Courses | UChicago Arts | The University of Chicago

Committee on Theater & Performance Studies

AUTUMN QUARTER 2020 CLASSES WILL BEGIN ON TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29TH -- per College quarantine requirements, the first week of classes will be fully remote.

If you have questions or need assistance, please contact Vicki Walden, Academic Administrator of the Committee on TAPS.

The following courses are offered as part of Theater and Performance Studies (TAPS) during the academic year. All information subject to change.

If you would like to be added to the waitlist for TAPS Core courses for Autumn 2020, you may sign up on this form with your UChicago email address before 9:00am on September 15, 2020 when the form will close.

Autumn 2020

Three-week Intensives:

WEEKS 1-3 (9/29/20 - 10/16/20)
TAPS 10200. Acting Fundamentals
Section 01 Honey Crawford MWF 9:10am-12:10pm IN PERSON - location TBA, first week will be remote

Course meets the General Education Requirement in the Dramatic, Musical, and Visual Arts. Prior theater or acting training not required. This course introduces fundamental concepts of performance in the theater with emphasis on the development of creative faculties and techniques of observation, as well as vocal and physical interpretation. Concepts are introduced through directed reading, improvisation, and scene study. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY. Three week intensive sections will take special precautions to maintain social distancing expectations while offering an immersive exploration of games, techniques, and methodologies of the stage.

WEEKS 4-6 (10/19/20 - 11/6/20)
TAPS 10200. Acting Fundamentals
Section 02 Honey Crawford MWF 12:40pm-3:40pm IN PERSON - location TBA

TAPS 10500. Text & Performance: Staging Terror
Section 01 Heidi Coleman MWF 4:10pm-6:10pm IN PERSON - location TBA

This course creates the first stage in a site-specific devised work process by engaging with a topic and texts and using the ensemble itself to generate work that is then considered critically. As a theme for the quarter, we will explore the interplay between horror, terror, and pleasure through in-class discussions of theoretical works and the possibilities of practical creative application. The paradox of the attraction to repulsion will be considered as well as the values of shock, suspense, and subtlety. Texts will include classic and contemporary drama, cult fiction, ghost stories, games, films, and theoretic source material. As a part of this foundation, we will question the intricacies of staging through in-class discussions of theoretical works (Aristotle, Brecht, Artaud, Stanislavski, and Bogart) and the possibilities of practical creative application. Working 4-dimensionally in outdoor on-campus locations, we will examine how theorized stagings can evoke suspense. This course will constantly question how analysis itself can be a performative practice and how performance can serve as a critical endeavor. In Autumn 2020, this course will meet as a three-week intensive, with much of our staging occurring as site-specific work, exploring the far reaches of campus. Students should prepare to attend all class times in person, dressed for brisk weather, ready to move. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY. Course meets the General Education Requirement in the Dramatic, Musical, and Visual Arts.

10-week courses:

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation
Section 01     Pamela Pascoe      TR 1:00-12:40pm      REMOTE
Section 02     Pamela Pascoe      TR 11:20-12:40pm    REMOTE
Section 03     David New              TR 2:40-4:00pm      REMOTE
Section 04     Devon de Mayo      MW 1:50-3:10pm      REMOTE

This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. Students examine the performance and the aesthetics of two dramatic works in contrasting styles but with unifying themes. The goal of the course is to develop in the students an appreciation and understanding of a variety of techniques and of the processes by which they are theatrically realized. Rather than focus on the dramatic text itself, this course concentrates on the piece in performance, including the impact of cultural context on interpretation. To achieve this, students are required to act, direct, and design during the course. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

Though running remotely, the course will mostly convene synchronously, so availability at the scheduled class time is required. Ideally, students will have a private, 10'x10' area available in their living space for physical work. It is understood that students will keep video enabled for performance work during remote class meeting times. Occasional meetings in-person, on campus will be considered based on the availability of safe spaces and following university protocols.

TAPS 10200. Acting Fundamentals
Section 03 Shade Murray M 12:40-3:40pm REMOTE

Though running remotely, the course will convene synchronously, so availability at the scheduled class time is required. Ideally, students will have a private, 10’x10’ area available in their living space for physical work. It is understood that students will keep video enabled during class meeting times. Occasional meetings in-person, on campus will be considered based on the availability of safe spaces and following university protocols.

TAPS 10300. Text and Performance
Section 01 Tina Post TR 8:00-9:20am REMOTE
Section 02 Tina Post TR 9:40-11:00am REMOTE

Course meets the General Education Requirement in the Dramatic, Musical, and Visual Arts. This course offers an introduction to a number of significant dramatic works and seminal figures in the theorization of theater and performance. But the course's aspirations go much further: we will be concentrating upon the intersection of interpretation and enactment, asking how these pieces appear on stage and why. This will not be merely descriptive work, but crucially it will be interpretive and physical work. Students will prepare and present applied interpretations—that is, interpretations that enable conceptual insights to take artistic form. Throughout, we will be searching for that elusive combination of philological rigor, theoretical sophistication, and creative inspiration—probing the theoretical stakes of creativity and testing the creative implications of analytic insights. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 10700. Introduction to Stage Design
Section 01 Kurtis Boetcher TR 11:20-12:40pm REMOTE
Section 02 Kurtis Boetcher TR 1:00-2:20pm REMOTE

Approaching theatrical design as a visual art, we will achieve a basic understanding of the theory, methodology and artistic expression fundamental to each area of design for the stage-scenic, costume, lighting and sound. We will learn how each discipline approaches and executes visual (aural in the case of sound) communication involved in the design process. Students will learn the professional design process, from contracting through production. Projects for this course will be completed using a combination of mediums and materials. If students are away from campus, there will be discussions of what materials may suit each student best based on available resources. Creativity in execution of visual communication will be of great importance. Students will learn to show collaborators ideas instead of talking about them. Attendance at first class session is MANDATORY. Course meets the General Ed requirment in the Dramatical, Musical and Visual Arts.

Though running remotely, the course will convene synchronously, so availability at the scheduled class time is required. Occasional meetings in-person, on campus will be considered based on the availability of safe spaces and following university protocols.

TAPS 10800. Contemporary Dance Practices
Section 01 Julia Rhoads TR 2:40-400pm REMOTE

This studio-based course with a seminar component offers an overview of the formal practices and contemporary trends that shape dance as an art form. The class is designed for students who seek to gain a working knowledge of dance and deepen their physical skills. A range of contemporary dance forms and practices will be covered. Topics may include modern dance, hip hop, partnering techniques, social dance forms, improvisation, somatic practices, dance composition, and more. Lectures, viewings, and discussion will support experiential practice components. No previous experience with dance or performance is required. This course meets the general education requirement in the arts. Attendance at first class session is MANDATORY. Course meets the General Ed requirment in the Dramatical, Musical and Visual Arts.

Though running remotely, the course will convene synchronously, so availability at the scheduled class time is required. Ideally, students will have a private, 10’x10’ area available in their living space for physical work. It is understood that students will keep video enabled for performance work during class meeting times. Occasional meetings in-person, on campus will be considered based on the availability of safe spaces and following university protocols.

TAPS 15500. Beginning Screenwriting
Section 01 Terrence Brown W 12:40-3:30pm REMOTE

This course introduces the basic elements of a literate screenplay, including format, exposition, characterization, dialog, voice-over, adaptation, and the vagaries of the three-act structure. Weekly meetings include a brief lecture period, screenings of scenes from selected films, extended discussion, and assorted readings of class assignments. Because this is primarily a writing class, students write a four- to five-page weekly assignment related to the script topic of the week. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 20060. The World's a Stage: Performance in Politics, Culture and Everyday Life
Section 01 John Muse TR 1:00-2:20pm REMOTE

This course traces the history of the double-edged notion that the world might resemble a stage from its ancient roots to its current relevance in politics, social media, and gender expression, among other areas. We will explore these questions by reading performance texts and performance theory from classical to contemporary, by attending plays and watching films, and by visiting non-theatrical events in order to consider them as occasions for performance.

TAPS 20120. 21st Century American Drama
Section 01 Katy Walsh TR 9:40-11:00am IN PERSON - location TBA

This hybrid seminar focuses on American contemporary playwrights who have made a significant and commercial impact with regard to dramatic form in the past 20 years. Playwrights will include, Tracy Letts, Annie Baker, Lynn Nottage, Quiara Alegria Hudes, Ayad Akhtar, and Amy Herzog. Textual analysis is consistently oriented towards staging, design, and cultural relevancies. Work for the course will include research papers, presentations, and scene work. Attendance at first class session is MANDATORY.

In addition to online seminar discussion, this course will meet in person during week three, six, and ninth of the quarter for staging work. Students must be able to rehearse with scene partners over Zoom and be present for stagings to complete the course requirements.

TAPS 21850. Storytelling in Musical Theater: The Art of the Libretto
Section 01 Scott Elmegreen TR 2:40-4:00pm REMOTE

This course introduces students to the art of book writing for musical theater both on stage and in the current, digital landscape of live performance. Students will examine dramatic structure across a variety of genres and musicals, and will apply its lessons to their own original outlines and scenes to be workshopped and performed online. They will learn about adaptation by finding the story, character, and song moments in source materials ranging from poems and movies to historical and current events, and they will study character development by examining iconic musical theater roles and generating character descriptions and arcs of their own. Students will also practice working with existing music by writing from found albums or bodies of songs, and each will use the online spaces and tools of the professional theater world to present the rough draft of an original ten-minute libretto as well as a treatment and excerpt of a new, full-length work of musical theater. Attendance at first class session is MANDATORY.

TAPS 22700. Devising Fundamentals
Section 01 Leslie Danzig TU 9:40am-12:40pm REMOTE

Devised theater is created from a multitude of sources but, importantly, not a preexisting script. Rather the 'script' (whether or not it eventually takes written form) is developed in rehearsal. This studio course engages students in methods of generating and crafting devised material, including but not limited to physical action, moment work, and verbatim text. Additionally we will focus on the generative power of 'problems' as a motor of creation, which draws from core principles of clowning. Through solo and collaborative projects, students will explore how devised theater wrestles with conventionally discrete roles in theater-making (writer, director, performer, dramaturg, and designer). Other considerations will include strategies for making disparate material cohere and more broadly, what constitutes a story. Select readings and case studies of artists working in devised theater will supplement the practice-based focus of the course. Attendance at first class session is MANDATORY.

This remote course will require synchronous participation on zoom and the creation of solo and/or group virtual performances. The course will provide significant opportunities for responding to present-day circumstances.

TAPS 23150. Theater-Making Lab
Section 01 Devon de Mayo TH 9:40am-12:40pm REMOTE

This course replaces Directing Study with an expanded quarterly lab for students working on theater and performance projects. Each quarter, the lab will be customized to serve directors, designers and dramaturgs who are working on current productions, preparing proposals for future productions, and/or in some way engaged in project development. The cohort will meet weekly to develop project ideas, build skills, experiment with methods of collaboration, receive and give feedback to each other, and receive individual mentorship from the course instructor. Instructor consent required. Interested students should complete the online application for the course (https://forms.gle/FWzL6FRjUNFmc6j77) and are encouraged to reach out the instructor with questions and ideas. Priority will be given to TAPS majors and minors. Attendance at first class session is MANDATORY.

This course will examine theatrical models as they have adjusted to remote and social distanced circumstances. We will conduct mock remote rehearsals and production meetings, and discuss best practices for unconventional staging. Occasional meetings in-person, on campus will be considered based on the availability of safe spaces and following university protocols.

TAPS 23410. Camp and Theatre of the Ridiculous
Section 01 Shade Murray W 9:10am-12:10pm REMOTE

Looking at the writings of Charles Ludlum and his Ridiculous Manifesto, we will explore the role of camp, homage, collage and The Ridiculous. Students will stage existing works and be asked to create their own original scenes that use camp, collage and the ridiculous to explore current politics and ideas. It is recommended that students have space at home in which to do uninhibited, imaginative work in relative privacy. Students will be asked to work remotely in pairs and groups, which means they must be willing to negotiate time differences as necessary.

TAPS 23600. Improv and Sketch
Section 01 Susan Messing M 9:10am-12:10pm REMOTE

This course adapts curriculum originally designed for the various schools of modern improvisation (including the iO, the Annoyance and The Second City) and brings it into today's Zoom world. Listening skills, the ability to work well with others as a team, and building scene work organically are highlighted. You will leave this class a better communicator, with interpersonal tools that support other facets of your life. Attendance at first class session is MANDATORY.

TAPS 23930. Fundamentals of Playwriting
Section 01 Mickle Maher TU 4:20-7:20pm REMOTE

This workshop will explore the underlying mechanics that have made plays tick for the last 2,500 odd years, from Euripedes to Shakespeare to Büchner to Caryl Churchill, Susan Lori-Parks, and Annie Baker, etc. Students will be asked to shamelessly steal those playwrights' tricks and techniques (if they're found useful), and employ them in the creation of their own piece. Designed for playwrights at any level (beginning or advanced), the workshop's primary goals will be to develop a personal sense of what "works" on stage within the context of what's worked in the past, and to generate a one act play, start to finish. Attendance at first class session is MANDATORY.

TAPS 24410. Transmedia Puzzle Design and Performance
Section 01 Sandor Weisz W 6:30-9:30pm REMOTE

This course will introduce students to the burgeoning field of immersive puzzle design. Students will develop, implement and playtest puzzles that are suited for a range of experiences: from the tabletop to the immersive, from online puzzle hunts to broad-scoped alternate reality games (ARG). Students in this course will work directly with master puzzler, Sandor Wiesz, the commissioner of The Mystery League. Attendance at first class session is MANDATORY.

Online escape rooms have become a new art form during quarantine, and we will explore ways to build similar experiences from our homes. This class will start out entirely synchronous, and evolve over the course of the quarter to be partly-synchronous, split between lecture, play testing, and work time.

TAPS 25800. POC (Playwrights of Color)
Section 01 Jess McLeod M 4:10-7:10pm REMOTE

This course explores contemporary works by American playwrights of color, with a focus on how to thoughtfully lead and/or participate in conversations around race and theatre both in- and outside of the rehearsal room. Students will read and discuss how playwrights such as Adrienne Kennedy (1960s), Suzan-Lori Parks (1990s-2000s), Branden Jacob-Jenkins and Young Jean Lee (2018) employ imagery, archetypes and stereotypes, and taught and true history to expand and morph not just the American canon but the American story to include rather than exclude people of color. Attendance at first class session is MANDATORY.

TAPS 28320. The Mind as Stage: Podcasting
Section 01 Sarah Geis W 4:10-7:10pm REMOTE

Audio storytelling insinuates itself into the day-to-day unlike other narrative forms. People listen to podcasts while they do the dishes, drive to work, or walk the dog. In this hands-on course, we will learn to produce a podcast from idea to final sound mix, and explore the unique opportunities that the podcast form affords the storyteller. Students will complete several short audio exercises, and one larger podcast project. The class will be held remotely, with an emphasis on remote recording techniques and what it means to document this moment using tools of non-fiction, fiction, and oral history. Attendance at first class session is MANDATORY

The class will be held remotely, with an emphasis on remote recording techniques and what it means to document this moment using tools of non-fiction, fiction, and oral history. Students will be expected to attend sessions via Zoom, as well as participate in an online forum. Students must have access to a computer that can run a free trial version of Reaper editing software (www.reaper.fm), as well as an audio recorder or smartphone that records sounds.

TAPS 28421. Theater for Social Change
Section 01 Tiffany Trent TR 4:20-5:40pm REMOTE

Augusto Boal argues that theatre is "rehearsal for the revolution." Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed provides key strategies for collaboratively crafting dramatic narrative. These strategies challenge the conventional Aristotelian structure that privileges a single protagonist and subordinates other stories. Instead, Boal structures a poetics in which the "spect-actor" contributes their voice. Students will engage in devising and embodiment exercises in Image Theatre, Newspaper Theatre, Forum Theatre, and more, by interpreting texts, (e.g., religious texts, constitutional documents, or political manifestos), interrogating current events, exploring public narratives, and valuing diverse learning styles. Students will contextualize destinations for the course material according to the aesthetic and academic questions that they bring into the classroom. To consider ethical concerns surrounding participatory theatre, we will examine arts groups past and present that employ the techniques of the Theatre of the Oppressed. Readings include Boal, Freire, Jan Cohen-Cruz, Michael Rohd, bell hooks, and Knight and Schwarzman.

