Faculty of Arts & Sciences

An introduction and overview of the major creative elements in professional theater including: acting, directing, playwriting, and designing. Special attention given to productions by the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.), the A.R.T. Institute and other productions in the Boston area. Students have the opportunity to attend and analyze at least five different productions and to engage in creative work throughout the term. Additionally, theater professionals from the A.R.T. give guest lectures in their areas of expertise.

In this course, students will learn about the roles and responsibilities of a dramaturg in the rehearsal room and in a theater company. Focusing on productions in the American Repertory Theater's 2014-15 season and specifically on the A.R.T.'s Civil War Project, students will study and evaluate scripts and performances on the A.R.T. stages, and participate in developmental workshops and readings. By exploring performance histories, translations, and dramatic structures of plays and musicals, students will learn about the steps a dramaturg takes to prepare for a production. In addition, students will read and evaluate new scripts submitted to the A.R.T. and the A.R.T. Institute. Students will also use the Harvard Theater Collection to research a play, opera, or musical of his or her choice and write an essay analyzing the production history.

An exploration of the basic techniques of acting, beginning with exercises that flex the imagination and heighten observation; the course will then move towards work on rhythm, an actor's instincts, focus, concentration, and character with an ongoing emphasis in improvisation. The texts of Anton Chekhov will be used as a point of reference for the work. The latter part of the course will concentrate on selected scene study from Chekhov's major plays.

Following guidelines without a prescribed text, students will work on physical and vocal invention, exploring the many ways and styles in which dynamic and compelling stories can be told. In this course, we will aim to heighten imagination and observation, build confidence, and enhance extemporaneous speech and thought through exercises, exploring impulses, and imaginative courage. Techniques used will include both individual and group activities, Grotowski exercises, mask work, and classical commedia dell'arte.

An expansion of basic acting techniques, with an emphasis on the actor's work done during rehearsal: creating a character, building a role and finding one's own way of preparing for and making the most of rehearsal time. Actors will use exercises and improvs to help explore character and sharpen instincts, and do monologue and scene work using contemporary texts, both comic and dramatic.

For actors interested in working in television, film and theater, this is a course of advanced acting techniques using 20th-century dramatic texts for scene work. The emphasis is on action based acting and the creation of an acting process that is specifically tailored to the individual actor. Includes character work -- making physical and vocal changes. Emphasis also on learning how to audition better, includes helping actors assemble a group of working monologues to use in auditions.

Practical Aesthetics Acting Technique was developed by playwright David Mamet and actor William H. Macy, based on the work of the American acting teacher Sandford Meisner and the Russian acting teacher Konstantin Stanislavski. In this course, students will focus on rigorous text analysis combined with emphasis on enhancing the actor's spontaneity through training in Meisner's "Repetition Exercise." Students will do scene work drawn from a wide selection of plays.

This course is an intensive study of Shakespeare's dramatic works from the point of view of the actor. It is important to remember that Shakespeare's verse dramas were written to be performed and that only when they are approached this way-as playable, theatrical texts-that they have their maximum impact. Through text analysis, scene study, vocal work, and acting exercises we attempt to find, not only the meaning, but the music and theatrical power of Shakespeare's words.

A course developing the actor's approach to and playing of comedy and humor. The class will focus on marrying comedy's need for technical precision with a truthful and spontaneous approach to acting based on the methodology of Konstantin Stanislavski. Specific comic skills studied will include timing, focus, choreography, and the mechanics of how a joke builds from set up to punchline. Acting skills will focus on moment to moment pursuit of objective and creation of character. Styles of comedy will include farce, drawing room/comedy of manners and contemporary comic playwriting such as David Lindsay-Abaire, Nicky Silver, Christopher Durang and Sarah Ruhl.

An exploration of Chekhov's plays from an actor's point of view in order to develop a practical approach to any dramatic text. We will balance the use of analytical skills - playable actions, active verbs, subtext and beats - with the need to free the actor's creative imagination, through exercises and improvisations. A variety of acting techniques will be used in scene work from the plays, including the techniques of Stanislavski, Michael Chekhov, Strasberg, Adler and Meisner as well as non-text-based approaches.

The analysis, rehearsal and performance of theatrical monologues. The ability to work on a monologue, whether in the context of a play or as an audition piece, is a foundational skill for all actors. Students will begin with work on classical monologues and then move on to contemporary material. We will study specific techniques to help students "act alone" creatively, honestly and spontaneously. In the later part of the course, students will have an opportunity to work on on-camera monologues and develop specific skills for acting and auditioning in that medium. Students will also learn how to choose, prepare and perform a monologue under the particular pressures of an audition.

Whether one is performing in a play, speaking professionally, teaching a class or leading a group, the ability to use one's voice effectively is a primary element of the success of the presentation. Using several major techniques of speaking training, students learn not only how to use the voice, but how these various approaches to voice training correspond to specific performance challenges.

This introductory choreography course utilizes movement exploration to tap into the participant's aesthetic and interpretive skills as they are challenged to make dances. Explorations into the use of time, weight and space inform their creative process. Through a combination of readings, writings, discussions, videos and dance improvisation, the course focuses on how movement choices develop dances that are kinesthetic, dramatic, and artistic for both the performer and the audience. No previous dance experience necessary.

