THE 101 Introduction to the Theater
Designed for the liberal arts student, this course explores many aspects of the theater: the audience, the actor, the visual elements, the role of the director, theater history, and selected dramatic literature. The goal is to heighten the student's appreciation and understanding of the art of the theater. Play readings may include Antigone, The Menaechmus Brothers, Hamlet, Tartuffe, A Doll's House, The Cherry Orchard, A Dream Play, The Good Woman of Setzuan , The Glass Menagerie, Krapp's Last Tape, and The Mystery of Irma Vep. The student will be expected to attend and write critiques of the Wabash College Theater productions staged during the semester he is enrolled in the course. This course is intended for the non-major/minor and is most appropriately taken by freshmen and sophomores.
Credits: 1
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THE 102 Introduction to Scenography
This beginning course traces the design and technical production of scenery as environments for theatrical performance from concept through opening night. Areas covered include set and lighting design, technical production, and costume design. This course will provide the liberal arts student with an exploration of the creative process. Lab arranged.
Credits: 1
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THE 103 Seminars in Theater
American Musical Theater from the Beginnings to 1943
Theater with music dates from the origins of the stage in the ancient world, but musical theater as it is understood today is a quintessentially American art form mixing elements of high and low art. This course will examine the musical’s variant theories of origin from ballad opera and operetta to minstrels, jazz, and vaudeville, as well as its evolution from the ethnic entertainments of innocence and optimism that gave way to more complex reflections of the diversity, spectacle, and individualism of early twentieth century American life. Through lecture, musical theater from its beginnings through the mid-twentieth century will be explored through study of the work of composers and lyricists including George M. Cohan, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Noble Sissle, Eubie Blake, Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart, and Oscar Hammerstein II, among others. Attention will also be paid to influential performers and directors, and the form and themes of musical theater will be studied through examination of representative texts and scores including Little Johnny Jones (1904), Shuffle Along (1921), Show Boat (1927), Animal Crackers (1928), Of Thee I Sing! (1931), As Thousands Cheer (1933), Anything Goes (1934), Porgy and Bess (1935), Pal Joey (1940), and Oklahoma! (1943). This course is offered in the fall (first half of semester).
Credits: 1/2
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American Musical Theater from 1943 to Present
American musical theater works from the years of World War II to the present reflect radical changes as the form evolved from loosely-constructed entertainments to works of art fully integrating song, story, and dance. In an effort to create musicals of greater depth, creators looked to adapting literary works – the plays of William Shakespeare to contemporary plays and novels by George Bernard Shaw, James Michener, Christopher Isherwood, E. L. Doctorow, and others, provided sources. The class will closely examine representative works by such composers and lyricists as Cole Porter, Richards Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Frederick Loewe and Alan Jay Lerner, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Jule Styne, Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, Jeanine Tesori, and Tony Kushner, including Finian’s Rainbow (1947), Kiss Me, Kate (1948), South Pacific (1949), My Fair Lady (1956), West Side Story (1957), Gypsy (1959), Cabaret (1966), Follies (1971), Ragtime (1998), and Caroline, or Change (2003). This course is offered in the fall (second half of semester).
Credits: 1/2
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The Epic Theater of Bertolt Brecht
Among the most inventive and influential playwrights and directors of the modern era, Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) has left a legacy of important plays and dramatic theories. Brecht believed the theater should be a platform on which political and social issues should be debated. As an alternative to the traditional Aristotelian drama, he developed “epic theater” in which alienating theatrical devices were employed to keep his audience emotionally detached and intellectually alert. This seminar will focus on Brecht’s ideas on “epic theater” and the dialectical and sometimes alienated relationship he achieved with his dramas. Texts for the seminar will include Mother Courage and Her Children, Galileo , The Good Women of Setzuan, and The Caucasian Chalk Circle. This course is offered in the spring semester.
Credits: 1/2
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THE 104 Introduction to Film
This course is intended to introduce students to film as an international art form and provide an historical survey of world cinema from its inception to the present. The course will focus on key films, filmmakers, and movements that have played a major role in pioneering and shaping film. Selected motion pictures will be screened, studied, and discussed with special emphasis placed on learning how to "read" a film in terms of its narrative structure, genre, and visual style. Specific filmic techniques such as mise en scene, montage, and cinematography will also be considered. Genre study, auteurism, and ideology will be explored in relation to specific films and filmmakers, as well as the practice of adaptation (from theater to film, and most recently, film to theater). This course is offered in the fall semester.