TAPS 28476. Racine
Section 01 Larry Norman TR 11:20am-12:40pm REMOTE

Racine's tragedies are often considered the culminating achievement of French classicism. Most famous for his powerful re-imaginings of Greek myth (Phèdre, Andromaque), his tragic universe nevertheless ranged considerably wider, from ancient Jewish queens to a contemporary Ottoman harem. We will consider the roots (from Euripides to Corneille) of his theatrical practice as well as its immense influence on future writers (from Voltaire to Proust, Beckett, and Genet).

TAPS 28479. Theater and Performance in Latin America
Section 01 Danielle Roper TR 11:20am-112:40pm REMOTE

What is performance? How has it been used in Latin America and the Caribbean? This course is an introduction to theatre and performance in Latin America and the Caribbean that will examine the intersection of performance and social life. While we will place particular emphasis on performance art, we will examine some theatrical works. We ask: how have embodied practice, theatre and visual art been used to negotiate ideologies of race, gender and sexuality? What is the role of performance in relation to systems of power? How has it negotiated dictatorship, military rule, and social memory? Ultimately, the aim of this course is to give students an overview of Latin American performance including blackface performance, indigenous performance, as well as performance and activism. Undergraduates must be in their third or fourth year. Taught in English.

TAPS 29800. Theater and Performance Studies BA Colloquium
Section 01 Leslie Danzig F 12:40-3:10pm REMOTE

This two-quarter sequence is open only to fourth-year students who are majoring and/or minoring in theater and performance studies. Instructor Consent Required.

Winter 2021

TAPS   10100   Drama: Embodiment and Transformation
TAPS   10200   Acting Fundamentals
TAPS   10300   Text and Performance
TAPS   10800   Contemporary Dance Practices
TAPS   29800   BA Colloquium
TAPS   26100   Dance Composition
TAPS   20220   The Promise of Nightlife: Queer Desires & the Marketing of the Erotic
TAPS   20600   Adapting the Unadaptable
TAPS   20700   Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism
TAPS   21600   Acting Workshop
TAPS   21860   Songwriting for Musical Theater
TAPS   23150   Theater-Making Lab
TAPS   23105   Directing: Rehearsal Fundamentals
TAPS    23905    New Play Workshop
TAPS    26100    Dance Composition
TAPS   26150   Dance Lab
TAPS   27080   Spectacle in Minature
TAPS   27100   Scenic Painting
TAPS   28100   Lighting Design for the Stage
TAPS    28330    Oral History and Podcasting
TAPS   28405   Shakespeare I: Histories and Comedies
TAPS   28435   Brecht and Beyond
TAPS 29900    Introduction to Theater and Performance Studies

Spring 2021

TAPS   10100   Drama: Embodiment and Transformation
TAPS   10200   Acting Fundamentals
TAPS   10300   Text and Performance
TAPS   10800   Contemporary Dance Practices
TAPS   23150   Theater-Making Lab
TAPS   21730   Movement for Actors
TAPS   21700   An Actor Observes
TAPS   22300   Performance Art Installations: The Dreamer and the Dream
TAPS   23000   Introduction to Directing
TAPS   23800   Playwriting: Writing Utilizing Improvisation
TAPS   23980   Writing the Short, Short Play: Investigations in Micro-Drama
TAPS   24420   Games and Performance: Live Action Role Playing Games
TAPS   24550   Evolution of Improvisation in Chicago
TAPS   25505   Adaptation for the Screen
TAPS   25910   Short Form Digital Storytelling: Creating a Web Series
TAPS   27550   Costume Design and Technology for the Stage
TAPS   28000   Scenic Design
TAPS   20040   Black Shakespeare
TAPS   20208   Sound and Scandal: How Media Make Believe
TAPS   20360   Shrews! Unladylike Conduct On Stage And Page In Early Modern England
TAPS   26270   Histories of Chinese Dance

2019-2020

2019-2020 course breakdown by category

* courses that fulfill the practice requirement for majors/minors
+ courses that fulfill the theory & analysis requirement for majors/minors

Acting/Performing

Acting Technique: Script as Score / Marti Lyons (TAPS 21420 - FQ)*
An Actor Observes / Pamela Pascoe (TAPS 21700 - FQ)*
Movement for Actors / Devon de Mayo (TAPS 21730 - WQ)*
Back Room Shakespeare: Practical Tactics for Acting in a Madhouse / Samuel Taylor (TAPS 21510 - SQ)*

Directing

Advanced Directing: Styles & Genres / Kathryn Walsh (TAPS 23101 - FQ)*
Introduction to Directing / Shade Murray (TAPS 23000 - WQ)*

Writing

Beginning Screenwriting / Terrence Brown (TAPS 15500 - FQ)*
Fundamentals of Playwriting / Mickle Maher (TAPS 23930 - FQ)*
Advanced Playwriting Workshop / Calamity West (TAPS 23910 - WQ)*
Playwriting: Creating Natural Dialogue for the Stage / Evan Linder (TAPS 23700 - WQ)*
Adaptation for the Screen / John Petrakis (TAPS 25505- SQ)*
Writing the Short, Short Play: Investigations in Micro-Drama / Mickle Maher (TAPS 23980 - SQ)*

Design

Scenic & Costume Design for the Stage / Kurt Boetcher (TAPS 27570 - FQ)*
Director/Designer Collaboration / Kurt Boetcher (TAPS 24000 - WQ)*
Lighting Design for the Stage / Mike Durst (TAPS 28100 - SQ)*

Dramaturgy

Dramaturgy for New Work / Marti Lyons (TAPS 20720 - FQ)*
Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism / Derek Matson (TAPS 20700 - WQ)*

Theater-Making

Theater-Making Lab / Leslie Danzig (FQ), Tiffany Trent (WQ), Shade Murray (SQ) (TAPS 23150 - all Q)*
Performance Lab: The Classic as Contemporary / Monty Cole (TAPS 24904 - FQ)*
Styles and Practice in Storytelling / Emily Hooper Lansana (TAPS 22500 - WQ)*
Performance Art Installations: Performing Diaspora / Pamela Pascoe (TAPS 22310 - SQ)*
Theater for Social Change / Tiffany Trent (TAPS 28421 - SQ)*+

Dance & Movement

Dance Composition / Julia Rhoads (TAPS 21600 - FQ)*
Movement for Actors / Devon de Mayo (TAPS 21730 - WQ)*
Dance Lab / Julia Rhoads (TAPS 26150 - WQ)*
Contemporary Dance Techniques / Julia Rhoads (TAPS 26250 - WQ)
Dance & Theater in Real-Time: Performing Presence and Liveness / Julia Rhoads (TAPS 28350 - SQ)*+
Screendance: Movement and New Media / Lizzie Leopold (TAPS 28360 - SQ)*+

Improvisation

Improv & Sketch / Susan Messing (TAPS 23600 - FQ)*

Music Theater

Creating Musical Theater / Seth Bockley (TAPS 22250 - WQ)*
Storytelling in Musical Theater: The Art of the Libretto / Scott Elmegreen (TAPS 21850 - WQ)
Creating a Musical Revue / Julie Nichols (TAPS 21800 - SQ)*

Media Arts

Transmedia Puzzle Design & Performance / Sandor Weisz (TAPS 24410 - FQ)*
Games & Performance / Heidi Coleman (TAPS 24415 - WQ)*+
The Mind as Stage: Podcasting / Sarah Geis (TAPS 28320 - WQ)*
Short Form Digital Storytelling: Creating a Web Series / Terrance Brown (TAPS 25910 - SQ)*

Playwrights & Plays

Shakespeare II: Tragedies and Romances / Tim Harrison (TAPS 28406 - FQ)+
Before and After Beckett: Theater and Theory / Loren Kruger (TAPS 28438 - FQ)+
Twentieth-Century American Drama / Heidi Coleman (TAPS 20100 - WQ)+
Shakespeare I: Histories and Comedies / Richard Strier (TAPS 28405 - WQ)+

History & Theory

Ancient Drama, Modern Theory / Sarah Nooter (TAPS 17019 - FQ)+
August and After: Contemporary Black Drama and Performance / Tina Post (TAPS 17440 - WQ)+
Theorizing Theater Antitheatrically / Christopher Wild (TAPS 26219 - WQ)+
Introduction to Theater & Performance Studies / Tiffany Trent and faculty (TAPS 22900 - SQ)
Performing Black Feeling / Gabrielle Randle (TAPS 22450 - SQ)+
Urban Dramas: Theater, Performance and the City / Sharvari Sastry (TAPS 20200 - SQ)+

Autumn 2019

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation
Section 01     Pamela Pascoe       W 12:30-3:20pm    BARS
Section 02     Pamela Pascoe      TR 11:00-12:20pm   BARS
Section 03     David New             TR 2:00-3:20pm    BARS

TAPS 10200. Acting Fundamentals
Section 01 Shade Murray W 3:30-6:20pm LC-501
Section 02 Devon de Mayo M 9:30-12:20pm BARS

TAPS 10300. Text and Performance
Section 01 Honey Crawford TR 12:30-1:50pm LC-701
Section 02 Honey Crawford W 9:30-12:20pm LC-501

TAPS 10500. Staging Terror
Section 01 Heidi Coleman M 9:30-12:20pm LC-501
Section 02 Heidi Coleman TR 9:30-10:50am LC-501

Course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. This course creates the first stage in a devised work process by engaging with a topic and texts and using the ensemble itself to generate work that is then considered critically. As a theme for the quarter, we will explore the interplay between horror, terror, and pleasure through in-class discussions of theoretical works and the possibilities of practical creative application. The paradox of the attraction to repulsion will be considered as well as the values of shock, suspense, and subtlety. Texts will include classic and contemporary drama, cult fiction, ghost stories, games, films, and theoretic source material. As a part of this foundation, we will question the intricacies of staging through in-class discussions of theoretical works (Aristotle, Brecht, Artaud, Stanislavski, and Bogart) and the possibilities of practical creative application. Working 4-dimensionally in the performance labs with all design elements, we will examine how theorized stagings can evoke suspense. This course will constantly question how analysis itself can be a performative practice and how performance can serve as a critical endeavor. Attendance at the first class is mandatory.

TAPS 10700. Introduction to Stage Design
Section 01 Kurtis Boetcher TR 11:00-12:20pm LC-501

Course meets the General Education Requirement in the Dramatic, Musical, and Visual Arts. This course explores the application of the visual and aural arts to the varied forms of design for the stage (i.e., scenic, lighting, costume, sound). We pay particular attention to the development of a cogent and well-reasoned analysis of text and an articulate use of the elements of design through a set of guided practical projects. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 15500. Beginning Screenwriting
Section 01 Terrence Brown W 12:30-3:20pm LC-501

TAPS 17019.  Ancient Drama, Modern Theory
Section 01     Sarah Nooter

This course will travel through the great dramas of ancient Greece, including works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristophanes. Moreover, it will show how the history of contemporary thought has been shaped by reflection on Greek tragedy, starting from the philosophy of Hegel and Nietzsche, the psychoanalysis of Freud and Lacan, the feminist critiques of Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva and Judith Butler, works of structuralism and poststructuralism, and finally the recent material and affective turns in scholarship. Along the way, we will draw insights on modern movements of the performance arts from adaptations, including those in dance (Martha Graham), in film (Pier Paolo Pasolini, Lars von Trier), and in drama itself (Anne Carson). As this course will demonstrate, there is hardly an intellectual or artistic movement of recent history that has not taken its cue from Greek drama. All reading will be in translation.  CLCV 15019

TAPS 20720/30720. Dramaturgy for New Work
Section 01 Marti Lyons M 12:30pm - 3:20pm LC-701

The job of a Dramaturg can be many things in the American Theater. A Dramaturg can be a historian, a script manager, a researcher, a producer, an editor, a visionary...and so much more. In a new play process there is often a professional dramaturg working with the playwright and director on the development of the piece. Though that may be one person’s specific job, everyone in a new play process can benefit from thinking dramaturgically about new work. This course focuses on the dramaturgical process involved specifically in developing a new play. Throughout the quarter we will examine different script analysis techniques in addition to thoughtful research and inquiry around new work. Whether ways to frame dialogue and investigation of the work of one playwright, or the crafting of a story as a collective; this class is for actors, designers, directors, playwrights, dramaturgs and anyone interested in the development of new work.

TAPS 21420/31420. Acting Technique: Script as Score
Section 01 Marti Lyons M 3:30pm - 6:20pm LC-701

This class explores multiple contemporary text analysis techniques for actors. Borrowing from methods of classical text analysis as well as more contemporary approaches to material, this class explores how we might treat the words on the page as a musical score. This will afford us access to the music of the play and enable a different mode of assessing they playwright's intent. This class is for actors, directors and theater artists who are interested in many approaches to interpreting new work toward performance. All in the class, however, will be required to act, as we will be working with text on our feet in addition to analysis around the table.

TAPS 21700. An Actor Observes
Section 01 Pamela Pascoe TR 12:30-1:50pm BARS

This course addresses techniques and modes of observation and their application to scene study. Observation study is used to strengthen acting choices, build the physical world of the play, and create original, vital characterizations. It also serves to deepen awareness of group dynamics; integrate symbolic, psychological, and physical meaning in a character's behavior; and guide the process of breaking down a scene. Students will perform observation exercises and apply their discoveries to scene work. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 22351/32351. The Sonic Image
Section 01 WJT Mitchell, Hannah Higgins, Lawrence Abu Hamdan TU 3:30-6:20pm

The Sonic Image offers a unique opportunity to work with three senior researchers exploring the bridge-making and sense delimiting articulations of sound & sight together. We will examine the potency of sound in a world largely understood through its visualization as a world picture. Readings in sound studies, visual studies & media studies explore sound, sounds that evoke pictures, the forensics of sound, sound art, & films including The Conversation, Blow Out & Amour. Each faculty collaborator brings distinct interests to the course. WJT Mitchell’s renowned theorization of images naturally extends to his theorizing the possibility of the sonic image. Artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan’s commitment to the value of earwitnessing asks the listener to extend forensic knowledge to the very core of what it means to be a human being in the world. For the course, Hamdan will develop a workshop comprising a series of practical exercises that experiment with the conditions of testimony or claim making, enabling an exploration of how the law come to its truths and how can we use sonic imagination to trouble & contest established modes of enacting justice. Performance scholar, Hannah B Higgins, examines how musical notation, performance & sound bear on the relationships between sound & vision in recent art practices. An intervention from composer Janice Misurell-Mitchell will add a dimension of musical testimony to our investigation.

Open to all levels with consent of the instructors. All interested students should please email the instructor (wjtm@uchicago.edu) a one page statement of interest, explaining why they want to take the course, and what they will bring to it.