A directing class for directors interested in theater, television and film, as well as for actors, dramaturgs, and designers investigating all aspects of theater. The class accommodates beginning to advanced levels of work. Students may bring in video or film scenes as part of the class work. Through constant scene work the course examines the directorial tools of text analysis, staging, design, and working with actors. The focus is on how to tell a story clearly and effectively.

This class is designed for students interested in expanding their understanding of directing for theater. The course will focus on the work of American experimental theater artists from the 1960's to the present, examining the various ways avant-garde directors and ensembles have experimented with form to seek out radical new modes of storytelling. Students will create work inspired by the artists and productions studied, applying theory to practice in rehearsals and presentations.

A great opportunity for undergraduate directors to explore the musical Pippin with A.R.T.'s Artistic Director Diane Paulus as she develops the professional A.R.T. production for the Loeb Drama Center mainstage, as well as the chance to learn vivid directorial story-telling techniques from resident A.R.T. director Marcus Stern. The class will consist of a unit of core directing tools in the context of contemporary drama, and will culminate with student presentations of excerpts from Pippin.

Students will build scenes based on observed incidents, act and direct them, then, using high-definition video, record and edit them. The course will include study of scenes in film and instruction in the techniques of directing, working with actors, and video production. Emphasis will be placed on clarity of storytelling, eliciting performances from actors, and visceral impact of the filmed events.

The practice of designing scenery for the theatre is explored through the history of stage design and the architecture of the theater building. Students complete projects of research and design for plays from various periods. The projects will introduce basic techniques in drawing, drafting, and model making. No previous experience in design or art necessary.

Theater designers use figures, space, objects, time and light to create environments that are integral to performance events. The potential for action and the integration with the performance as a whole is key to the design process. Like any artist, the designer needs to create visual studies to explore possibilities and communicate ideas. In Scenography Studio students will respond to architecture, photography, fiction, painting, sculpture, etc., to develop a series of performance design projects. In the course of developing these projects, students will gain skills in a variety of digital and manual media as well as study significant 20th and 21st century artists and theorists. Artists studied include but are not limited to - Robert Rauschenberg - John Cage - Sol LeWitt - Adolph Appia - Richard Serra - Alan Kaprow - Cindy Sherman - Italo Calvino - Bertolt Brecht.

In this course, students will study the work of the great 20th and 21st century auteur directors and set designers. Students will explore a range of artistic movements including Constructivism, Futurism and Dada, and discuss how the theater became a place to experiment with the concepts and discoveries of these movements. Examining primary source materials in the Harvard Theatre Collection, students will research the work of artists including Gordon Craig, Richard Wagner, Leon Bakst, Pablo Picasso, Konstantin Stanislavsky and Vsevolod Meyerhold. The course will also focus on the work of such contemporary directors and designers as Robert Wilson, George Tsypin, and Robert Lepage.

Young audiences have been weaned on choice-based, interactive, participatory and socially networked artwork and entertainment. At this moment in history, theater has an incredible opportunity to redefine how stories can be told and how audiences might be invited into the telling. This course is open to actors, writers, musicians, game designers, programmers, directors, designers and artists of all kinds. Through scholarship, discussion, creative work, and play testing, this course will explore the emerging fields of participatory theater, interactive performance, social gaming, and system-based story telling. We will study the basics of game design, the fundamentals of physical and social gaming, and the history of interactivity as a theatrical device. Students will design physical and tabletop games, ambulatory experiences, social experiments, and interactive environments. Emphasis is on creative output and integrating participatory systems and audience agency with emergent narrative. The class will establish a generous inter-disciplinary working environment which values creative risks, collaboration and inventiveness. There will be one trip to New York City as part of the class.

Survey of plays from 20th and 21st century China that examines text and performance through the lens of spoken drama's adoption in China and its reflection of socio-political upheavals and cultural shifts. Reading and research-based, but can culminate in public stage reading of selections from Chinese plays (no acting experience necessary.)

This is a text- and studio-based seminar that explores the realist idea of 'acting' alongside philosophical, psychological, and scientific notions of authenticity and falsehood, presence, mimesis, and empathy. What does it mean to turn into someone else? How total is the transformation? And what are the implications for our understanding of the individual? Various texts, from the acting primers of Stanislavski and Strasberg, to works of literary criticism, natural science, cognitive psychology, and philosophy of mind will be considered.

An introduction to theater production and arts management in theater. We will compare different models of producers and their instruments, while putting special emphasis on the role of the creative producer - a new type of producer, where the creative producer is working at the interface between classical production, development of screenplays, and artistic direction. The students will get an overview of the major phases in the history of theater, they will learn to analyze and compare existing theater systems, and they will assess the vital role of the creative producer in fostering innovation and experimentation across drama, opera, dance, concert, and (multimedia) performance as well as the role and function of the other "players" in theater (actors, directors, dramaturgs, designers, etc.). In order to gain practical experience in arts management, theater production and playing, the students will form production teams and experience in their functions and roles (producer, director, dramaturg, playwright, actor) in the production of a play, which will be rehearsed and performed during the semester.

This course introduces the aesthetics of sport as theatrical performance and explores the performance of race, gender, class, nation, and sexuality in sport. Readings drawn from theatre/performance studies, anthropology, sociology, ethnic studies, gender studies, history, kinesiology. Topics covered include barnstorming, Olympics, Title IX, Native American mascots, and sports ranging from football to figure skating. Course work includes reading, writing, and research. No final exam.