Credits: 1
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THE 105 Introduction to Acting
This course provides an introduction to the fundamentals of acting through physical and vocal exercises, improvisation, preparation of scenes, and text and character analysis. Students will prepare scenes from modern plays for classroom and public presentation. Plays to be studied and presented include Of Mice and Men, Tea and Sympathy , The Zoo Story, and original one-act plays written by Wabash College playwriting students.
Credits: 1
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THE 206 Intermediate Acting
The process of acting, its history, theory, and practice, are examined
through classroom exercises, text analysis, and scoring. Students will
explore various problems in acting styles and perform scenes from the
extant works of Greek tragedy, Renaissance drama, commedia dell’arte,
Neoclassical comedy, and modern and contemporary drama. This course is
offered in the spring semester.
Prerequisite: Theater 105 or consent of instructor.
Credits: 1
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THE 207 Directing
The history and practice of stage directing is studied in this course.
Students will examine the theories and productions of major modern
directors and, through in-class scene work, advance their skills in
directing. The course will also involve directorial research and
preparation for projects involving classical and modern plays. This course
is offered in the fall semester.
Prerequisite: Theater 105 or consent of instructor.
Credits: 1
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THE 209 Dramaturgy
This course is intended to bridge the gap between theater
history/literature/theory and the performance areas of theater. Aimed
primarily at the theater major and minor (though by no means excluding
others), this course will focus on the process of textual and historical
research/analysis and its collaborative impact on the creative process of
the director (production concept), actor (characterization), playwright
(play structure, narrative and character development) and designers
(scenic, lighting, and costume design). Dramaturgy includes a study of
various historical approaches to classic texts, as well as the process or
research and investigation of material for new plays. Ideally, students
enrolled in the course could be given dramaturgical responsibilities on
mainstage and student-directed projects. Offered in the spring semester.
Credits: 1
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THE 210 Playwrighting
Principles of dramatic construction are explored through the practice of
playwriting and the study of representative one-act plays. Students will
have various creative writing assignments including monologues and short
plays and they will engage in classroom-staged readings and discussion of
scripts generated by other writers in the class. Selected plays from this
course will be presented each fall semester as part of the Theater
Department’s Studio One-Acts production. Offered in the spring semester.
Credits: 1
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THE 211 History and Literature of the Theater: Ancient Greece to the Spanish Golden Age
The study of major theatrical works written between the golden age of
classical Greek drama and the plays of the Spanish Golden Age will provide
the main focus of this course. Attention will be paid to the history of
the theater in these periods, the stage conventions and practices
prevalent in these eras, along with discussion of varying interpretations
and production problems inherent in each play. Among the works to be read
and discussed are The Oresteia, Oedipus Rex, Antigone
, Medea, The Bacchae, Women in Parliament, The
Braggart Soldier, The Twin Menaechmi, Dulcitus,
Everyman, The Mandrake, Ralph Roister Doister, A
Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet,
King Lear, and Life Is a Dream. The plays will be discussed as
instruments for theatrical production; as examples of dramatic structure,
style, and genre; and, most importantly, as they reflect the moral,
social, and political issues of their time. This course is offered in the
fall semester, 2005-2006 and alternate years.
Credits: 1
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THE 212 History and Literature of the Theater: The French Renaissance to the Rise of Realism
The class will study the history of theater and the diverse forms of drama written between 1660 and 1900. Representative plays from the era, as well as theoretical and critical response to the works, will be the major focus of the course. Attention will also be paid to theatrical conventions and practices, along with discussion of varying interpretations and production problems discovered in each play. The works to be studied include The Misanthrope, Tartuffe, The Illusion , Phedre, The Rover, The Way of the World, The Servant of Two Masters, Faust Part One, Money, Sherlock Holmes, Camille, A Doll’s House, Ghosts , An Ideal Husband, The Importance of Being Earnest , Cyrano de Bergerac, Uncle Vanya, and The Seagull. The plays will be discussed as instruments for theatrical production; as examples of dramatic structure, style, and genre; and, most importantly, as they reflect the moral, social, and political issues of their time. This course is offered in the spring semester, 2005-2006 and alternate years.
Credits: 1
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THE 213 American Theater and Drama
This course will examine the rich dramatic heritage of the United States
from the American Revolution to the present, with emphasis on the history
of the U.S. stage and the work of major dramatists including Eugene
O'Neill, Thornton Wilder, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, and Edward
Albee, among others. Plays to be studied include The Contrast,
Secret Service, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Long Day's Journey Into
Night, A Moon for the Misbegotten, Awake and Sing!,
The Little Foxes, Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth,
Mister Roberts, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Night of the
Iquana, Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, A Raisin
in the Sun, The Zoo Story, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
, Glengarry Glen Ross, True West, Brighton Beach Memoirs,
The Colored Museum, A Perfect Ganesh, Fences, Angels in
America, How I Learned to Drive, and The America Play.