TAPS 23101. Advanced Directing: Styles & Genres
Section 01 Kathryn Walsh W 12:30-3:20pm LC-701

This course continues the directing student’s pursuit of craft and personal point of view. Students will apply the text analysis and fundamental directing skills learned in Introduction to Directing to texts of varying styles and genres, including comedy and tragedy in various forms (vaudeville, satire, Aristotelian), political, postmodern and musical theatre. Through regular journals, readings, and in-class presentations of directorial concepts and scenework, students will deepen their understanding of the relationship between form and content and acquire the skills to identify, analyze and direct many different kinds of plays, while also expanding and/or refining their artistic interests and articulation thereof. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 23150. Theater-Making Lab
Section 01 Leslie Danzig W 3:30-6:20pm LC-701

TAPS 23600. Improv & Sketch
Section 01 Susan Messing M 9:30-12:20pm LC-701

This course will explore the many different schools of thought in the Chicago improv comedy community, including but not limited to The Second City, iO, and The Annoyance. Organic discovery and plot will be highlighted within scene work as well as the group dynamic, with comedy as the result. Come ready to play and play hard. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 23930/33930. Fundamentals of Playwriting
Section 01 Mickle Maher TU 3:30-6:20pm LC-501

This workshop will explore the underlying mechanics that have made plays tick for the last 2,500 odd years, from Euripedes to Shakespeare to Büchner to Caryl Churchill, Susan Lori-Parks, and Annie Baker, etc. Students will be asked to shamelessly steal those playwrights' tricks and techniques (if they're found useful), and employ them in the creation of their own piece. Designed for playwrights at any level (beginning or advanced), the workshop's primary goals will be to develop a personal sense of what "works" on stage within the context of what's worked in the past, and to generate a one-act play, start to finish. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 24410/34410. Transmedia Puzzle Design & Performance
Section 01 Sandor Weisz M 12:30-3:20pm LC-603

This course will introduce students to the burgeoning field of immersive puzzle design. Students will develop, implement and playtest puzzles that are suited for a range of experiences: from the tabletop to the immersive, from online puzzle hunts to broad-scoped alternate reality games (ARG). Students in this course will work directly with master puzzler, Sandor Weisz, the commissioner of The Mystery League. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 24906/34906. Performance Lab: The Classic as Contemporary
Section 01 Monty Cole TH 3:30-6:20pm LC-501

This studio course engages students in the act of excavating a classic text to uncover their own points of view as theater-makers, writers and directors. Students will explore direct and indirect processes of adaptation, the role of impulse, and what it means to re-imagine classic texts in the contemporary moment. In addition, students will have the opportunity to observe rehearsals of Court Theatre’s fall production of Oedipus Rex directed by Court Artistic Director Charles Newell. Students will create short original adaptations and/or re-imaginings of a classic text for their final projects.

TAPS 26100/36100. Dance Composition
Section 01 Julia Rhoads M 3:30-6:20pm BARS

In this course, dance making is approached through the basic elements of space, time, shape, and dynamics, as well as a variety of choreographic processes including improvisation, thematic development, abstraction, and musical phrasing. Working alone, in duets, or small groups, students will create short choreographic studies in response to a variety of assigned exercises. These studies will build skills in generating material for a final choreographic project. In addition to choreographic exercises, students will view videos of historical and contemporary choreographers from a variety of styles, and write about their own and others' work as a way to develop skills in constructive criticism. Short readings will also supplement physical work. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 26516. Opera across Media
Section 01 Martha Feldman M 4:30 - 5:50pm
Screenings Su/M 7:00 - 10:00pm

Over the course of the last hundred and twenty years, opera and cinema have been sounded and seen together again and again. Where opera is associated with extravagant performance and production, cinema is popularly associated realism. However problematic these presumptions, the encounter produces some extraordinary third kinds—media hybrids. It also produces some extraordinary love affairs. Hence Thomas Edison wanted a 1910 film of his to be “a grand opera,” and Federico Fellini and Woody Allen wanted their films (And the Ship Sails On and Match Point) to be saturated with opera. This course will explore the mutual attraction of cinema and opera across various operatic cultures in order to interrogate the many issues that their media encounters involve. Among films to be explored are Pabst’s Threepenny Opera (1931), Visconti’s Senso (1954), Powell and Pressburger’s i (1951), Zeffirelli’s La traviata (1981), De Mille’s Carmen (1915), Losey’s Don Giovanni (1979), and Fellini’s E la nave va (1983).

No prior background in music performance, theory, or notation is needed. Students may write papers based on their own skills and interests relevant to the course. Required work includes attendance at all screenings and classes, weekly postings on Canvas about readings and viewings, a short “think piece” midway through the course, and a final term paper of 8-10 pages.

TAPS 27570. Scenic & Costume Design for the Stage
Section 01 Kurt Boetcher M 12:30 - 3:20pm LC-501

This course explores the various forms and processes of designing scenery and costume for theatrical performance. With particular attention to a cohesive reading of a text, students engage contextual and historical exploration, and visual and thematic research, as well as the documentation needed to complete a scenic and costume world (e.g., sketching, swatching, model making), with a focus on how the two disciplines communicate with each other to create a shared visual language. The course additionally covers, nominally, the history of stage design and looks at major trends in modern stage design.

TAPS 28406 Shakespeare II: Tragedies and Romances
Section 01 Tim Harrison

This course explores mainly major plays representing the genres of tragedy and romance; most (but not all) date from the latter half of Shakespeare's career. After having examined how Shakespeare develops and deepens the conventions of tragedy in Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, and Antony and Cleopatra, we will turn our attention to how he complicates and even subverts these conventions in The Winter's Tale and The Tempest. Throughout, we will treat the plays as literary texts, performance prompts, and historical documents. Section attendance is required. This course is part of the College Course Cluster, The Renaissance.

TAPS 28438 Before and After Beckett: Theater and Theory
Section 01 Loren Kruger

Beckett is conventionally typed as the playwright of minimalist scenes of unremitting bleakness but his experiments with theatre and film echo the irreverent play of popular culture (vaudeville on stage and screen eg Chaplin and Keaton) as well as experimental Theatre and modern philosophy, even when there are no direct lines of influence. This course will juxtapose these points of reference with Beckett’s plays and those of his contemporaries (Ionesco, Genet and others in French, Pinter in English. It will then explore more recent plays that suggest the influence of Beckett by Caryl Churchill and Sarah Kane in English, Michel Vinaver in French, as well as the relevance of theorists and philosophers include Barthes, Wittgenstein, and critics writing on specific plays. PQ: HUM Core; not open to first-year College students.

TAPS 29800. Theater and Performance Studies BA Colloquium
Section 01 Leslie Danzig F 12:30-3:20pm LC-501

This two-quarter sequence is open only to fourth-year students who are majoring and/or minoring in theater and performance studies. Instructor Consent Required.

TAPS 41500. Bodies of Transformation
Section 01 C. Riley Snorton

Drawing on trans studies, disability studies, histories of science, queer and postcolonial theory, this class contends with how bodies and bodies of knowledge change over time. Bodies of Transformation takes a historiographic approach to the social, political, and cultural underpinnings of corporeal meaning, practice and performance in the 19th and 20th centuries. Animating questions include: what is the corporeal real? how is race un/like gender? how does bodily transformation map the complex relationships between coercion and choice?

TAPS 50300. Catharsis, Tedium and Other Aesthetic Responses
Section 01 Loren Kruger TU 9:30-12:20pm

This seminar examines the ramifications of catharsis, tedium and other forms of aesthetic response, in other words the relationship between effect and affect in and in response to performance, live, mediated, and in reading literary as well as theatrical texts. Beginning with Aristotle and present day responses to catharsis, we will investigate the kinds of aesthetic response invoked by theories of tragedy (esp Hegel), sentiment (esp Diderot and Burke), realism (authority, attachment and estrangement in Lukacs, Adorno, Brecht, Benjamin), as well as theories of pleasure (Barthes, Derrida, Cixous) and tedium (Heidegger). We will also explore tedium through text and audio of The Hunchback Variations by local playwright Mickle Maher. We will conclude with, the potential and limitations of catharsis as an appropriate response to testimonial narrative in text and film during and after the dictatorship in Chile. An essential part of the discussion will be the problem of translating key theoretical terms, not only from one language to another but also from one theoretical discourse to another.

Winter 2020

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation
Section 01     Seth Bockley       TR 9:30-10:50am    BARS
Section 02     David New          TR 12:30-1:50pm    BARS
Section 03     David New          TR 2:00-3:20pm     BARS

TAPS 10200. Acting Fundamentals
Section 01     Leslie Danzig     TR 9:30-10:50pm   LC-701
Section 02     Honey Crawford     W 9:30-12:20pm   LC-701
Section 03     Darci Nalepa       M 9:30-12:20pm   BARS

TAPS 10300. Text and Performance
Section 01 Honey Crawford TR 11:00-12:20pm LC-701
Section 02 Devon de Mayo TR 2:00-3:20pm LC-501

TAPS 17440. August and After: Contemporary Black Drama and Performance
Section 01 Tina Post TR 2:00-3:20pm Cobb 303

The American stage has seen an explosion of black playwrights since the 1990s. From the verbatim theater of Anna Deavere Smith to the cagey narrators of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, these playwrights have reimagined and reworked American drama’s conventions of form and mood. Performers like Ralph Lemon and Jennifer Kidwell are devising work at theater's intersection with dance, media, and visual art, and playwright Adrienne Kennedy has returned after a decade-long hiatus. This course surveys the landscape of contemporary black theater-makers and performance artists (and includes, where relevant, the historical predecessors they explicitly invoke or work against). What forces animate works of contemporary black theater and performance? What tropes or conventions do they jettison, and which do they keep? Is there enough uniting these works that an underlying coherence prevails, or does studying them alongside one another instead reveal the dissolution of a racial center?

TAPS 20100. Twentieth-Century American Drama
Section 01 Heidi Coleman TR 9:30-10:50am LC-501

Beginning with O'Neill's 'Long Day's Journey into Night' through the American avant-garde to the most recent production on Broadway, this course focuses on American contemporary playwrights who have made a significant impact with regard to dramatic form in context to specific decade as well as cumulatively through the twentieth century. Textual analysis is consistently oriented towards production possibilities, both historically and hypothetically. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 20700. Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism
Section 01 Derek Matson W 12:30-3:20pm LC-603

This course is an orientation and practicum in contemporary dramaturgy. After surveying Enlightenment treatises that occasioned Western dramaturgical practices, students will critically engage present-day writings that consider the objectives and ultimate raisons d’être for the production dramaturg. Students then undertake dramaturgical research, exploring different methodologies and creative mind-sets for four representative performance genres: period plays; new plays; operas or musicals; and installations or performance art. Special attention will be given to cultivating skills for providing constructive feedback and practicing dramaturgy as an artistic collaborator and fellow creator. The class culminates in the design and compilation of a sourcebook for actors, directors, and designers, followed by a dramaturgical presentation intended for a professional rehearsal room. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 21730. Movement for Actors
Section 01 Devon de Mayo TR 11:00-12:20pm BARS

This course will explore how an actor uses movement as a tool to communicate character, psychological perspective and style. The foundation of our movement work will center on the skills of balance, coordination, strength, flexibility, breath control and focus. Building on the skills of the actor both in terms of naturalistic character work and stylized theatrical text. Students will put the work into practice utilizing scene work and abstract gesture sequences through studying the techniques of Michael Chekov, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Anne Bogart, Complicite and Frantic Assembly.

TAPS 21850. Storytelling in Musical Theater: The Art of the Libretto
Section 01 Scott Elmegreen TR 3:30-4:50pm LC-701

This course introduces students to the unique art of book writing for musical theater. Students will examine dramatic structure across a variety of genres and musicals, and will apply its lessons to their own original outlines, treatments, and scenes. They will learn about adaptation by finding the story, character, and song moments in source materials ranging from poems and movies to historical and current events, and they will study character development by examining iconic musical theater roles and by generating and sharing character descriptions and arcs of their own. Students will also practice working with existing music by writing outlines and scenes around found albums or bodies of songs, and they will be expected to attend a Chicago-based musical production for in-class discussion and critique.

TAPS 22250. Creating Musical Theater
Section 01 Seth Bockley TR 12:30-1:50pm LC-501

How does a new musical get made? This course is a hands-on exploration of an unusually collaborative art form. Students will survey a range of eras and styles, with special attention to the crafting of lyric alongside melody, along the way gaining practical skills in the creation and staging of new works. We will also look at the American Musical in light of and against related theatrical traditions from vaudeville to opera, with an eye to recent less mainstream commercial successes in the “musical theater” canon, as well as experimental and multimedia forms.

TAPS 22500. Styles and Practice in Storytelling
Section 01 Emily Hooper Lansana M 9:30-12:20pm LC-701

“What is storytelling? It can be said that it is the oldest form of observing, synthesizing, and communicating feelings thoughts and information.”—Temujin the Storyteller. Every day we use stories to communicate. This course provides students with an overview of the art and practice of storytelling. Chicago is a storytelling town from the Moth to Second Story and from Story Slams to traditional storytelling; performance artists give voice to a wide range of expression. Throughout this learning experience, students will be encouraged to explore the world of storytelling and to nurture their creative voices. Students will create and adapt tales focusing on personal experience, folklore, history, and ethnography. We will learn through participation and observation. The creative experiences in this course will enable students to further their skills in: oral presentation, story construction, performance, artistic critique, and analysis. Students will develop and perform stories from at least three distinct areas of experience. The course provides a creative space for learning and exploration.

TAPS 23000. Introduction to Directing
Section 01 Shade Murray W 9:30-12:20pm LC-501

This course employs a practice in the fundamental theory of play direction and the role of the director in collaboration with the development of textual analysis. By examining five diversely different texts using three different approaches to play analysis (Aristotle, Stanislavski, Ball) students begin developing a method of directing for the stage in support of the written text. In alternating weeks, students implement textual analysis in building an understanding of directorial concept, theme, imagery and staging through rehearsal and in-class presentations of three-minute excerpts from the play analysis the previous week. The culmination is a final five-minute scene combining the tools of direction with a method of analysis devised over the entire course. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IN MANDATORY.

TAPS 23150/33150. Theater-Making Lab
Section 01 Tiffany Trent M 12:30-3:20pm LC-701

This course replaces Directing Studies with an expanded quarterly lab for students working on theater and performance projects. Each quarter, the lab will be customized to serve directors, designers and dramaturgs who are working on current productions, preparing proposals for future productions, and/or in some way engaged in project development. The cohort will meet weekly to develop project ideas, build skills, experiment with methods of collaboration, receive and give feedback to each other, and receive individual mentorship from the course instructor. Instructor consent required. Interested students should complete the application to the course and are encouraged to reach out to instructors with questions and ideas. Priority will be given to TAPS majors and minors.

TAPS 23700. Playwriting: Creating Natural Dialogue for the Stage
Section 01 Evan Linder M 12:30-3:20pm LC-701

This course employs collaboration among the students to help each individual writer create natural dialogue for the stage. Students will utilize improvisation to write a contemporary scene focusing on the natural rhythms and nuances of modern communication. Through these improvisations, the students create a framework for their narrative with a special focus on developing unique voices for each character. Students read scenes from contemporary plays which emphasize spontaneous and realistic dialogue. Students have weekly assignments that further explore the characters they are writing. Each class includes an active roundtable discussion of the weekly assignments as well as collaborative exercises that further explore the voices of their characters. In addition to the weekly assignments, students write two complete scenes that will receive readings by their classmates. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 23910. Advanced Playwriting
Section 01 E. Edele (Calamity West) M 12:30-3:20pm LC-603

The goal of this playwriting workshop is for each student to end the quarter with a first draft of a full-length play. In addition to generating new material on a weekly basis, students will be expected to attend two Chicago-based productions for in-class discussion and criticism.

TAPS 24000. Director/Designer Collaboration
Section 01 Kurt Boetcher TR 11:00-12:20pm LC-501

This course explores one of the most vital elements of theatrical production, the designer-director collaboration. The reciprocal adapting and adjusting necessary for artistic collaboration often launches visual storytelling for the stage into unexplored and potentially unknown territories, resulting in the extraordinary. Students will use text analysis, historical exploration, and visual and thematic research in tandem with collaborative communication requirements to develop projects for presentation. Attendance at first class session is mandatory.

TAPS 24415/34415. Games & Performance
Section 01 Heidi Coleman M 9:30-12:20pm JCL-134

This experimental course explores the emerging genre of “immersive performance,” “alternate reality,” and “transmedia” gaming. For all of their novelty, these games build on the narrative strategies of novels, the performative role-playing of theater, the branching techniques of electronic literature, the procedural qualities of video games, and the team dynamics of sports. Throughout the quarter, we will approach new media theory through the history, aesthetics, and design of immersive games, while working in labs with three Chicago-area companies including The House Theater, Mystery League, and Humans vs. Zombies. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY. This course is part of the Chicago Studies Course Cluster.

TAPS 24907/34907. Performance Lab: Rerouting Ibsen's Lady From the Sea
Section 01 David Levin TR 11-12:20pm LC-802 and LC-701

This spring, Court Theatre will premiere Shauna Cooper’s production of Ibsen’s LADY FROM THE SEA. This studio seminar seeks to engage the rehearsal process at Court and supplement it with dramaturgical and scenic work that students will undertake on their own. Among the questions we will ask: Why Ibsen today? What are the ideal theatrical tools, forms and vocabulary that we can utilize to get at the heart of what is interesting about this piece? We will split our time between thinking about the text in seminar format, working through it on our feet, and observing the Court’s process in the rehearsal room. Course enrollment limited to 10 students.

