Topics course. Filmmaking is storytelling. This story can be told by the actors or by its visuals. Every film employs a production designer who, with the director and cinematographer, is in charge of the visual design of the film. In this class we will learn how a production designer breaks down a script to determine which scenes should be shot on location and which should be built as sets. Each student will then make design choices for the entire script.

Topics course. An intensive exploration of specific approaches to improvisation (authentic movement, contact improvisation, Johnstone, Boal, transformational exercises and theatre games) that enhance the agility, resourcefulness and creativity of the performer. Prerequisites: one semester of acting or one semester of dance. Enrollment limited to 12.

Intermediate and advanced script projects. Prerequisite: 261. L and P.

The means and methods of the playwright and the writer for television and the cinema. Analysis of the structure and dialogue of a few selected plays. Weekly and bi-weekly exercises in writing for various media. Goal for beginning playwrights: to draft a one-act play by the end of the semester. Plays by students will be considered for staging. L and P with writing sample required, best submitted weeks prior to registration.

The elements of line, texture and color, and their application to design and character delineation. Research of clothing styles of various cultures and eras. Enrollment limited to 15.

This course introduces students to the theory and practice of stage lighting design. Over the semester, we will cultivate sensitivity towards the expressiveness of light and the relationship between light, form, and space, eventually learning to manipulate light to articulate ideas. Through script analyses and design projects, we will learn to understand the power of light in enhancing stage presentations, acquire skills in illuminating the drama, and apply such skills to collaboration with the production team at large.

Acting II offers intensive focus on different, specific topics pertaining to acting training. THE 242 can be repeated for credit up to three times provided the content is different. Prerequisites: Acting I (THE 141) or its equivalent. What is the particular nature of acting for the camera? This course is designed to aid actors and directors in the transition from stage to screen work. We will examine film and television production and its physical characteristics, and develop an acting approach suited for work in film and television.

Pioneering and influential contemporary theatre in Europe from the 1930s to the present. The playwrights to be studied may include later Brecht, Camus, Sartre, Anouilh, Gombrowicz, Carr, Kirkwood, Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, Pinter, Duras, Handke, Fo, Havel, Schimmelpfennig, Page, Mrozek, Loher and Churchill. Special attention to issues of gender, class, warfare, and other personal/political foci. Attendance may be required at selected performances.

This course will discuss issues relevant to the theatre history and practices, as well as dramatic literature, theories, and criticism of 18th-, 19th-, and 20th-century United States of America, including African-American, Native American, Hispanic-American, Asian-American, and gay and feminist theatre and performance. Lectures, discussions, and presentations will be complemented by video screenings of recent productions of some of the plays under discussion.

Same description as above. There will be one general meeting Monday, January 26, 2009, at 4:10 p.m. in the Green Room, Theatre Building. Attendance is mandatory; attendance at weekly production meetings for some assignments may be required. Grading for this course is satisfactory/unsatisfactory.