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The work of this course will be to give students a substantial introduction to the craft of acting and reinforce basic concepts for the experienced student. The focus of the workshop will be on process rather than result. Students will build skills in the areas of acting, movement, voice, and speech, utilizing material from the mid-20th century plays of Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Clifford Odets, William Inge, and others. These playwrights provided texts for the actors of the famous Group Theater (James Dean, Shelley Winters, Marlon Brando, Paul Newman). To this day, members of The Actors Studio (Al Pacino, Meryl Streep, Sean Penn, Sidney Poitier) continue the tradition of The Group Theatre. The Group Theatre originally developed this approach in the 1930s, based on the innovations of the acting teacher Constantin Stanislavski. There has been a resurgence of American realism in contemporary productions that utilize actors of color who have transcended the casting barriers (Anika Noni Rose, Terrence Howard, Phylicia Rashad, James Earl Jones, and S. Epatha Merkerson, to name a few).nnnStudents will develop an awareness of the demands of the acting experience in a safe and supportive environment. They will be encouraged to work to expand their range and will study and perform two scenes from selected dramatic mid-20th Century literature. These assignments will require a minimum of 2 two-hour sessions with a scene partner during a scene rehearsal week. Commitment and responsibility to scene partners is a crucial component to successful work in the theater. In addition to required readings, students will be expected to conduct some research on the world of the playwright. We will end our workshop with a final performance of the two scenes in a showcase afternoon for an invited audience.

The second quarter of Art & Ideas builds on the examples of Modernism students in Arts and Ideas studied in the first quarter. The Frosh Seminar ¿20th-Century Art in Conflict¿ will focus on drama and film that experiments with new possibilities of form, shaping the direction of later artistic practice. We will trace how the political and aesthetic concerns of the 20th century reflect and exploit new technologies, both in theater and film, altering the position and function of author, actor, director, and audience.

Preference to freshmen. Tension between artistic and commercial forces in modern theater; the conflicted state of the art form. Sources include major and emerging contemporary figures in commercial, fringe, and nonprofit theater in the U.S. and UK. Visits with writers, directors, and dramaturges.

Who doesn't love going to a play: sitting in the darkened theater, an anonymous member of the audience waiting to be entertained, charmed, and challenged? But how many of us know enough about the details of the plays, their interpretation, their production, and acting itself, to allow us to appreciate fully the theatrical experience? In this seminar, we will spend 13 days in Ashland, Oregon, at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), where we will attend these plays: Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, and Henry IV, Part One; Ping Chong's adaptation of Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood; Lisa Nottage's Ruined; Joseph Hanreddy and J.R. Sullivan's adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice; Joe Masteroff's She Loves Me (music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick); and Richard Montoya and Culture Clash's American Night. We will also spend time backstage, meeting with actors, designers, and artistic and administrative directors of OSF. Students will read the plays before the seminar begins. In Ashland, they will produce staged readings and design a final paper based on one of the productions.

Explore improvisation and sketch comedy in an intensive ensemble and create an original show. Pure improvisational theater techniques. Concepts covered include spontaneity, shared control, creative collaboration, narrative, and status. Students apply those skills to writing and staging scripted monologues, two-handers, and ensemble sketches. Students create an original show with the entire class.

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.

Preference to Freshmen.Beyond the obvious traits that make a good (court room) drama, theater and jurisprudence have much more in common. Just as drama is engaged not only in entertainment but also in examination of social conventions and mechanisms, so law is not only concerned with dispensing justice but with shaping and maintaining a viable human community. In this class we will read and discuss a series of plays in which court proceedings are at the center of dramatic action and concluding with an investigation of the new genre of documentary drama.

Preference to freshmen. This course will introduce works by U.S. Latino and Latina performance artists producing from the margins of the mainstream Euro-American theater world. We will examine how performance art serves as a kind of dramatized political forum for Latino/a artists, producing some of the most transgressive explorations of queer and national/ethnic identities in the U.S. today. By the course¿s conclusion, each student will create and perform in a staged reading of an original performance piece.

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.