TAPS 26150. Dance Lab Section 01 Julia Rhoads TBD

Dance Lab provides students with the dedicated space, time, and support structures to make dance and movement-based theater. The development of each student's work is complemented by discussions with student peers and guest artists, and regular meetings with a faculty advisor. The course culminates in an informal public performance.

TAPS 26219/36219. Theorizing Theater Antitheatrically
Section 01 Christopher Wild M/W 3:00-4:20pm Cobb 304

From its very beginnings, theater as medium and institution has been contested. The periods of its greatest blossoming coincided with its most intense criticism – and even condemnation. Enemies of the theater did not battle theater because they deemed it ineffective and inconsequential. To the contrary, they were deeply convinced of its corrupt and corruptive character. Therefore, theater’s detractors were much more perspicacious about its medial nature and efficacy than its defenders. In short, antitheatrical writers articulated the better theory of theater. Moreover, much of the theorizing by its advocates took the form of apology; apologies which often accepted many of the premises of their opponents, resulting in a notion of theater that was influenced by antitheatrical sentiment. Thus, the course will not only examine antitheatrical texts as a source of theater theory but try to understand their complex influence on the history of this medium in the Western tradition. We will start by investigating Plato’s critique of theatrical mimesis and Aristotle’s riposte in his Poetics, continue with an examination of the reign of maybe the most notorious and theatrical of Roman emperors, namely Nero, then turn to the antitheatrical polemics of the Fathers of the Church. Our next stops will be in the early modern period, with Renaissance England and the France of Louis XIV., before we arrive in the 18th century and have a closer look at the antitheatrical origins of bourgeois drama.

TAPS 26250/36250. Contemporary Dance Techniques
Section 01 Julia Rhoads M 3:30-6:20pm BARS

This course is an overview of the formal practices and trends that shape dance as an evolving contemporary art form. Designed for students with minimal dance experience who want to broaden their dance knowledge and deepen their physical skills, the course draws from a range of contemporary dance techniques including modern, improvisation, Hip-Hop, choreography, and partnering techniques. Lectures, viewings, and discussion will support experiential practice components, and professional guest artists will address select topics. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 28320/38320. The Mind as Stage: Podcasting
Section 01 Sarah Geis W 12:30pm - 3:20pm LC-501

Audio storytelling insinuates itself into the day-to-day unlike other narrative forms. People listen to podcasts while they do the dishes, drive to work, or walk the dog. This hands-on course will explore the unique opportunities that this intimate relationship with an audience affords the storyteller. Documentary techniques and practices will form the basis of the course, with assignments from audio fiction and non-fiction, oral history, documentary theater, and comedy. Students will complete several short audio exercises and one larger podcast project. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 28405 Shakespeare I: Histories and Comedies
Section 01 Richard Strier

An exploration of some of Shakespeare's major plays from the first half of his professional career when the genres in which he primarily worked were comedies and (English) histories. Plays to be studied include The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, Richard III, Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, and Henry V. A shorter and a longer paper will be required.

TAPS 29800. Theater and Performance Studies BA Colloquium.
Section 01 Leslie Danzig F 12:30-3:20pm LC-501

This two-quarter sequence is open only to fourth-year students who are majoring and/or minoring in theater and performance studies. Instructor Consent Required.

TAPS 33950, SPAN 33950. Latin American Women Perform
Section 01 Danielle Roper

This course examines the ways women from Latin America and the Caribbean wield performance art to engage their social realities and to engage questions of race, gender, and sexuality. How do women both produce and disidentify with constructs of womanhood on stage? How do they use performance to explore the ways histories of genocide, dictatorship, and imperialism shape constructs of gender? We examine the works of performance artists Congelada de Uva, Fomma, Regina Galindo, Nao Bustamante among others. Taught in English. Basic knowledge or comprehension of Spanish is strongly recommended. WQ

TAPS 44420, CDIN 44420, RLL 34420. Practices of Classicism in the French Seventeenth Century
Section 01 Larry Norman

This seminar has two goals. One is to combine the text-based tradition of French literary studies with the image-based, comparative tradition of art history—and, in so doing, to change the taxonomies of both. The other is to re-evaluate French Classicism by attending to practices of reading, writing, performing, looking and making. The seminar’s breadth is designed to appeal to all graduate students interested in the theory and history of aesthetics, and the interleaving of visual and literary evidence. Looking will be no less important than reading, as we will conduct sessions with original objects in the Art Institute and in Regenstein Special Collections. Authors studied will include Corneille, Molière, La Fontaine, Pascal, and Descartes; among the artists, Poussin, Claude Lorrain, La Tour, and Callot. Critical readings will range from Leo Spitzer to Louis Marin and Foucault. The seminar will be conducted in English; all primary texts will be made available in both English translation and, for those with reading knowledge, in the French original. Consent of instructors required.

TAPS 49700 Performance Practice as Research
Section 01 Leslie Danzig T 12:30 - 3:20pm LC-701

Performance Practice as Research (PPR) seeks to be a laboratory for doctoral students to develop performance work as a means of research -- to pursue inquiries within and through artistic practice. Students will investigate methodologies for creating artistic works in the media of their choice, meaningful terms for critique, and how to put their artistic work into productive dialogue with their scholarship. The instructor will work with each student to customize the development process and presentation(s) of the work. Though the primary focus of the course will be on students’ individual projects, there will be a seminar component consisting of readings, viewings and written assignments. This single-credit course aims to have in-class hours and a work load equivalent to a single course but will be scheduled over two quarters to give students ample time to conceive and realize their projects. The class will not meet every week each quarter and will have some flexibility in how it is organized. Please contact the instructor for further information about course content and logistics.

Spring 2020

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation
Section 01     Devon de Mayo   M 9:30-12:20pm     BARS
Section 02     David New          TR 2:00-3:20pm    BARS
Section 03     Drew Dir              W 9:30-12:20pm     BARS

TAPS 10200. Acting Fundamentals
Section 01     Pamela Pascoe     TR 12:30-1:50pm   BARS
Section 02     Honey Crawford     W 3:30-6:20pm    LC-501
Section 03     Thom Pasculli        M 12:30-3:20pm   BARS
Section 04     Thom Pasculli        M 3:30-6:20pm     BARS

TAPS 10300. Text and Performance
Section 01     Honey Crawford    TR 11:00-12:20pm   LC-701
Section 02     Heidi Coleman      M 12:30-3:20pm    LC-501
Section 03     Greg Allen TH 3:30-6:20pm    LC-501
Section 04     Shade Murray       M 12:30-3:20pm    LC-701

TAPS 10700. Introduction to Stage Design
Section 01 Kurtis Boetcher TR 11:00-12:20pm LC-501

TAPS 21510/31510. Back Room Shakespeare: Practical Tactics for Acting in a Madhouse
Section 01 Samuel Taylor TR 9:30-10:50am LC-701

Shakespeare’s theatre was a madhouse. Losing sight of this was a bad mistake.

This class will give you strong practical skills for performing in the style of those playhouses: under-rehearsed, deeply un-precious, in constant dynamic relationship with your audience. Techniques will focus on personalizing the plays, delivering them with clarity and force to a modern audience - not on ‘doing it right’. Our time will be spent primarily on hands-on exercises and scenework. Materials will include the instructor’s books, My Life with the Shakespeare Cult & Blueprints for a Shakespeare Cult. Course concludes with the presentation of a play for an invited audience. Some on-stage experience recommended. No prior experience with Shakespeare necessary. Chips on shoulders about Shakespeare are welcome and helpful.

TAPS 22310/32310. Performance Art Installations: Performing Diaspora
Section 01 Pamela Pascoe W 12:30-3:20pm BARS

We are living in an age of unprecedented movements and migrations of populations, some voluntary, many under extreme duress. The course will focus on the lives of those who have in one form or another lived through this great displacement. On the basis of material developed through our examinations and experimentations, we will create a performance installation piece. The “archive” for the piece will be drawn from a variety of sources: plays, essays, popular and social media, student-conducted interviews. Further material will be generated through acting exercises and our own work with video and visual arts. By consent only (contact instructor by email). ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 22450. Performing Black Feeling
Section 01 Gabrielle Randle TR 9:30-10:50am LC-028

What does it feel like to be Black? And how does that Black feeling perform itself? In this course, with contributors from Audre Lorde to Chance the Rapper, we'll take up a bevy of performances by Black folks of Black feeling. The quarter's aim is to discover together methodologies for understanding Black subjectivity through the recognition of Black peoples' heterogenous capacity for deep feeling. We trace Black feeling through the cultural, historical, and political contexts that it emerges in the 1960s to the affective resonance and reception of its performance in popular culture, activist performance, poetry, and on the stage today.

TAPS 22900. Introduction to Theater & Performance Studies
Section 01 Tiffany Trent et al TR 12:30-1:50pm LC-501

This course is designed to introduce students to foundational concepts and critical skills relevant to the study of theater and performance. In addition to wide-ranging readings and discussions, students will attend a variety of performances and screenings representing a cross-section of genres, interpretive styles, and institutional settings. The course is open to all undergraduate students as an elective; it also serves as a required course for all TAPS majors and minors. Attendance at first class session is mandatory.

TAPS 23150/33150. Theater-Making Lab
Section 01 Shade Murray W 12:30-3:20pm LC-701

TAPS 23980/33980. Writing the Short, Short Play: Investigations in Micro-Drama
Section 01 Mickle Maher M 3:30-6:20pm LC-501

Never in the history of western theater has brevity gotten so much attention. Festivals around the world are devoted to plays five minutes in length or less; perhaps the most revered playwright of the 20th century, Samuel Beckett, guided his career towards the writing of smaller and smaller works; Chicago’s Neofuturists have profitably run their show of “thirty plays in sixty minutes” for over thirty years; Twitter accounts disseminate multiple two to three line scripts daily; and sketch comedy continues to evolve and thrive.

This course will give an overview of the development of the very short play over the last one hundred and twenty years, but will primarily focus on the writing and development of same, asking students to complete — through workshop prompts — 20 to 30 scripts by end of quarter. A particular effort will be made to bring “traditional” elements of standard-length plays — character, arc, anagnorisis, pathos, backstory, etc — to these miniatures, to test and expand their assumed limitations.

TAPS 24550. The Evolution of Improvisation in Chicago
Section 01 Heidi Coleman M 9:30-12:20pm LC-501

This course traces the history of improvisation for performance, beginning with the "High Priestess" Viola Spolin's work exploring the educational and social benefits of play at Hull House through Paul Sill's development of The Compass Players in Hyde Park to include current companies including Second City, The Neo Futurists, The Annoyance, and IO. The course will include attendance at performances, student presentations, and practice-based workshops. This course is part of the Chicago Studies Course Cluster.

TAPS 25505. Adaptation for the Screen
Section 01 John Petrakis T 3:30 - 6:20pm LC-501

This course introduces students to the rewards and difficulties of adapting literary material to the big screen. In addition to reading short stories and viewing the films that were made from these stories, all students will be given the same short story to adapt into a 50-60 minute film. Progress on these scripts will be addressed through in-class readings, leading to final meetings with the instructor about your completed first drafts. Screenwriting experience is helpful, but not essential. Class size is limited to 10 students. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 25910. Short Form Digital Storytelling: Creating a Web Series
Section 01 Terrance Brown W 9:30-12:20pm LC-501

This course examines the short form storytelling of the digital web series. Through lectures, viewings and discussions in weekly meetings students will determine what makes a strong web series and apply the findings to writing and polishing the pilot episode of their own web series. Students will write weekly 4-5 page assignments building toward the creation of a 5-6 episode series. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 28360 Screendance: Movement and New Media
Section 01 Lizzie Leopold TR 12:30-1:50pm LC-701

This course will explore the evolving relationship between moving bodies and video technologies. From early filmmakers using dancers as test subjects, to movie musicals and contemporary dance for the camera festivals, mediatization of the body continues to challenge the ephemerality of live dance performance. This course focuses on the growing field of screendance, videodance, or dance-on-camera, working to define this hybrid genre and to understand the collaborative roles of choreographer, director, dancer, cameraman, and video editor.

This course is both a practical and scholarly approach to the genre of screendance, each component essential to a full understanding and mastery of the other. Course work will be divided between the studio and the classroom. For the studio component, students will learn basic video editing and filming techniques. For the classroom component, students will be asked to watch screendance and read a cross-section of criticism. Assignments will be both technological and choreographic (making screendance) and scholarly (written reflections and a seminar paper).

TAPS 28421/38421. Theater for Social Change
Section 01 Tiffany Trent TR 9:30am - 10:50am LC-501

Augusto Boal argues that theatre is “rehearsal for the revolution.” Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed provides key strategies for collaboratively crafting dramatic narrative. These strategies challenge the conventional Aristotelian structure that privileges a single protagonist and subordinates other stories. Instead, Boal structures a poetics in which the “spect-actor” contributes their voice. Students will engage in devising and embodiment exercises in Image Theatre, Newspaper Theatre, Forum Theatre, and more, by interpreting texts, (e.g., religious texts, constitutional documents, or political manifestos), interrogating current events, exploring public narratives, and valuing diverse learning styles. Students will contextualize destinations for the course material according to the aesthetic and academic questions that they bring into the classroom. To consider ethical concerns surrounding participatory theatre, we will examine arts groups past and present that employ the techniques of the Theatre of the Oppressed. Readings include Boal, Freire, Jan Cohen-Cruz, Michael Rohd, bell hooks, and Knight and Schwarzman. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 45020, MUSI 45020. Errant Voices: Performances Beyond Measure
Section 01 Martha Feldman

Listening to trans*, raced, and castrato voices, “Errant Voices: Gender and Performances beyond Measure” will explore voices that escape their confines perforce or by choice, trying to make sense of resistant, insurgent, and resilient voices.

Students from various disciplines are invited to join the seminar, thereby helping to advance its themes but working from their own strengths and orientations. Our common goal will be to develop shared theoretical language among differing cases that can lead to new insights into wider paradigmatic shifts across gender and race in our historical moment. The project turns on performances inasmuch as they reveal the workings of bodies, intentions, and interactions. It depends on collective thinking because it is intersectional and thus concerns emergent shared languages developed by encountering questions collaboratively.

TAPS 49700. Performance Practice as Research
Section 01 Leslie Danzig

2018-2019

Autumn 2018

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation
Section 01 David New TR 2:00-3:20pm BARS
Section 02 Honey Crawford M 12:30-3:20pm BARS

TAPS 10200. Acting Fundamentals
Section 01 Pamela Pascoe TR 11:00-12:20pm BARS
Section 02 Devon de Mayo W 12:30-3:20pm BARS

TAPS 10300. Text and Performance
Section 01 Heidi Coleman TR 9:30-10:50am LC-501
Section 02 Honey Crawford W 9:30-12:20pm BARS

TAPS 10600. Staging Desire
Section 01 Heidi Coleman M 9:30-12:20pm LC-501

This course explores the interplays between romance, attractions, and distractions through in-class discussions of theoretical works and the possibilities of practical creative application. The paradox of instant gratification and prolonged desire will be considered as well as the values of shock, suspense, and subtlety. Texts will include classic and contemporary drama, vampire cult fiction, fairy tales, films, and theoretic source material. Working 4-dimensionally, we will examine how theorized stagings can evoke and undermine sentimentality. This course will constantly question how analysis itself can be a performative practice and how performance can serve as a critical endeavor.The course will culminate in a series of original scenes to be shown at the end of the quarter. Experience in dramatic analysis or performance not required. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 10700. Introduction to Stage Design
Section 01 Kurtis Boetcher TR 11:00-12:20pm LC-501

TAPS 19300, ENGL 20601. Introduction to Drama
Section 01 John Muse TR 12:30-1:50pm SS-401

This course explores the unique challenges of experiencing performance through the page. Students will read plays and performances closely, taking into account not only form, character, plot, and genre, but also theatrical considerations like staging, acting, spectatorship, and historical conventions. We will also consider how various agents—playwrights, readers, directors, actors, and audiences—generate plays and give them meaning. While the course is not intended as a survey of dramatic literature or theater history, students will be introduced to a variety of essential plays from across the dramatic tradition. The course culminates in a scene project assignment that allows students put their skills of interpretation and adaptation into practice. No experience with theater is expected.