The plays will be discussed as instruments for theatrical production; as
examples of dramatic style, structure, and genre; and, most importantly,
as they reflect moral, social, and political issues throughout the history
of the United States. This course is offered in the fall semester,
2006-2007 and alternate years.
Credits: 1
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THE 214 Modern European Theater and Drama
This course will examine the history of the European stage, and
significant dramatic literature, from 1870 to the present. Emphasis will
be placed on an examination of the major theatrical movements of realism,
expressionism, symbolism, epic theater, aburdism, and neo-realism, as well
as on the work of major dramatists including Henrik Ibsen, Anton Chekhov,
George Bernard Shaw, August Strindberg, Luigi Pirandello, Bertolt Brecht,
and Samuel Beckett, among others. Plays to be studied include An Enemy
of the People, Rosmersholm, The Three Sisters, Mrs.
Warren's Profession, Pygmalion, Heartbreak House,
Miss Julie, A Dybbuk, Six Characters in Search of an Author,
The Rules of the Game, The Good Person of Setzuan, Galileo
, Waiting for Godot, Krapp's Last Tape, No Exit, The
Visit, Look Back in Anger, Equus, Breaking the Code
, Copenhagen, Mistero Buffo, and Accidental Death of an
Anarchist. The plays will be discussed as instruments for theatrical
production; as examples of dramatic style, structure, and genre; and, most
importantly, as they reflect the moral, social, and political issues in
the twentieth century and beyond. This course is offered in the spring
semester, 2006-2007 and alternate years.
Credits: 1
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THE 317 Dramatic Theory and Criticism
This course will survey the significant ideas that have shaped the way we
create and think about theater. The objective of the course is to examine
the evolution of dramatic theory and criticism and trace the influence of
this evolution on the development of the theater. Ultimately the student
will form his own critical and aesthetic awareness of theater as a unique
and socially significant art form. Among the important works to be read
are: Aristotle's Poetics, Peter Brook's The Open Door, Eric
Bentley's Thinking About the Playwright, Tony Kushner's Thinking
About the Longstanding Problems of Virtue and Happiness, Robert
Brustein's Reimagining the American Theater, and Dario Fo's The
Tricks of the Trade, as well as selected essays from numerous writers
including Horace, Ben Jonson, William Butler Yeats, Constantin
Stanislavski, Vsevolod Meyerhold, George Bernard Shaw, Bertolt Brecht,
Walter Benjamin, Gertrude Stein, Antonin Artaud, Eugene Ionesco, Peter
Schumann, Robert Wilson, Athol Fugard, Ariane Mnouchkine, Edward Bond,
Augusto Boal, Guillermo Gómez-Peña, and Eugenio Barba. This course is
offered in the fall semester.
Prerequisite: at least one course in theater history or consent of the
instructor.
Credits: 1
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THE 318 Performance and Design
Individual students will work with a faculty member to advance and present a performance or design project (scene, lighting, costume, stage properties), and complete assignments related to a Wabash stage production. The course is designed for majors and minors active in performance areas of design, acting, directing, dramaturgy, and playwriting. One-half course credit, first and/or second half, each semester.
Prerequisite: Theater 102 (for designers), Theater 105 (for actors), Theater 207 (for directors), Theater 209 (for dramaturgs), Theater 210 (for playwrights).
Credits: 1/2
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THE 319 Production and Stage Management
Individual students will work with a faculty member and the production
staff in the development and stage management of a Wabash stage
production. Students will study the entire production process, develop a
prompt book and production documentation, and complete all assignments
related to the management of rehearsal and performance. Offered first
and/or second half, each semester.
Prerequisite: Theater 102 or consent of instructor.
Credits: 1/2
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THE 487 Independent Study
Any student may undertake an independent study project in theater after
submission of a proposal to the department chair for approval. Students
are urged to use this avenue to pursue creative ideas for academic credit
outside the classroom or for topics not covered by existing courses.
One-half or one course credit either semester.
Prerequisite: consent of theater department chair.
Credits: 1/2
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THE 488 Independent Study
Any student may undertake an independent study project in theater after
submission of a proposal to the department chair for approval. Students
are urged to use this avenue to pursue creative ideas for academic credit
outside the classroom or for topics not covered by existing courses.
One-half or one course credit either semester.
Prerequisite: consent of theater department chair.
Credits: 1/2
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THE 498 Special Topics
This course is designed as advanced study for theater majors and minors.
Occasional special topics may be offered or students may petition the
department for an advanced opportunity.
Prerequisite: consent of theater department chair.
Credits: 1
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