In this workshop-based course, students will continue to learn and hone the basic elements of writing for the stage: voice, craft, and process.  Playwriting work will be augmented by a focus on studying full-length plays and perspectives from global playwrights to expose students to a variety of forms, genres, structures, and narratives. A central goal of this course will be understanding the wide possibilities of creating a theatrical work from outside of a Western Naturalism perspective.

What is the role of sound and music in a live performance setting ? What are the different ways we can produce sound and reproduce it to achieve the effects we desire? How can we cultivate our own awareness of sound in our everyday lives towards a greater appreciation of its use in sound art, theatre, music, and dance? This course will probe these questions while working towards developing core skills in the fundamentals of audio production, field recording, speaker design and multichannel surround playback.

In this course, students will learn to identify, craft and tell stories using their whole bodies. We will combine movement, voice, and improvisation to show how physical expression enhances storytelling and highlights the body as a living record of social narratives. Students will explore dance ethnography and autoethnography to critically engage with multiple cultures, including their own.

This course explores the power of writing and performance as tools for civic dialogue, community engagement, and social justice. Students will investigate documentary and participatory theatre practices, drawing from real-world issues, interviews, and local communities to collaboratively develop performance pieces rooted in lived experience. Through fieldwork, archival research, and group devising processes, students will create original solo and ensemble performances that respond to pressing social and political themes.

Why do we move the way we move? How is each and every body different in the ways we move? This course is an introduction to the structures and functions of our musculoskeletal human anatomies, and to basic principles of kinesiology as applied in our movement, dance, athletic, and somatic practices. Thwarting the notion that our bodies comprise individuated and categorizable parts, particular emphasis will be placed on a holistic, living, and ever-changing approach to the study of our bodies' movement capabilities and the uniqueness of each student's embodied experience.

A beginning, intensive studio course in the development of voice for speaking, and learning techniques for enhanced spoken expression. Students develop range and tone through regular physical exercises in relaxation, breathing technique, placement, and presence. Individual attention focuses on helping each student develop the physical, mental, and emotional self-awareness needed for expressive vocal production. In parallel with developing voice technique, students learn to shape and speak text to powerful effect.

This courses focuses on the study and practice of ballet -- a dance technique originating in the Italian Renaissance royal courts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries -- as a contemporary movement vocabulary.  Objectives include intellectual and physical practice in ballet technique, as well as increased body awareness, alignment, flexibility, coordination, body strength, musical phrasing, and the expressive potential of movement. The course material is presented at the intermediate/advanced level. Appropriate prior experience is required. Limited to 22 students.

In an atmosphere of curiosity, warmth and constructive risk-taking, this course investigates the dynamic possibilities of the moving relationships of our dancing bodies. We will practice and develop deep kinesthetic sensitivity and listening as we explore both an intellectual and embodied understanding of contemporary dance partnering basics such as weight sharing, momentum, counterbalance, force, fulcrums, tone and resistance. Directing our attention to cause and effect, our experimentation with different choices will guide our learning process.

A course in the methodology of integrating creative study with problem-solving and technical skills in the making of theater and dance works. The primary focus is to expand understanding of the ways in which effective planning and organization, communication, sustainable labor, and the use of technology contribute to artistic creation and interpretation. Students will develop a deeper understanding of the synthesis of production elements in the creation of coherent performance moments that elicit an intended audience response.

In this course, students will learn to appreciate and analyze design elements in theatrical contexts by applying class instruction in a wide variety of design-related topics to independent research and peer discussions. A focus of the work will be on a vigorous exchange of observations, ideas, and critical analysis of how design elements and topics--ranging from the human brain to fashion history--affect our perception of character and story in live performance and other media, such as television, films and video games.