogue. We will work with actors and directors developing approaches to collaboration that make the actor-director dialogue in theater.
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| Repeatable
for credit
TAPS 373:
Theater Production Lab: Dramaturgy and Development (TAPS 173D)
173/373: In this course students will explore general dramaturgical history and methodology as well as engaging in applied dramaturgy from evaluating works for a productions seasons, to developing dramaturgical materials for specific productions. Students will agree the focus of their course-work with the instructor depending on their specific interests. The TAPS 2nd year grad students enrolled in this course will act as a dramaturgical team, supporting the TAPS winter production of The Tempest in Pigott Theater March 2-11 2017, directed by Amy Freed. Students will support the actors and the creative team through providing research materials and presentations and helping actors with guided research, write program essays for general audiences, attend rehearsals and provide constructive notes, and curate and/or present on a Preface panel prior to opening night.
Last offered: Winter 2017
| Units: 4
TAPS 376:
Projects in Performance
Creative projects to be determined in consultation with Drama graduate faculty and production advisor
Terms: Win
| Units: 4
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
TAPS 377:
Graduate Directors' Staged Reading Project
Presentation of a new or newly adapted work for the stage, in a mode employed in professional theater for the development of new plays. Two to four rehearsals. Public performance.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 2
| Repeatable
for credit
TAPS 379A:
Empathy Lab II: The Potential of Anthropology for the 21st Century (ANTHRO 379A)
This interdisciplinary arts/anthropology lab class will study and practice methods from performing arts to expand our understandings of cultural contact and develop methods of thinking more expansively about the creative elements and possibilities for ethnographic fieldwork and critical cultural studies. Prerequisite, by instructor consent.
Last offered: Winter 2016
| Units: 1-5
| Repeatable
2 times
(up to 10 units total)
TAPS 390:
Directed Reading
Students may take directing reading only with the permission of their dissertation advisor. Might be repeatable for credit twice for 6 units total.
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 1-6
| Repeatable
4 times
(up to 12 units total)
Instructors: ;
Brody, J. (PI);
Elam, H. (PI);
Hill, L. (PI);
Jakovljevic, B. (PI);
Kumaran, L. (PI);
Looser, D. (PI);
Menon, J. (PI);
Moraga, C. (PI);
Paris, H. (PI);
Phelan, P. (PI);
Rehm, R. (PI);
Ross, J. (PI);
Smith, M. (PI)
TAPS 802:
TGR Dissertation
(Staff)
Terms: Aut, Win, Spr, Sum
| Units: 0
| Repeatable
for credit
Instructors: ;
Brody, J. (PI);
Elam, H. (PI);
Hill, L. (PI);
Jakovljevic, B. (PI);
Menon, J. (PI);
Paris, H. (PI);
Phelan, P. (PI);
Rehm, R. (PI);
Ross, J. (PI);
Smith, M. (PI)
