Results for TAPS

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.

From Electronovision, a clunky combination of television and film used to record Broadway shows in the sixties, to slick 360º videos of theater performances that Google Cultural Institute brings to your iPhone, video technologies have profoundly altered the ways in which we see and understand live performance. If video recording started as an effort to preserve live performances, it ended up transforming the way we make theater. In short, it went from documentation to creation. In this class, students will watch landmark recordings of theater performances, comment on them, and, following the historical trajectory of the encounter between these two media, create their own videos of live shows. No previous experience in video or theater is necessary.

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.

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?).

For actors who complete substantial scene work with graduate directors in the graduate workshop.

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.

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.

For students working backstage, on run crew, or in the theater shops on TAPS department productions. Night and weekend time required. Pre-approval from Laxmi Kumaran (laxmik@stanford.edu) required for enrollment.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

For students stage managing a Department of Drama production.

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).

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.

Focus is on Shakespeare's Hamlet as a site of rich critical controversy from the eighteenth century to the present. Aim is to read, discuss, and evaluate different approaches to the play, from biographical, theatrical, and psychological to formalist, materialist, feminist, new historicist, and, most recently, quantitative. The ambition is to see whether there can be great literature without (a) great (deal of) criticism. The challenge is to understand the theory of literature through the study of its criticism.

For as long as there has been an American theatrical tradition, there have been controversies about it. From those creating theatrical performances, to those analyzing drama¿s place in society, to audiences, people have strong opinions about the purpose, nature, and impact of US theater. This course will ask questions such as: What are the best casting practices with respect to race, gender, ability, and sexuality? How has the commercialization or Disneyification of Broadway changed the theatrical landscape? Should the federal government fund the arts, and if so, does that give them the right to influence content?

Most musicals are adaptations of pre-existing artistic material: plays, novels, films, even operas. However, some musicals draw their inspiration not from fiction, but from fact, from history. This course examines how musicals perform history, engaging with and transforming historical subjects and events. Focusing on historical musicals such as Cabaret, concept musicals such as Assassins, and biographical musicals such as Hamilton, we will ask: How do musicals teach us history? In what ways do music and narration interact with past events and people? How does music articulate a sense of time and place, connecting history to contemporary events?

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.

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.

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.

From Sophocles to Barfield, adoption has been at the center of Western literature. This course will explore adoption as both plot point as as symbolic structure for meaning-making in myth and fiction. While this course will not count as Creative Expression, final projects can be creative and/or scholarly.

Individual project on the work of a playwright, period, or genre. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

Individual supervision of off-campus internship. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

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.

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.

See "Undergraduate Programs" for description.

This course offers systematic opportunities for students to develop a publishable article for a scholarly journal. We will examine a range of successful articles in journals and carefully consider a variety of effective writing techniques and styles.

Individually structured class in lighting mechanics and design through experimentation, discussions, and written reports. Prerequisite: 131 or consent of instructor.

Individually structured tutorial for costume designers. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: 132 or consent of instructor.

Individually structured workshop. May be repeated for credit. Prerequisite: 133 or consent of instructor.

For students stage managing a Department of Drama production. Prerequisite: 134.

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.

From Sophocles to Barfield, adoption has been at the center of Western literature. This course will explore adoption as both plot point as as symbolic structure for meaning-making in myth and fiction. While this course will not count as Creative Expression, final projects can be creative and/or scholarly.

Individual project on the work of a playwright, period, or genre.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Students may take directing reading only with the permission of their dissertation advisor. Might be repeatable for credit twice for 6 units total.

(Staff)