A historical survey of dramatic texts and world performance traditions from the seventeenth to the twentieth centuries, with attention given to: the influence of print culture on early modern theatrical movements; the rise of nationalism and the creation of dramatic genres; and the effects of industry and technology on experimental modernist forms. Understanding performance as both artistic practice and social institution, this course emphasizes the role performance has played in changing audiences and as a cultural and political force.

This is a projects-based course, taught by faculty in film/video production, theater, and media, which builds towards a final presentation of one large-scale project involving all members of the class. The course will draw on and build skills students have developed in their respective foci in the FMT major. For example, students might create a film in multiple parts, a multi-media performance which could include live performance, projected image, and interactive sound, or a hybrid play with projected images.

This course offers an overview of the history of sound cinema in Latin America, from its Golden Age to the contemporary period. We address key cinematic movements and aesthetic traditions, including Golden Age Mexican Cinema, Cinema Novo, Third Cinema, and New Latin American Cinema. The course also explores significant political, cultural, and economic changes that have altered the Latin American cinematic landscape in recent decades.

This course offers a critical introductory survey of music and animation from the silent era to the digital age. After establishing a joint vocabulary for describing music and animated film, we will explore their interaction in shorts and feature films by studios like Disney, Pixar, and Ghibli, television shows, video games, music videos, and experimental animation. Our focus will be on audio-visual media that thematizes music, such as the Silly Symphonies short "Music Land," Hayao Miyazaki's "Mimi wo Sumaseba" (Whisper of the Heart), and the video game Guitar Hero.

This course will focus on basic Stanislavski techniques: concentration, imagination, relaxation, objective/action, and beats/scene analysis. Each student will apply these concepts to one open scene, one monologue and one realistic contemporary scene.

This course offers practice in the fundamentals of dramatic structure and technique. Weekly reading assignments will examine the unique nature of writing for the theater, nuts and bolts of format, tools of the craft, and the playwright's process from formulating a dramatic idea to rewriting. Weekly writing assignments will include scene work, adaptation, and journaling. The course will culminate in a significant writing project. Each class meeting will incorporate reading student work aloud with feedback from the instructor and the class.

This course studies the films of Pedro Almodóvar, European cinema's favorite bad boy turned acclaimed auteur. On the one hand, students learn to situate films within the context of contemporary Spanish history (the transition to democracy, the advent of globalization, etc.) in order to consider the local contours of postmodern aesthetics. On the other hand, the films provide a springboard to reflect on larger theoretical and ethical debates related to gender, sexuality, consumer culture, authenticity, and authorship.

The practicum covers crew for hair and makeup or wardrobe on a production. The student fulfilling a run crew must be present for all technical rehearsals and performances plus a training session scheduled before the start of tech. No previous experience is necessary for any of these positions; training will be provided as part of the practicum.

This course will examine the films of Alfred Hitchcock and the afterlife of Hitchcock in contemporary U.S. culture. We will interpret Hitchcock films in a variety of theoretical frames, including feminist and queer theories, and in shifting historical contexts, including the Cold War. We will also devote substantial attention to the legacy of Hitchcock in remakes, imitations, and parodies.

Film critics Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott contend that "movies may bemale dominated, but images of men are surprisingly narrow." This course both explores various constructs of postmodern American masculinity as they are portrayed and disseminated through contemporary film, and seeks to understand some of what is at stake (culturally, ideologically, economically) in perpetuating certain cinematic archetypes. Of particular relevance to our investigation are the ways in which film yokes masculinity to race, gender, and class.