TAPS 20036, ENGL 20036. Making Sex and Race on the Renaissance Stage
Section 01 Ellen MacKay TR 9:30-10:50am Swift 200

This course examines some of the greatest hits of the non-Shakespearean repertoire to discuss the central role of the raced and sexed body on the Renaissance stage. We will put under special scrutiny the tendency of playwrights to dramatize for display virginity, pregnancy, and venereal disease as they intersect with a wide spectrum racial difference. Social, medical, and ecclesiastical history will be important to our discussions, but the aim of the course is to investigate the theatrical implications of this raced and sexed dramaturgy; in particular, we will consider how the plays of the Tudor-Stuart era that hinge on biological ‘facts’ call for exhibitions of anatomical proof that they would seem to be entirely incapable of mustering.

Students should expect extensive (but lively) weekly reading assignments, preparation for which includes participation in a calendar of class responses; a presentation to the class of a self-selected primary text; and a culminating research essay.

TAPS 20610/30610. Adaptation & Translation in Theater-Making
Section 01 Leslie Danzig & Leah M. Feldman W 9:30-12:20pm LC-501

This course combines seminar and studio practices to investigate the ways in which theater and performance-makers create work in relation to shifting contexts. How are theatre adaptations and translations shaped by aesthetics, geography, socio-economic conditions, cultural transition, shifting formulations of race, ethnicity, and gender? How do theatre-makers conceive and realize the resonance of their work within local and across transnational spaces? This course explores these and other questions through practical experiments in adaptation and translation, case studies of artists, attending performances, critical readings on adaptation and translation theory, and discussions of the relationship between art and national and transnational political imaginaries. At the center of the course is a visit from the artistic directors of two theater companies working with translations and adaptations of "World Literature" for a (post)Soviet context, one based in Uzbekistan and the other in Kazakhstan. We hope the exposure to their working processes will animate the questions of the course in exciting and unpredictable ways. For their final project, students will have the option of writing a critical paper, writing a proposal for a speculative work, or creating an artistic work. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 20750. The Adventures of Augie March
Section 01 Nora Titone TR 2:00-3:20pm W-403

Court Theatre has commissioned Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright David Auburn, AB’91, to write a stage adaptation of Saul Bellow’s novel of mid-century Chicago, The Adventures of Augie March. Students in this course will assist in the dramaturgical preparations for the Spring 2019 premiere of Auburn’s work, and in so doing acquire hands-on experience of the techniques involved in bringing literary works to stage. They will engage in close readings of the novel and its relationship to drafts of the script, examine how Bellow drew from his own coming-of-age experiences as an immigrant in Depression-era Chicago to create the character of Augie March, and seek out primary source materials at libraries and museums throughout the city to help contextualize the work for the director, actors, costume and sound designers. Guest lectures will include David Auburn, Court Theatre Artistic Director Charles Newell, and Dr. Peter Alter, Curator of the Studs Terkel Oral History Center. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 21600. Acting Workshop
Section 01 Andrew Cutler M 3:30-6:20pm LC-701

This advanced acting course will prep you for the professional industry. The classes are based on the Meisner Technique and the Black Box Acting Studio Method. You will work on technique, auditions and learn to consistently bring your full self to the table. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY. CONSENT ONLY via REQUEST FORM.

TAPS 21700. An Actor Observes
Section 01 Pamela Pascoe TR 12:30-1:50pm BARS

TAPS 23410. Camp and Theatre of the Ridiculous
Section 01 Shade Murray W 3:30-6:20pm LC-501

TAPS 23610. Fundamentals of Musical Improv
Section 01 Julie Nichols & Matthew Van Colton TH 13:30-6:20pm LC-501

Learn story and song structure and game-in-song techniques using real theatre-driven emotional response preparation with working industry professionals Julie Nichols & Matthew Van Colton. This course explores the fundamental concepts of improvisation, comedic games and theatre-based techniques for on-the-spot musical improvisation. Students of all experiences and backgrounds are encouraged to enroll. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IN MANDATORY.

TAPS 23700. Playwriting: Creating Natural Dialogue for the Stage
 Section 01 Evan Linder M 12:30-3:20pm LC-701

TAPS 23930/33930. Fundamentals of Playwriting
Section 01 Mickle Maher TU 3:30-6:20pm LC-501

This workshop will explore the underlying mechanics that have made plays tick for the last 2,500 odd years, from Euripedes to Shakespeare to Büchner to Caryl Churchill, Susan Lori-Parks, and Annie Baker, etc. Students will be asked to shamelessly steal those playwrights' tricks and techniques (if they're found useful), and employ them in the creation of their own piece. Designed for playwrights at any level (beginning or advanced), the workshop's primary goals will be to develop a personal sense of what "works" on stage within the context of what's worked in the past, and to generate a one-act play, start to finish. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 24410/34410. Transmedia Puzzle Design & Performance
 Section 01 Sandor Weisz M 12:30-3:20pm LC-603

This course will introduce students to the burgeoning field of immersive puzzle design. Students will develop, implement and playtest puzzles that are suited for a range of experiences: from the tabletop to the immersive, from online puzzle hunts to broad-scoped alternate reality games (ARG). Students in this course will work directly with master puzzler, Sandor Weisz, the commissioner of The Mystery League. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 25800. POC (Playwrights of Color)
 Section 01 Jess McLeod W 3:30-6:20pm LC-802

TAPS 26100. Dance Composition
 Section 01 Julia Rhoads M 3:30-6:20pm BARS

TAPS 27100. Scene Painting
 Section 01 Kurtis Boetcher W 12:30-3:20pm LC-111

This course is designed to introduce students to the theatrical art of scenic painting for the stage and film. A scenic artist is the hand of the theatrical designer, translating the small scale of the designer's rendering into full size theatrical environments. In this course, students will explore the unique tools and techniques used by scenic artists to create scenery. The end result of this class will be a basic mastery of painting "faux" surfaces and an understanding of how a scenic artist transforms the designer's ideas into realized pieces of theatrical art. Attendance for first class meeting is mandatory. Please note a $30 fee for supplies and materials applies to this course.

TAPS 27550. Costume Design and Technology for the Stage
 Section 01 Nathan Rohrer TR 11:00-12:20pm LC-032

In this course, students will learn the basics of designing costumes for theatrical productions, encompassing the skills of theatrical rendering and sketching, as well as the implementation of the design and basic sewing techniques. Students will learn to adopt a vocabulary using the elements and principles of design, understand and experience the process intrinsic to producing costumes for the theater, analyze the production needs related to costumes, and prepare a finalized costume design for a theatrical production.

TAPS 27800. Story Through Music and Sound
Section 01 Michael Bodeen & Rob Milburn M 3:30-6:20pm LC-501 & 003

This course will explore ways in which music and sound can be used to tell and support a story in the theater. We will examine how in the simplest moment to the more layered and complex, music and sound are used to create time, place, or emotional context. We will analyze the connections of plot, dialogue, music, and sound in the theater. We will also be learning the basics of Pro Tools and sound system design enabling us to create our own audio productions interacting with live performance. Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory.

TAPS 29800. Theater and Performance Studies BA Colloquium.
Section 01 Leslie Danzig F 12:30-3:20pm LC-501

This two-quarter sequence is open only to fourth-year students who are majoring and/or minoring in theater and performance studies. Instructor Consent Required.

TAPS 29900. Reading and Research
Section 01 Faculty ABR

TAPS 32312. Virtual Theaters
Section 01 John Muse TR 9:30-10:50am RO-405

This course probes the nature and limits of theater by exploring a range of theatrical texts whose relation to performance is either partially or fully virtual. Like the works we will read, the course transgresses disciplinary, generic, and temporal boundaries, bringing together from various centuries philosophical dialogues (Plato), closet dramas, novel chapters in dramatic form (Melville's Moby-Dick, Joyce's Ulysses), radio drama, impossible drama, and new media forms that test conventional definitions of theatrical performance: social media theater, digital theater, algorithmic theater, and trans-media games.

TAPS 34880. New Directions in Afro-Latin Performance
Section 01 Danielle Roper W 1:30-4:20pm LC-603

This class engages contemporary conversations in the study of Afro-Latin performance and explores the work of emerging black performance artists across the hemisphere. Tracing performances of blackness from the Southern cone to the Caribbean, we will examine the ways blackness is wielded by the State and by black communities themselves in performance and visual art across the region. We ask: what is the relationship between race and theatricality? What work is blackness made to do in states organized around discourses of racial democracy and mestizaje? How are notions of diaspora constructed through performances of blackness? We take up these questions in our study of reggaetón, hip hop, samba, el baile de los negritos and examine the works of noted and upcoming black artists such as Victoria Medes Santa-Cruz, Carlos Martiel, Las Nietas de Nonó, and others. Knowledge of Spanish is recommended. While the course will be taught in English, many of the performances and at least four of the readings will be in Spanish.

TAPS 36215. Comedy Central 2: The Body's Genres
Section 01 Catherine Sullivan & Lauren G. Berlant W 12:30-3:20pm LC-501

The story of comedy from the classics on focuses on the comedic as a weapon, as play that disrupts communication, and as a scene of moral revelation. This course will take up those relations, but begins with the body. We will focus on the plastic, corporeal, affective, and psychodramatic dynamics of the comedic. So much so, in fact, that we're calling it a studio seminar: it will involve actively participating in exercises adapted from the somatic arts, contemporary dance, music, theatre and contemporary comedy and developing new ones. Recognizing that bodies are as much created by movement as engendering it, and recognizing that the comedic is a register for translating the impact of other bodies including the world's body, the course will partition "the body" into focal themes such as: scale/gesture, the vocal grotesque/irony, movement/interruption, trauma/repair, slapstick/satire, ritual/convention, spontaneity/improvisation; cognitive laughter/belly laughter. Readings will include texts by Linda Williams, Erving Goffman, J.L. Moreno, Elias Canetti, Moshe Feldenkrais, Steve Paxton, Mikhail Bakhtin, Mae West, Jerry Lewis and Fred Moten. Students will contribute their own choices to an exploration of individual performances by Buster Keaton, Louise Lasser, Eleo Pomare, Phyllis Diller, Jackie "Moms" Mabley, and Jerrod Carmichael.

TAPS 45918. Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung in Performance: Siegfried
Section 01 David Levin & Steven Rings W 1:30-4:20pm JRL-264

This course seeks to explore Richard Wagner’s sprawling 19th century tetralogy The Ring of the Nibelung via the history of its interpretation on stage. While the first section of the course will offer an introduction to the Ring in its entirety, the rest of the quarter will be taken up with an in-depth consideration of Siegfried, the 3rd piece in the tetralogy. Our work in the seminar room (which will encompass a range of historical and critical readings and screenings) will be supplemented by attendance at rehearsals for Lyric Opera’s production of Siegfried, slated to premiere on November 3rd. As it stands, we will cover a substantial amount of territory from a host of genres, eras, fields, and orientations, seeking to understand the contested and often contradictory place in music history and cultural theory that is occupied by Wagner and The Ring. Since the course is team-taught by a professor of music and of Germanic studies as well as theater & performance studies, our discussions will seek to encompass a range of fields, approaches, and topics. Among the topics we plan to examine are the aspiration to aesthetic totalization, the politics of community, the notion of distress or emergency (the German term is: Not), and some astonishingly lurid fantasies of family life--mostly of family dissolution. Texts will include the works of Friedrich Nietzsche, Theodor Adorno, Carolyn Abbate, Alain Badiou, Nicholas Ridout, and Slavoj Zizek.

Consent required: Please email Prof. Levin (dlevin@uchicago.edu) or Prof. Rings your background / experience / interest in one more of the following: music history/theory, critical theory, theater and performance studies, Germanic studies, opera studies, cinema and media studies. Interested advanced undergrads should attend the first meeting.

TAPS 51420. The Literary and Visual Worlds of Xixiang Ji
Section 01 Judith Zeitlin TH 12:30-3:20pm WB-301N

This course examines the most influential Chinese drama of all times, the Xixiang ji (Romance of the Western Chamber) in light of its multiple literary and visual traditions. Over 100 different woodblock editions, many of them illustrated, were published during the Ming and Qing dynasties alone. The focus of the class will be on close readings of the original texts in classical and early modern vernacular Chinese. We will concentrate on the earliest extant edition of 1498 and Jin Shengtan’s annotated and abridged edition of 1656, along with important sets of woodblock illustrations of the play. Good reading skills in both classical and vernacular Chinese. Instructor’s permission required.

TAPS 60013, ENGL 60013. Pushy Authorship: The Case of Ben Jonson
Section 01 Ellen MacKay W 12:30 - 3:20pm Walker 403

Jonson's star has been on the wane since the Eighteenth Century, when Hogarth depicted him as the representative ghost of the Renaissance dramatists, saddled with the task of inveighing against the crassness and inanity of the revived stage. Nothing could have suited him better. Self-styled as an academiste without an Academy, a Horace in an age of hacks, Jonson could be counted on to rail against perceived infelicities of dramatic style, form, and substance, holding his motley cohort of poets to blame for rules known only to himself. As a self-appointed decider of what counted as good theatre, Jonson gave over much of his plays' dramatic space (in inductions, interludes and intermeans) to set out his principles. He also fought hard to carry his every point. This aggression, and the many registers of its expression (affective, figurative, allusive, didactic, defensive, material, etc.), is the subject of this course. We will consider Jonson's unprecedented assembly and publication of his dramatic folio as an especially telling case of how a book inserts itself into the world of literary matter, making possible a new kind of authorship (and directly influencing Heminges' and Condell's decision to bring out Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies Histories and Tragedies in the same format). Special attention will therefore be paid to the works that comprise that 1616 publication and the many properties of its material production that bring across Jonson's authorial disposition.

Winter 2019

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation
Section 01     Seth Bockley    TR 11:00-12:20pm    BARS
Section 02    David New            TR   2:00-3:20pm      BARS
Section 03    David New            TR   3:30-4:20pm      BARS
Section 04     Honey Crawford    W 3:30-6:20pm       LC-701

TAPS 10200. Acting Fundamentals
Section 01     Darci Nalepa        M 12:30-3:20pm    LC-701
Section 02     Leslie Danzig           W 9:30-12:20pm    LC-701
Section 03     Heidi Coleman          M 9:30-12:20pm     LC-701

TAPS 10300. Text and Performance
Section 01     John Muse          TR   9:30-11:50am      LC-701
Section 02     Honey Crawford TR 11:00-12:20pm     LC-603
Section 03    John Muse          TR 12:30-1:50pm     LC-701

TAPS 15500. Beginning Screenwriting
Section 01 Terrence Brown W 9:30am-12:20pm LC-603

TAPS 20600. Adapting the Unadaptable
Section 01 Seth Bockley W 3:30-6:20pm LC-501

Fiction has always provided rich source material for drama. But much 20th and 21st century fiction can seem unadaptable—it is often sprawling, poetic, interior, fragmentary, or cerebral (or all of the above!). This hands-on course will challenge students to approach modern and contemporary literature with unconventional tools of staging, editing, and design. Students will also be introduced to the work of contemporary theater companies and productions that have taken on seemingly impossible adaptation projects, and closely study adaptations of Jorge Luis Borges, Franz Kafka, Virginia Woolf and others. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 20700. Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism
Section 01 Derek Matson W 12:30-3:20pm LC-603

TAPS 21510/31510. Back Room Shakespeare: Practical Tactics for Acting in a Madhouse
Section 01 Samuel Taylor W 12:30-3:20pm LC-501

It's a mistake to lose sight of the fact that Shakespeare’s theatre was a madhouse. This class will give you strong practical skills for performing in the style of those playhouses: under-rehearsed, deeply un-precious, in a constant dynamic relationship with your audience. Techniques will focus on personalizing the plays, delivering them with clarity and force to a modern audience—not on ‘doing it right’. Our time will be spent primarily on hands-on exercises and scene work. Materials will include the instructor’s book about the Back Room Shakespeare Project, My Life with the Shakespeare Cult. Course concludes with the presentation of a play for an invited audience. The cast will include a handful of working Chicago actors. Some on-stage experience recommended. No prior experience with Shakespeare necessary. Chips on shoulders about Shakespeare are welcome and helpful. Attendance at first class session is MANDATORY.

