Required of all Theatre Arts Majors. This course will introduce students to a number of the major texts of the Western dramatic tradition and will focus chiefly on the dramaturgical analysis of those texts. Drawing on a wide range of historical periods and genres, the course will study how plays are made by closely examining dramatic structure, delineation of character, language, use of thearical space, ideas. Although the course is devoted to reading dramatic texts, particular consideration will be given to the play as a total dramaturgical vision, already deeply encoded on the page with its own immanent theatrical life, and ready for the stage. Study the history comprising the development of 20th century stage design and the exploration of the design process.
Work is completed through drafting, rendering, and model building.
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the basic materials and methods of theatre history and historiography, as applied to a particular topic, organized around a specific period, national group, or aesthetic issue. We will examine several periods of theatrical activity in which men regularly appeared as women or women as men. We will begin in the 18th Century with John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, a parody of conventional opera and a social satire.