51 - 60 of 193 results for: TAPS

The Main Stage Theater Project provides students the opportunity to receive units for participating in a TAPS Main Stage Show. About the Autumn 2023-24 show: Performance maker, director, and choreographer Erika Chong Shuch will return to TAPS to engage a group of student collaborators to develop a new performance work that will premiere through TAPS in Fall 2023. Leaning into Jenny Odell's book How To Do Nothing as a springboard, the cast will devise playful, performative structures that invite audiences into a contemplation of time, memory, and stillness.

The Undergraduate Performance Project provides students the opportunity to study and perform in major dramatic works. 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. Evening rehearsals are required. Full schedule will be released during casting. Maybe repeated for credit. 3 maximum completions allowed. If repeated, 15 total units allowed.

How does the actor authentically meet a passionate text that goes beyond everyday speech? In this course, students will practice bringing to life the language of Shakespeare and classical Greek playwrights. Students will explore passionate thought, including metaphor, argument, rhythm, imagery, and sound to realize these powerful texts fully and joyfully. The course will involve discovering the structures in the speeches and scenes which provide clues to the actor as to how to perform them. Using the voice safely with full breath support (so as to avoid injury) while releasing extended sounds like laughing, wailing, crying, and screaming will be explored. Various translations of the Greek texts will be used including those of Luis Alfaro, Declan Donnellan, Anne Carson, Timberlake Wertenbaker, Rush Rehm, Ellen McLaughlin, and others. This class is designed to be the natural next class after taking Voice for the Actor (Voice 1). Students will leave the class with at least one classical monologue suitable to use for auditions. Pre-requisite: Voice for the Actor ( TAPS 121V) or approval of the instructor

One of the most exciting ways an actor can portray a character is by making vocal choices and through use of language - speaking a character's dialect can be crucial to that. Like a costume, dialect helps tell the story of the character and create an authentic fictional world for the audience. In this course, we will explore how to learn, rehearse, and perform dialects using a method that is effective, respectful, and fun. Learning a dialect involves investigating cultural context, vowel and consonant shifts, inflection, rhythm, vocabulary, word pronunciation, and oral posture (where in the mouth the sounds are made and how the mouth shapes sound). In this class, there will be a focus on listening with awareness, sound analysis, and experientially playing with specific dialects. Dialect biases, conscious and unconscious, will be examined. Context, specificity, and intent will be explored so that stereotyping through dialect can be understood and avoided. Together the class will learn and practice two dialects, using some of the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet and Wells' Lexical Set. Resources for finding dialects (books, links, apps, coaches, personal interviews) will be identified. The class will culminate with students researching a specific dialect, learning it well enough both to speak it with a text and teach it to others. In the process, we will identify features of our own individual dialects, known as idiolects. Enrollment preference will be given to TAPS majors and minors. There are no prerequisites to take this class, although it will be useful to have taken Voice for the Actor in advance.

This is a non-major studio class designed to introduce fundamental acting techniques and to provide performers with foundational exercises upon which to build an ever more sophisticated practice for performing onstage. Cooperative group exercises and close observation of human behavior in oneself and in one's environment will form the core of this course's exploration. Through psychophysical exercises, theatre games, improvisation, rehearsal, and presentation of assigned work, students will develop the actor's most valuable tools: the body as our essential instrument, point of view, imagination, relaxation, spontaneity, listening and responding truthfully, and creating with an ensemble.

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. We 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.(Priority to TAPS majors-minors. Previous acting class required, or instructor permission.)

The ensemble of artists enrolled in this course will stage a new work of dynamic, dreamlike physical theatre: Unseen Forces. This nonlinear piece involves object manipulation, powerful physicality, and poetic imagery. Instructor Matt Chapman has been developing the piece for several years and will direct the ensemble in the process of bringing it to the stage. Students will contribute original compositions as well. This project needs actors, movers, theatre makers, musicians, a creative lighting designer - and more. Interested in prop-building? Marketing? This project will be produced in a low-tech, low-budget environment. As such, it is a fierce exploration of how to make extremely theatrical moments take shape with limited resources. This course is extremely practical experience for the realities of the professional field. Coursework includes class time plus weekly rehearsal as an ensemble or in small groups outside of class; additionally, there will be several required evening rehearsals during the final week of classes, prior to the show. The performances will occur June 2nd and 3rd, 2023; students should expect 4 hours' time commitment on those two evenings. TAPS 127 (Movement for Actors) is recommended experience for actors but not necessarily required.Please note that the class meets Fridays 12:30-4:20; students should enroll in both Class # 32928 and the Lab, Class # 32985.Instructor approval is required for enrollment. Interested students should complete this form: https://tinyurl.com/mwk87xfp.

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.

This course is an introduction to the technique and spirit of Commedia dell'Arte: the form which began in Italy in the 16th century and lives on in contemporary comedy. Through the observation and embodiment of archetypes and the use of character masks, students will explore active, physical improvisation and partnership (improviso), personalized comic routines (lazzi), and ensemble storytelling based on a theme. Areas of study include partnership and status play, timing, audience awareness, improvisation, characterization, size and scale. All coursework will be experiential and practical. Some stage and improvisation experience is recommended but not required. Some outside rehearsal/investigation time required.