TAPS 21600/31600. Acting Workshop
Section 01 Darci Nalepa M 3:30-6:20pm LC-501

TAPS 21910/31910. Theatrical Clown
Section 01 Molly Brennan M 3:30-6:20pm LC-701

This course pursues an active performance state through acute awareness of environment and immediate access to impulses and responses. Students will strive to find and maintain a state of simplicity, presence and curiosity within live performance, utilizing senses, impulses, experiences, gestures and breath to build material. Course material will include games that focus on physicality and impulse/response, as well as writing material to perform. Students will be active in providing feedback and assisting each other in achieving goals. Upon completion of class, participants will be able to partner, propose, respond and report inside devised performance material. Taught largely nonverbally. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 23000. Introduction to Directing
Section 01 Shade Murray W 9:30-12:20pm LC-501

TAPS 23110/33110. Directing Study
Section 01 Shade Murray ARR

This seminar results from the production work of the quarter, with text analysis, dramaturgical reading, and discussions based on the participating MainStage directors. Typically initiating in weekly sessions the quarter prior to production, academic credit is given the quarter of production following a final written exam. Instructor Consent Required.

TAPS 23910. Advanced Playwriting Workshop
Section 01 E. Edele (Calamity West) M 12:30-3:20p LC-603

TAPS 24901/34901. Performance Lab: Women in American Plays
Section 01 Devon de Mayo TH 3:30–6:20pm LC-501

Professional female-identifying playwright, actor and dramaturg, director Devon de Mayo will lead this course centered on how male playwrights have portrayed women over the course of American history, and create an imagined space in which these characters can be in dialogue with one another. This course commits to developing a fully realized performance piece within the ten weeks of the quarter. Immersive in intent and demand, writing and performance skills will be developed by participants for participants. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 24902/34902. Performance Lab: Non-Fiction Sources
Section 01 Leslie Danzig & Emily Lansana W 12:30-3:20pm LC-701

How do you create a solo or group performance from sources other than a play? How do you build original performance out of personal stories, interviews, research, an historical or current event? What are the methods for collecting non-fictional material, learning about someone else’s experience, uncovering the complexities of something that has occurred? And how does one compose that material into a staged event? This course explores what constitutes a story, the blurred boundaries between what’s ‘real’ and what’s ‘fiction’, the status of interpretation, the stakes of performing as oneself and as other people, and the ethics of turning lived experience into staged performance. Students will work individually and collaboratively on creating original performances based on topics of their choice, in addition to viewing live and recorded performances, reading essays and scripts, and meeting visiting artists. Open to undergraduate and graduate students. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 26250/36250. Contemporary Dance Techniques
Section 01 Julia Rhoads M 3:30-6:20pm BARS

TAPS 27700. Introduction to Puppetry
Section 01 Frank Maugeri TH 3:30-6:20pm LC-501

Introduction to Puppetry invites students to explore the vast and dynamic world of the history of Puppet Theater and expertly trains students in multiple forms of the medium. From Bun Ra Ku to hand puppetry, Mask Performance to Shadow Puppetry, Toy Theater to banners and contastorias, students will be exposed to the form through real examples of sophisticated objects and expert direction. Students will be immersed in the history, literature, and philosophy of the ritual and performance of the puppet, and will be provided the opportunity to build their own draft of a short production. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 28000. Scenic Design
Section 01 Kurtis Boetcher M 12:30-3:20pm LC-501

This course is an exploration of various forms and processes of designing sets for theatrical performance. We pay particular attention to a cohesive reading of a text, contextual and historical exploration, and visual and thematic research, as well as the documentation needed to complete a show (e.g., model, drafting, paint elevations). We also explore, nominally, the history of stage design and look at major trends in modern stage design. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 28320/38320. The Mind as Stage: Podcasting
Section 01 Sarah Geis W 3:30pm - 6:20pm Cobb 112

TAPS 28406, ENGL 16600, FNDL 21404. Shakespeare II: Tragedies & Romances
Section 01 Ellen MacKay TR 12:30pm - 1:50pm RO 011

This course will explore a selection of seven or eight plays representing Shakespeare’s mature genres of Tragedy and Romance (the latter a posthumous designation). Like Shakespeare I, this course will examine Shakespeare’s plays as well as the history and limitations of their conceptualization. We will give special attention to the biographical, formal, theatrical, historical, and cultural implications that ensue from the sequencing of Shakespeare’s corpus, before trying out alternatives to the rise and fall paradigm.

TAPS 28466. Alternate Reality Games
Section 01 Patrick Jagoda & Heidi Coleman TR 11:00am-12:20pm LC-501

Games are one of the most prominent and influential media of our time. This experimental course explores the emerging genre of "alternate reality" or "transmedia" gaming. Throughout the quarter, we will approach new media theory through the history, aesthetics, and design of transmedia games. These games build on the narrative strategies of novels, the performative role-playing of theater, the branching techniques of electronic literature, the procedural qualities of video games, and the team dynamics of sports. Beyond the subject matter, students will design modules of an Alternate Reality Game in small groups. Students need not have a background in media or technology, but a wide-ranging imagination, interest in new media culture, or arts practice will make for a more exciting quarter.

Instructor consent required. To apply, submit writing by deadline of November 23rd through online form. Once given consent, attendance on the first day is mandatory. Questions: mb31@uchicago.edu.

TAPS 29800. Theater and Performance Studies BA Colloquium.
Section 01 Leslie Danzig F 12:30-3:20pm LC-501

This two-quarter sequence is open only to fourth-year students who are majoring and/or minoring in theater and performance studies. Instructor Consent Required.

TAPS 48470. Molière
Section 01 Larry Norman T 2:00pm - 4:50pm WB-207

Molière crafted a new form of satirical comedy that revolutionized European theater, though it encountered strong opposition from powerful institutions. We will read the plays in the context of the literary and dramatic traditions that Molière reworked (farce, commedia dell'arte, Latin comedy, Spanish Golden Age theater, satiric poetry, the novel), while considering the relationship of laughter to social norms, as well as the performance practices and life of theater in Molière's day. Prerequisite: FREN 20500 or 20503, and one introductory-level literature course taught in French.

TAPS 51820 / CMST 61820. Minstrelsy-Vaudeville-Cinema: Racialized Performance and American Popular Culture
Section 01 Allyson Nadia Field TH 12:30-3:20pm
Screenings T 7:30-10:30pm

What would it mean to say that minstrelsy was a foundational practice in the development of American popular culture, and that the emergence of American cinema must be understood through the lens of its ubiquity? This course therefore investigates the persistence of minstrelsy in American popular culture from the early 19th century to the turn of the 20th century. It traces the development of its tropes, themes, and practices from traveling tent shows to the variety theater of vaudeville and to the emergence of cinema. We will attempt to make legible the functionings of its racist caricatures, account for its popularity and longevity, and explore moments of creative resistance to its dehumanizing portrayals of African Americans.

A range of questions guides this inquiry. What accounts for the longevity of tropes of minstrelsy and the persistence of its figures? How have they developed, mutated, and shifted across different eras and in different practices? How do we make sense of Black performers using blackface on both stage and screen? What opportunities for appropriation and resistance might we find in the legacies of these practices? To these last questions, special attention will be given to Black performance within and against minstrelsy across the 19th and 20th centuries, the emergence of a vaudeville circuit for African American performers in the 1920s, and early cinema’s negotiations with its theatrical progenitors.

We will look at 19th century performers and composers including T.D. Rice, Billy Kersands, Stephen Foster, Bert Williams and George Walker, Ernest Hogan, May Irwin, Sissieretta Jones. We will also consider later filmmakers working with and against the racialized representations of minstrelsy including D.W. Griffith, Al Jolson, Oscar Micheaux, and Stepin Fetchit, and contemporary reimaginings, confrontations and reckonings, including those of Spike Lee, Dave Chappelle, Christopher Harris, and Edgar Arceneaux. Emphasis will be on methods of primary historical research as well as theories of race, gender and performance.

Spring 2019

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation
Section 01     Honey Crawford    TR 11:00-12:20pm   BARS
Section 02     Pamela Pascoe     TR 12:30-1:50pm      BARS
Section 03     Pamela Pascoe     TR   2:00-3:20pm      BARS

TAPS 10200. Acting Fundamentals
Section 01     Thom Pasculli       M 12:30-3:20pm BARS
Section 02     David New            W 12:30-3:20pm BARS
Section 03     Honey Crawford W   3:30-6:20pm LC-701

TAPS 10300. Text and Performance
Section 01     Devon de Mayo      M 9:30-12:20pm     LC-028
Section 02     Thom Pasculli         M 3:30-6:20pm       BARS
Section 03     Loren Kruger       TR 11:00-12:20pm   LC-603
Section 04     Shade Murray        W 12:30-3:20pm LC-701

TAPS 10700. Introduction to Stage Design
Section 01 Kurtis Boetcher TR 11:00-12:20pm LC-501

TAPS 20120 / ENGL 27583. 21st Century American Drama
Section 01 Heidi Coleman M 9:30a - 12:20p LC-701

This seminar focuses on American contemporary playwrights who have made a significant impact with regard to dramatic form in the past 20 years. Playwrights will include, Tracy Letts, Annie Baker, Lynn Nottage, Quiara Alegria Hudes, Ayad Akhtar, and Amy Herzog. Textual analysis is consistently oriented towards staging, design, and cultural relevancies. Work for the course will include research papers, presentations, and scene work.

TAPS 20751. The Making of Augie March at Court Theatre
Section 01 Nora Titone and Charles Newell T 12:30p - 3:20p Court Theatre

In May 2019 Court Theatre will present the world premiere of The Adventures of Augie March, a stage adaptation of Saul Bellow’s 1953 novel by Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright David Auburn, AB’91. Students in this course are invited to join Court's Artistic Director Charles Newell in the rehearsal room as he works to bring Auburn’s new play to life. This course is an immersive learning environment aiming to provide foundational training to aspiring theater artists through firsthand experience. Students will follow the creative process for Augie March from First Rehearsal to opening night, and will have access to the director, design team and acting company throughout the making of the play. Students will observe and interview the set, lighting, sound and costume designers, as well as the playwright, choreographer, dialect coach and members of the Chicago-based theater collective Manual Cinema, who are designing puppets and other special effects for the production. Students will write about the rehearsal and production process, and they will engage closely with Auburn’s script and with dramaturgical materials. After Augie March opens, students will analyze critics' response to the production. Classes will be held alternately in Court Theatre and in Court’s off-campus Rehearsal Hall, located at 5608 S. Stony Island Avenue.

Instructor consent required. Please email ntone@uchicago.edu detailing your interest in the course and experience in the theater. Priority will be given to declared TAPS majors and minors.

TAPS 22300/32300. Performance Art Installation: The Dreamer and the Dream
Section 01 Pamela Pascoe W 12:30 - 3:20pm LC-501

In this course we will explore the relations between dreaming and waking life using a broad interdisciplinary approach. Our point of departure will be psychological, cultural, and religious understandings of dreams. On the basis of the readings and the skills and backgrounds of participants, the class will develop a “performance installation” around the liminal spaces of dream and wakefulness. Readings will include literary texts by Apuleius, Calderon, Shakespeare, Schnitzler, and Neil Gaiman, and theoretical texts by Freud, Jung, Klein, and Winnicott. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 22900. Introduction to Theater & Performance Studies
Section 01 Tiffany Trent et al TR 12:30-1:50pm LC-603

This course is designed to introduce students to foundational concepts and critical skills relevant to the study of theater and performance. In addition to wide-ranging readings and discussions, students will attend a variety of performances and screenings representing a cross-section of genres, interpretive styles, and institutional settings. The course is open to all undergraduate students as an elective; it also serves as a required course for all TAPS majors and minors. Attendance at first class session is mandatory.

TAPS 23110/33110. Directing Study
Section 01 TBA ARR

TAPS 23509, MUSI 23509. Eurovision Song Contest
Section 01 Phillip V. Bohlman TR 9:30-10:50am GH-402

Each May since 1956 popular musicians and fans from Europe gather in a European metropolis to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), a competitive spectacle in which musicians from one nation compete against one another. Organized, funded, and broadcast by the European Broadcasting Union, the largest conglomerate of national radio and television networks in the world, the ESC is extensively participatory, creating its own communities of fans, musicians, musical producers, and ordinary citizens, who join together at all levels of society to interact with the politics and historical narratives of Europe. From the moment of heightened Cold War conflict at the birth of ESC to the refugee crisis and the rise of right-wing nationalism in the present, ESC has generated public discourse that not only reflects European and global politics, but provides a conduit for local and national citizenries to respond and shape such public discourse about gender and sexuality. The weekly work for the course draws students from across the College into the counterpoint of history and politics with aesthetics and popular culture. Each week will be divided into two parts, the first dedicated to reading and discussion of texts about European history and politics from World War II to the present, the second to interaction with music. Students will experience the ESC through close readings of individual songs and growing familiarity with individual nations with a participatory final project.

TAPS 24500. Chicago Theater: Budgets and Buildings
Section 01 Heidi Coleman M 12:30-3:20pm LC-603

This course examines the current state of Chicago theater, focusing on the relationships between facilities, budgets, and missions. Field trips required to venues including Side Project, Timeline, Raven, Steppenwolf, Theater Building, and Greenhouse. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY. This course is part of the College Course Cluster program: Chicago Studies.

TAPS 24903/34903. Performance Lab: Devising Dance Theater
Section 01 Julia Rhoads W 3:30pm - 6:20pm BARS

This course offers an intensive laboratory setting in which to imagine and create movement-based performance from an interdisciplinary perspective. Weekly sessions include guided prompts to generate writing, choreography, and visual design for individual projects, along with group discussion and one-on-one mentorship from the instructor, an accomplished and nationally recognized choreographer and company director. This process-based course culminates in a performance during 10th week. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

Instructor consent required. To apply, email jrhoads1@uchicago.edu detailing your interest and experience.

TAPS 25200. Neo-Futurists Performance Workshop
Section 01 Greg Allen T 3:30pm - 6:20pm LC-701

This course is a hands-on introduction to Neo-Futurism: a method of transforming your own thoughts, feelings, and experiences into creative, task-oriented, audience-participatory, non-illusory, unique theatrical events. Students are encouraged to find their own voice as fully rounded theater artists by writing, directing, and performing their own short performances using their own lives as source material. By pursuing the goal of absolute truth on stage, we focus on an alternative to narrative Realism by embracing such elements as deconstruction, found-text, collage, abstraction, synthesis, and chaos. Classes consist of original group exercises as well as presentations of weekly performance assignments. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 25505. Adaptation for the Screen
Section 01 John Petrakis T 3:30 - 6:20pm LC-501

TAPS 25515/35515. Contemporary Political Strategies in Performance
Section 01 Annie Dorsen M 3:30- 6:20pm LC-701

The emphasis of the course is on strategies—in the words of curator Florian Malzacher, “artistic strategies in politics, and political strategies in art.” In moments of political struggle, what can art DO, and what can it not? We will be combining case studies with theoretical background, examining strategies like occupation, participation, parafiction, 'technologies of care,' détournement and the art strike. Students will have the opportunity to put some of these approaches to the test by designing one or more local interventions according to the interests of the group. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 25910 Short Form Digital Storytelling: Creating a Web Series
Section 01 Terrance Brown W 9:30-12:20pm LC-028

TAPS 26530/46530. Staging the Internet
Section 01 Annie Dorsen T 12:30-3:20pm LC-701

The theater has often been used as a means to embody psychic spaces, from Medieval mystery plays and other allegorical works to Richard Foreman's attempt to give theatrical form to consciousness itself. This practice-based lab class will propose to 'stage the internet' - what techniques and strategies can we develop to give tangible shape to the virtual world? Our explorations will be catalyzed by readings on data and interfaces, networks and protocols, procedural/algorithmic art, digital labor, and competing notions of the virtual.

