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Who doesn't love going to a play: sitting in the darkened theater, a member of the audience community 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 14 days in Ashland, Oregon, at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF), where we will attend these plays: Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and Merry Wives of Windsor; Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest; Into the Woods, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by James Lapine; Karen Zacarias' Shane from the novel by Jack Schaefer; and Octavio Solis' Quixote Nuevo. (To read more about these productions, go to www.osfashland.org). We will also spend time backstage, meeting with actors, designers, and artistic and administrative directors of OSF. Students read the plays before the seminar begins, attend these productions together, and have the time to study one play closely through a second viewing. In Ashland, students will produce a staged reading and design a final paper based on one or more of the productions. These reviews will be delivered to the group and turned in on Thursday, September 18.

Offered during Summer Session only. 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.

Theatre of the People is a performance-based course that guides students through the process of creating and performing an original play that draws on popular theatre traditions to address burning social issues. Students will learn how the touring Commedia Dell'Arte troupes of Renaissance Italy subverted the Catholic Church's dominion over public performance and served as a channel for expressing the voice of the people and challenging the dominant power structure. By studying the plays of Dario Fo, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, Mbongeni Ngema, and Percy Mtwa, students will see how this subversive tradition has continued to inform theatrical resistance to oppressive systems all over the world. The historical context will be supplemented with training in physical theatre techniques and writing for the stage. Students will apply these lessons to the ongoing development of an original play, based on their burning issues, which will be performed for the public at the culmination of the course.

While mindfulness training sometimes takes on a somber or even pious tone, this course chooses a different track, learning to "play attention" through traditional methods, humor, games, and exercises drawn from improvisational theater. Integrating insights and exercises from Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) with those from improvisational theater, this course will help students forge new neural pathways and develop a more connected personal presence, one that leaves them more resourceful, resilient, and creative. As a collaborative art form, improv sharpens the senses, improves listening skills, and teaches effective communication and collaboration. Taken together, the two traditions of mindfulness and improv develop precisely the qualities and abilities most needed for skillfully responding to the challenges of uncertainty and ambiguity.

TAPS Undergraduate Curricular Practical Training. Prerequisite: consent of instructor.

Credit for costume design students participating in a TAPS production. Units determined by instructor. May be repeated for credit.

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