Course is designed for advanced undergraduates and graduates. Previous coursework in theater & performance studies or related fields required. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 28100. Lighting Design for the Stage
Section 01 Mike Durst M 12:30-3:20pm LC-501

This course places equal emphasis on the theory and practice of modern stage lighting. Students learn the mechanical properties of lighting equipment; how to create, read, and execute a lighting plot; the functions of lighting in a theatrical context; color and design theory; and how to read a text as a lighting designer. Attendance at first class session is MANDATORY.

TAPS 28421/38421. Theater for Social Change
Section 01 Tiffany Trent TR 9:30am - 10:50am LC-501

TAPS 28435. Brecht and Beyond
Section 01 Loren Kruger TR 2:00-3:20pm Cobb-301
Screening: W 7:00-10:00pm Cobb-311

Brecht is indisputably the most influential playwright in the 20th century, but his influence on film theory and practice and on cultural theory generally is also considerable. In this course we will explore the range and variety of Brecht's own theatre, from the anarchic plays of the 1920s to the agitprop Lehrstück and film (esp Kühle Wampe) to the classical parable plays, as well as the work of his heirs in German theatre (Heiner Müller, Peter Weiss) and film (RW Fassbinder, Alexander Kluge), in French film (Jean-Luc Godard) and cultural theory (the Situationists and May 68), film and theatre in Britain (such as Caryl Churchill or Mike Leigh), theatre and film in Africa, from South Africa to Senegal, and if possible a film or play from the US that engages with Brechtian theory and/or practice. TAPS and/or Hum Core required; no first years.

TAPS 28465. Adaptation: Text and Image
Section 01 Mickle Maher & Frank Maugeri M 9:30-12:20pm LC-501

A course concerned with the marriage of image and text that explores films, illuminated manuscripts, comic books/graphic novels, children's picture books and present day (perhaps local) theater productions that deal at their core with the balance and dance between story and picture. Examples of work studied would be Chris Marker's La jetée, Alice in Wonderland and its many adaptations, the comics of Winsor McCay, Seth, Chris Ware, etc, and William Blake's engraved poems and images. The theatrical collaborations between the instructors themselves ("The Cabinet" and "Cape and Squiggle," both produced by Chicago's Redmoon Theatre) will be discussed as well.

TAPS 28467, MUSI 24417. Making and Meaning in the American Musical
Section 01 Thomas Christensen TR 9:30-10:50am TBA

The history of the American Musical in the 20th century is paradoxical. While the genre is one often denigrated as staging lyrical utopias of Romance and adventure allowing audiences to escape depressing quotidian realities, many musicals did seek to engage some of the most pressing social issues of their day. In this course, we will look—and listen—closely to four differing musicals from the 20th century, studying their creative origins, while also analyzing their complex social meanings revealed through the story, music, lyrics, staging, and dance.

TAPS 28480, ITAL 29600. The Worlds of Harlequin
Section 01 Rocco Rubini TR 2:00-3:20pm TBA

This course is an introduction to the Italian art of theatrical improvisation or commedia dell'arte, a type of theater featuring masked characters and schematic plots. We will look at the influence of Boccaccio's Decameron on the formation of stock-characters, the introduction of women into the realm of theatrical professionalism, the art of costume and mask making, and the Italian knack for pantomime and gestural expression. Readings include such masterpieces in the tradition of comic theater as Machiavelli's The Mandrake and Goldoni's Harlequin Servant of Two Masters, as well as their renditions in film.

TAPS 30700. Shakespearean Dramaturgies: Text/Medium/Performance and the Magic of the Theatre
Section 01 Freddie Rokem TH 3:30-6:20pm LC-501

The interactions between a dramatic text and its actual and potential performance-realizations in a specific artistic medium serve one of the fundamental points of departure for “Theatre and Performance Studies” (TAPS). This seminar will explore the dynamic relations between ‘text’, ‘medium’ and ‘performance’, exemplifying with some of Shakespeare’s key plays, in particular emphasizing his treatment of the magic of art/theatre, the appearance of supernatural figures, political power and social violence. The dramaturgical perspective for ‘staging’ these themes (on the stage, as theatre and opera; on the screen; or by radical textual adaptation etc.) theorizes the artistic practices of each particular medium (its ‘language’ or constitutive features) and the application of these practices for performing Shakespeare. The aim of this course is to examine and analyse existing realizations of some of Shakespeare’s key dramas in a broad range of media as well as to investigate the possibilities for making them meaningful today, through dramaturgical analysis in the class. By providing the tools for a self-reflective dramaturgical process where academic research methodologies, philosophical thinking, and artistic creativity are combined these investigations we will strive to integrate such a dramaturgical process in academic as well as artistic contexts.

2017-2018

Autumn 2017

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation
Section 01 Leslie Danzig TR 9:30-10:50am BARS
Section 02 David New TR 11:00-12:20pm BARS

TAPS 10200. Acting Fundamentals
Section 01 Pamela Pascoe TR 12:30-1:50pm BARS

TAPS 10300. Text and Performance
Section 01     John Muse           TR 9:30-10:50am     LC-701
Section 02     John Muse           TR 12:30-1:50pm      LC-701
Section 03     Devon de Mayo    TR 2:00-3:20pm      LC-701

TAPS 10700. Introduction to Stage Design
Section 01 Jessica Wardell TR 11:00-12:20pm LC-501

TAPS 20100. Twentieth-Century American Drama
Section 01 Heidi Coleman TR 11:00-12:20pm LC-701

TAPS 21700. An Actor Observes
Section 01 Pamela Pascoe TR 2:00-3:20pm BARS

TAPS 22600/32600. Chance in Performance
Section 01 Annie Dorsen TR 2:00-3:20pm LC-501

The course will cover the historical, theoretical and practical issues surrounding the use of chance in artistic production, with an emphasis on how these techniques have been used in live performance. We begin with the historical avant-garde, particularly Dada and Duchamp, continue with mid-century experiments by Cage/Cunningham and Fluxus artists, and finish with contemporary work like “No Dice” of Nature Theatre of Oklahoma and “Algorithmic Noir” by Eve Sussman. By creating performance projects using, or responding to, the techniques studied, students will have an opportunity to develop their own critical and practice-based point of view. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 22900/32900. Introduction to Theater & Performance Studies
Section 01 David Levin TR 12:30-1:50pm LC-501

This course is designed to introduce students to foundational concepts and critical skills relevant to the study of theater and performance. In addition to wide-ranging readings and discussions, students will attend a variety of performances and screenings representing a cross-section of genres, interpretive styles, and institutional settings. The course is open to all undergraduate students as an elective; it also serves as a required course for all TAPS majors and minors. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 23000. Introduction to Directing
Section 01 Shade Murray M 12:30-3:20pm LC-501

TAPS 23110/33110. Directing Study
Section 01 Heidi Coleman ARR

TAPS 23600. Improv & Sketch
Section 01 Susan Messing M 9:30-12:20pm LC-501

TAPS 23700. Playwriting: Creating Natural Dialogue for the Stage
 Section 01 Evan Linder W 12:30-3:20pm LC-701

TAPS 25515/35515. Contemporary Political Strategies in Performance
Section 01 Annie Dorsen W 3:30-6:20pm LC-701

TAPS 26100. Dance Composition
 Section 01 Julia Rhoads M 3:30-6:20pm LC-701

TAPS 27610. Engineering Shadow Puppetry
Section 01 Frank Maugeri W 3:30-6:20pm LC-501

This course will begin with historical research of shadow puppetry and directed design exploration, using both scripting and visual storyboarding to get your concept ready for production. We will then create scenery and visual environments while learning to bring shadow characters to life with movement, sound, and advanced manipulation techniques. We will also learn methods for crafting puppets from durable materials and will utilize mechanisms such as hinges and rivets. Students will be expected to work on projects outside of class time. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 28405, ENGL 16500, FNDL 21403. Shakespeare I: Histories and Comedies
Section 01     Ellen MacKay      TR 12:30-1:50pm      STU 101
Section 02     Michal Zecharia    F 9:30-10:20am      WB 103
Section 03     Katherine Nolan     F 11:30-12:20pm    WB 103
Section 04     Shiri Yang           F 12:30-1:20pm      WB 103

This course will explore a selection of seven or eight plays representing Shakespeare’s youthful genres of Comedy and History. We will consider how each play fits, or doesn’t fit, within organizing dichotomies like playhouse versus print, popular versus elite, and early versus late. We will also consider how terms that structure our encounter with Shakespeare both form and deform his work, leaving us to ask, Can we do better?

TAPS 28452, CMST 25204, HUMA 25202. Media Ecology: Embodiment & Software
Section 01 Margot Browning TR 12:30-1:50pm W 302

Media ecology examines how the structure and content of our media environments—online and offline, in words, images, sounds, and textures—affect human perception, understanding, feeling, and value; or alternatively, media ecology investigates the massive and dynamic interrelation of processes and objects, beings and things, patterns and matter. At stake are issues about agency—human or material—and about determinism—how does society or culture interact with or shape its technologies, or vice versa? This course investigates theories of media ecology by exploring systems of meanings that humans embody (cultural, social, ecological) in conjunction with the emerging field of software studies about the cultural, political, social, and aesthetic impacts of software (e.g., code, interaction, interface). In our actual and virtual environments, how do we understand performing our multiple human embodiments in relation to other bodies (organism or machine) in pursuit of social or political goals?

TAPS 28414, ARTV 24301/34301. Writing for Performance
Section 01 William Pope.L MW 10:30-12:20pm LC-802

This course is an exploration of select texts for performance written by performance artists primarily but not entirely operating within the context of art. Via historical context and literary technique, students read, discuss, and analyze texts by various authors spanning the history of performance art: Hugo Ball, John Cage, Richard Foreman, Carolee Schneeman, Joseph Beuys, Karen Finley, Nature Theater of Oklahoma, John Leguizamo, and create and perform their own writing. Field trips and attendance at first class are required.

TAPS 29800. Theater and Performance Studies BA Colloquium.
Section 01 Leslie Danzig F 12:30-3:20pm LC-501

This two-quarter sequence is open only to fourth-year students who are majoring and/or minoring in theater and performance studies. Instructor Consent Required.

TAPS 29300. Advanced Study: General
Section 01 Faculty ABR

TAPS 36800, ENGL 36800. Imagining the Audience in Early Modern English Performance
Section 01 Ellen MacKay TR 9:30-10:50am RO-405

This course will explore the idea of the audience in early modern England by looking hard at the range and subtlety of its expressions, both from a distance and up close. At the outset, our remit will be digital/philological. We will track the concept of the collectivity across the EEBO corpus, looking for patterns of use and lexical innovation. We will also search the six (non-digitized) volumes of the Catalogue of British Drama. To prepare ourselves to make arguments on the basis of this work, we will consult methodological criticism on literary data mining and gain some hands-on experience with topic modeling, and possibly network visualization.

The second leg of the course will involve reading works and criticism that not only address and represent, but in some measure also theorize, the audience as collective entity, zone of conduct, mode of encounter, etc. Primary texts will likely include Hamlet, Antony and Cleopatra, Timon of Athens, The Roaring Girl (Middleton and Dekker), Bussy D’Ambois (Chapman) and some court masques, royal entries and mayoral pageants. Non-dramatic works will likely include The Art of the Courtier (Castiglione), The Gull’s Horn-book (Dekker), The Art of English Poesie (Puttenham) and possibly some political tracts and treatises of the interregnum. A few of our dramatic and critical choices will be decided by vote at the start of the quarter.

Winter 2018

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation
Section 01     Devon de Mayo    TR 9:30-10:50am    BARS
Section 02     David New            TR 12:30-1:50pm      BARS
Section 03 David New            TR   2:00-3:20pm      BARS

TAPS 10200. Acting Fundamentals
Section 01     Marti Lyons          M 12:30-3:20pm BARS
Section 02     Thom Pasculli      TR 3:30-4:50pm    BARS
Section 03     Shade Murray           W 12:30-3:20pm   BARS

TAPS 10300. Text and Performance
Section 01 David Levin TR 11:00-12:20pm LC-501

TAPS 15500. Beginning Screenwriting
Section 01 Terrence Brown W 9:30am-12:20pm LC-603

TAPS 20600. Adapting the Unadaptable
Section 01 Seth Bockley W 9:30-12:20pm LC-701

TAPS 20700. Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism
Section 01 Derek Matson R 3:30-6:20pm LC-802

TAPS 21600. Acting Workshop
Section 01 Darci Nalepa M 3:30-6:20pm LC-501

TAPS 21715/31715. A Physical Approach to Acting
Section 01 Adrian Danzig W 9:30am-12:30pm LC-501

This course offers students a multi-faceted approach to making acting choices and tactics concrete, legible and dramatic—through physical training, adventurous scene work and developing a critical framework for understanding acting as a corporeal practice. The first half of each class will be dedicated to rigorous physical training building strength, extending range of motion, and developing skills, which may include head and handstands, juggling, balance, and basic tumbling. In the second half of each class, students will work on scenes with a focus on strong physical choices. Over the course of the quarter, students will research theater-makers and forms that approach physical theater in a variety of ways, and will attend one to two professional productions in Chicago. For questions about the physical fitness level necessary to be successful in this class, please email the instructor.

TAPS 22310/32310. Performance Art Installations: Performing Diaspora
Section 01 Pamela Pascoe M 3:30-6:20pm BARS

TAPS 22510/32510. Performing Non-Fiction
Section 01 Leslie Danzig & Emily Lansana M 12:30-3:20pm LC-701

How do you create a performance out of non-fictional material, whether that be someone’s story, multiple stories, an occurrence, an investigation of a topic? What are the methods for collecting non-fictional material, learning about someone else’s experience, uncovering the complexities of something that has occurred? And how does one compose that material into a staged event? This course explores challenging questions around what constitutes a story, the blurred boundaries between what’s ‘real’ and what’s ‘fiction’, the status of interpretation, the stakes of performing as oneself and as other people, and the ethics of turning lived experience into staged performance. Students will work individually and collaboratively on creating original performances of non-fiction material, in addition to viewing live and recorded performances, reading essays and scripts, and talking directly with visiting local and international artists. Open to undergraduate and graduate students. Attendance at first class is mandatory. For more information, please write directly to the instructors listed below.
Co-Instructors
Leslie Danzig (lbdanzig@uchicago.edu) is Assistant Professor of Practice in TAPS and a director of devised theater. More info: https://arts.uchicago.edu/theater-and-performance-studies/people/faculty/faculty.
Emily Hooper Lansana (elansana@uchicago.edu) is the Associate Director of Community Arts Engagement at the Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago. She performs with In the Spirit. She has been featured at the National Storytelling Festival, the National Association of Black Storytellers Festival, and at many venues. She enjoys passing on traditions as a coach and mentor with Ase Youth Group and Rebirth Poetry Ensemble. She received her BA in Theater Studies from Yale University and MA in Performance Studies from Northwestern University.

TAPS 23100. Advanced Directing
Section 01 Will Davis & Charlie Newell T 3:30-6:20pm LC-501

This course will investigate the intersections of time, space, text and the body in the creation of performance. The coursework is structured to deconstruct all four ideas and practice their application through a range of scripted and unscripted projects.

TAPS 23110/33110. Directing Study
Section 01 Heidi Coleman ARR

TAPS 23910. Advanced Playwriting Workshop
Section 01 E. Edele (Calamity West) W 12:30-3:20p LC-603

TAPS 24400/34400. Circus Performance Lab
Section 01 Leslie Danzig T 3:30–6:20pm LC-701

Students will develop a fully realized original circus-theater performance piece to be presented at the end of the quarter. Theater-maker Leslie Danzig and visiting circus artist Amanda Crockett will lead this studio-based investigation into how to stage narrative texts through circus arts and physical theater vocabularies. How do you stage scenes on trapeze? Through tumbling, juggling, rope climbing, dance choreography? How do you compose these shorter scenes into a coherent production? Previous experience with physical practices preferred (circus arts, gymnastics, athletics, dance). Beginners are also welcome. Course will be customized to students’ backgrounds. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 24415/34415. Games & Performance
Section 01 Heidi Coleman M 9:30–12:20pm LC-501

This experimental course explores the emerging genre of “immersive performance,” “alternate reality,” and “transmedia” gaming. For all of their novelty, these games build on the narrative strategies of novels, the performative role-playing of theater, the branching techniques of electronic literature, the procedural qualities of videogames, and the team dynamics of sports. Throughout the quarter, we will approach new media theory through the history, aesthetics, and design of immersive games, while working in labs with three Chicago-area companies including The House Theater, Mystery League, and Humans vs. Zombies. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 27214/37214, ARTV 27214/37214. Art and Knowledge
Section 01 William PopeL., D. Roelstraete T 9:30am-12:20pm Midway 112

This course is an exploration of questions concerning the relationship between Art and knowledge. Is Art knowledge? Can Art create knowledge? If Art is neither knowledge nor creates knowledge, what is its function? These questions are discussed using themes: secrecy, rumor, ignorance and surveillance, and a corresponding set of artworks by a group of artists who utilize these approaches: Vito Acconci, Bruce Nauman, Sophie Calle and Julia Scher, among others. We will also do close readings of essays relating to our themes, for example: texts on recent theories of ignorance as knowledge or Derrida's metaphysics of presence. To round out our discussions, students will participate in a series of hands-on art exercises to give our analyses more material form and further ‎exemplify our exploration.

TAPS 28000 Scenic Design
Section 01 Kurtis Boetcher W 3:30-6:20pm LC-501

TAPS 28406, ENGL 16600, FNDL 21404. Shakespeare II: Tragedies & Romances
Section 01 Ellen MacKay TR 12:30pm - 1:50pm RO 011

TAPS 28438, ENGL 24408/44408. Before and After Becket: Theater and Theory
Section 01 Loren Kruger TR 11:00am-12:20pm Cobb 116

Beckett is conventionally typed as the playwright of minimalist scenes of unremitting bleakness but his experiments with theatre and film echo the irreverent play of popular culture (vaudeville on stage and screen eg. Chaplin and Keaton) as well as experimental Theatre and modern philosophy, even when there are no direct lines of influence. This course will juxtapose these points of reference with Beckett’s plays and those of his contemporaries (Ionesco, Genet and others in French, Pinter in English. It will then explore more recent plays that suggest the influence of Beckett by Pinter, Caryl Churchill and Sarah Kane in English, Albert Jarry and Michel Vinaver in French, as well as the relevance of theorists and philosophers include Barthes, Wittgenstein, and critics writing on specific plays.

TAPS 29800. Theater and Performance Studies BA Colloquium.
Section 01 Leslie Danzig F 12:30-3:20pm LC-501

This two-quarter sequence is open only to fourth-year students who are majoring and/or minoring in theater and performance studies. Instructor Consent Required.

TAPS 48017, CLAS 48017, CDIN 48017, FREN 48017. Phaedras Compared: Adaptation, Gender, Tragic Form
Section 01 David Wray & Larry Norman W 1:30pm - 4:20pm JRL-207

This seminar places Racine’s French neoclassical tragedy Phaedra within a wide-ranging series of adaptations of the ancient myth, from its Greek and Latin sources (Euripides, Seneca, Ovid) to twentieth-century and contemporary translations and stage adaptations (Ted Hughes, Sarah Kane), read along with a series of theoretical and critical texts. Particular attention will be paid to critical paradigms and approaches in the evolving fields of classical reception studies, theater and performance studies, and gender studies. Reading knowledge of French strongly preferred.

Spring 2018

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation
Section 01     Pamela Pascoe    TR   9:30-10:50am     BARS
Section 02     Pamela Pascoe    TR 11:00-12:20pm     BARS
Section 03     Shade Murray      TR 2:00-3:20pm      BARS
Section 04     Drew Dir                W   9:30-12:20pm     BARS

TAPS 10200. Acting Fundamentals
Section 01     Thom Pasculli    M 9:30-12:20pm BARS
Section 02     Devon de Mayo       TR 12:30-1:50pm BARS
Section 03     David New        W 12:30-3:20pm BARS

TAPS 10300. Text and Performance
Section 01     Loren Kruger           TR 9:30-10:50am     LC-802
Section 02     Seth Bockley           TR 2:00-3:30pm      LC-701
Section 03     Shade Murray        W 12:30-3:20pm     LC-701

TAPS 10500. Text & Performance: Staging Terror
Section 01 Heidi Coleman TR 12:30-1:50pm LC-501

This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. This course explores the interplay between horror, terror, and pleasure through in-class discussions of theoretical works and the possibilities of practical creative application. The paradox of the attraction to repulsion will be considered as well as the values of shock, suspense, and subtlety. Texts will include Grand Guignol, Shakespeare, Gothic novels, and horror films.

TAPS 10700. Introduction to Stage Design
Section 01 Kurtis Boetcher TR 11:00-12:20pm LC-501

TAPS 20150. Tall Tales / Adapting Americana
Section 01 Seth Bockley T 3:30 - 6:20pm LC-701

How can American legends, ghost stories and tall tales be adapted for the twenty-first century stage? This hands-on course challenges students to consider American mythology and lore from multiple regional, historical and cultural vantage points. Starting with Washington Irving’s ‘Sleepy Hollow’ and ‘Rip van Winkle’, students will explore story theater staging techniques alongside writing and individual projects inspired by their own research. The class will also delve into field recordings, folk music, tabloids, and popular lore, and examine contemporary plays that find inspiration in urban legends and folk tales. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 21730 Movement for Actors
Section 01 Devon de Mayo M 12:30-3:20pm BARS

TAPS 22110/32110, GRMN 23110/32110, CMST 28310/38310. Kafka & Performance
Section 01 David Levin W 3:30-6:20pm LC-501

This laboratory seminar is devoted to exploring the texts of Franz Kafka through the lens of performance. In addition to weekly scenic experiments and extensive critical readings (on Kafka as well as performance theory) we will explore the rich history of adapting Kafka in film, theater, puppetry, opera, and performance. Attendance at first class session is mandatory.

TAPS 23305, CMPL 23305. Directors and Directing: Theory, Stage, Text
Section 01 Michal Peles-Almagor T/R 2:00-3:20pm CL 113

Theater has always needed the concept of directing when staging a play. However, the role of the director as we know it has emerged only with the beginning of modern drama. This course will investigate the role of the director as an intersection between text, theory, and performance. The course explores the impact of the director in shaping modern drama, as well as critical approaches of literary and theatrical theory. We will deal not only with the historical development of the director’s role and textual interpretation, but also with the dynamics between theory and practice, and the changes in the concepts of space, acting, and performing. We will focus on approaches and writings by André Antoine, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Yevgeny Vakhtangov, Konstantin Stanislavski, Gordon Craig, Max Reinhardt, Jacques Copeau, Leopold Jessner, Erwin Piscator, Bertolt Brecht, and Samuel Beckett. We will examine these approaches in relation to literary theories of performativity (John Austin, John Searle, Judith Butler, Mikhail Bakhtin). We will also be interested in testing whether these theories match the practice, and discuss the potential of constructing a theory of acting, performing, and directing today.

TAPS 22318/32318, MUSC 22318/32318. Music and Disability Studies
Section 01 Jennifer Iverson

This course studies the ways that attitudes toward disability are constructed within a cultural sphere. From the perspective of disability studies, bodies and minds have many kinds of differences, but what is considered “disability” is determined by culture, not given by nature. Music, as well as film, literature, visual art, theatre, and so on, participate in the complex process of constructing and modulating attitudes toward disability. In this course, we will examine the interaction of disability and music in several ways: composers and performers whose creative production is shaped by bodily difference and disability; opera and film characters who embody and stage disability for our consumption; and more abstractly, music whose formal, sonic unfolding seems to engage issues of disability, even in purely instrumental art-pour-l’art works. We will read from the disability studies literature that critiques and theorizes disability themes in literature, film, and visual art, as well as musicology, music theory, and ethnomusicology literature that shows how disability themes are crucial in music. In this interdisciplinary class, students will gain a much more intimate understanding of the ways that attitudes toward abilities and bodies are constructed in art works, as well as be able to think, analyze, critique, write, and create with this understanding in mind. It is not necessary to read music notation for this course; for guidance, inquire with the instructor.

TAPS 23110/33110. Directing Study
Section 01 Heidi Coleman ARR

TAPS 23610. Fundamentals of Musical Improv
Section 01 Julie Nichols, Matthew Van Colton TH 3:30-6:20pm LC-701

TAPS 23810/33810. Playwriting: Crafting Meaning through Action and Image
Section 01 Aaron Carter M 3:30-6:20pm LC-603

In this course students will explore writing techniques that use plot, character conflict and heightened theatrical image to transform theme and subject into dynamic dramatic action. Students will read, analyze and discuss selected plays in order to identify the specific ways in which those texts make meaning. Selected texts will include Mr. Burns by Anne Washburn, We are Proud to Present… by Jackie Sibblies Drury, Good People by David Lindsay Abaire and A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. Students will be given weekly writing assignments in which to explore these techniques through carefully constructed prompts. Each session will include reading and discussing these assignments. Through the course students will identify a theme or subject matter that interests them and develop that impulse into an outline for a full-length play. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 24610/34610. Research and Performance: Mapping the Effect of Love
Section 01 Will Davis M 3:30-6:20pm LC-501

This course will function as a lab for a new performance currently titled: Country Line Dance Grandma. We will build a container for the world of this piece through a series of experiments involving country line dance and the two step waltz. The primary goal of this development phase is to investigate the ritual of moving together in these forms and explore what it means to build a geometry of love and desire. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 24410/34410 Transmedia Puzzle Design & Performance
Section 01 Sandor Weisz M 9:30-12:20am LC - 603

TAPS 25200 “Neo-Futurist” Performance Workshop
Section 01 Greg Allen W 3:30- 6:20pm LC-701

This course is a hands-on introduction to Neo-Futurism - a method of transforming your own thoughts, feelings, and experiences into creative, task-oriented, audience-participatory, non-illusory, unique theatrical events. Students will be encouraged to find their own voice as fully rounded theater artists by writing, directing and performing their own short performances using their own lives as source material. By pursuing the goal of absolute truth on stage, the class will focus on an alternative to narrative Realism by embracing such elements as deconstruction, found-text, collage, abstraction, synthesis, and chaos. Classes will consist of original group exercises as well as presentations of weekly performance assignments. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 25910 Short Form Digital Storytelling: Creating a Web Series
Section 01 Terrance Brown W 9:30-12:20pm LC-603

TAPS 26217/36217, FREN 26217/36217. History of the French Theater from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment
Section 01 Julien Perrier-Chartrand

Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, the French theater experienced a period of remarkable effervescence. The tragedy is renewed by Étienne Jodelle’s Cléopâtre captive (1553), pastoral and tragicomedy enjoy unprecedented popularity, comedy is forever transformed by the representation of L’école des femmes (1663), the lyric theater and comic-opera acquire their respective specificities and the bourgeois drama meets its first successes. This course of History of the French Theater from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment proposes to examine the poetics of each of these genres in the context of the great aesthetic currents of the period (humanism, baroque and classicism). While emphasizing that the plays produced during the three centuries studied are still dependent on ancient and medieval sources, this panorama will show how the genius of certain authors—as well as the quarrels aroused by the moral and intellectual opposition to the dramatic art—contributes to the development of one of the most brilliant and acclaimed theater in Europe.

TAPS 26310/36310. Dramaturgical Investigations of Antigone: Violence and Resistance
Section 01 Freddie Rokem (with Amy Stebbins, pending) TH 3:30-6:20p LC-501

This course aims at re-imagining the procedural role of 'research' in the creation of a new work of theater. We will focus on the multifaceted historical, philosophical and performative traditions of Sophocles' Antigone and its depiction of a confrontational ideological and political situation where a young woman opposes an oppressive political leader over the legal right to bury and mourn her dead brother who has been killed in a meaningless war. Besides studying previous productions (Bertolt Brecht and Ulrich Rasche), adaptations (Jean Anouilh), films (Liliana Cavani and Danièle Huillet & Jean-Marie Straub) and interpretations (Jacques Lacan and Judith Butler), as well as texts on violence (Walter Benjamin and Hanna Arendt) and resistance (Frantz Fanon)—investigating the possibilities for making this drama meaningful on the stages of our own time—Antigone will also serve as a point of departure for exploring some of the basic workings of a theatre performance, its 'dispositive', as expressed by individual and choral acting and the uses of theatrical space.

The final aim of the course is to provide the tools for a self-reflective dramaturgical process where academic research methodologies, philosophical thinking and artistic creativity are combined and where the contexts within which these investigations are developed can be come meaningfully integrated in theoretical/academic as well as in creative contexts.

TAPS 26515/36515, EALC 26515/36515. Literature of the Fantastic and Operatic Adaptation
Section 01 Judith Zeitlin

This co-taught interdisciplinary course, offered through the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry, explores literature of the fantastic (here including ghost stories and fairy tales) and the adaptation of such materials into opera, primary “Western-style” opera but also including some examples from Chinese opera. We will read some theoretical essays on adaptation, trans- or re-mediality, and the uncanny, but our focus will be on concrete examples and the historical arc of their transformation (which often entailed at least one intermediary step from story to play on the way to opera). This history, as in the famous case of Turandot, often involves an interesting chain of East-West crossings, misappropriations, and reappropriations; Chinoiserie has been a potent force in the history of Western opera and in a new form, is currently in vogue again (at least judging from the recent proliferation of Chinese-themed Western style or fusion operas being created and staged). We will select several specific operas or excerpts from opera as cases, reading their libretti, studying their music, and watching select productions on recorded media.

For their final project, students will have several options: 1) for musicians: composition of a short piece of text set to music, either working with the composer’s own original text or a preexisting text or collaborating with another student in the class to write the libretto and dramaturgical outline; 2) for creative writers: option of independently creating a libretto and dramaturgical outline; 3) for students in TAPS: option of designing a (hypothetical) stage production, either of an existing opera, or in collaboration with composers and or/ librettist; or 4) for students in any discipline: an academic paper on some aspect related to the subjects of the class.

TAPS 26330/36330. The Appearance of Gods, Angels and Ghosts in Modern Drama and Theater and on the Screen
Section 01 Freddie Rokem TR 11:00-12:20pm LC-603

Beginning with Aristotle there has always been a strong resistance to the appearance of gods (deus ex machina) as well as other supernatural figures on the stage. In spite of this, a wide range of supernatural figures both in drama and theatre, as well as on the movie screen, have always thrived. After studying the historical roots of the appearance of such supernatural figures the focus will be directed toward modern drama and theatre, as well as the movie screen. We will study selections from the work of playwrights like Ibsen, Strindberg, Pirandello, Brecht and Kushner and contemporary productions of classical plays like Medea and Hamlet. Examples of this phenomenon on the screen, focusing on directors like Ingmar Bergman and Wim Wenders will also be discussed. And we will begin by raising a question that will literally haunt us throughout the course: In which sense do we have to 'believe' in ghosts in order to enjoy or even understand a (good) performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet or even be able to read it? Attendance at first class session is MANDATORY.

TAPS 27500 Costume Design for the Stage
Section 01 Carolyn Ratke T 3:30-6:20pm LC-501

In this course, students will learn the basics of designing costumes for theatrical productions, encompassing the skills of text and character analysis, theatrical rendering and sketching, and developing a strong point of view for storytelling through clothing. Students will explore the vocabulary and visual impact of the elements and principles of design, and dive into the relationship between physical expression and visual expression on stage. Through various physical and creative exercises, students will come to understand and experience the process intrinsic to producing costumes for the theater, analyze the production needs related to costumes, and prepare a finalized costume design for a theatrical production. Attendance at first class session is MANDATORY.

TAPS 28100. Lighting Design for the Stage
Section 01 Mike Durst M 12:30-3:20pm LC-501

TAPS 28320/38320. The Mind as Stage: Podcasting
Section 01 Sarah Geis W 12:30-3:20pm LC-603

TAPS 28431, ENGL 24412, SIGN 26020. Theater about Theater
Section 01 John Muse

This course is a transhistorical study of changing ideas about representation, explored through the lens of early modern and twentieth-century plays that foreground theatrical form. Every play frames time and space and in the process singles out a portion of life for consideration. The plays we will consider this term call conspicuous attention to the frame itself, to the materials and capacities of theater. What happens when plays comment on their own activity? Why might they do so? Why has theatrical self-consciousness emerged more strongly in particular historical periods? What might such plays teach us about the nature of art, and about the nature of life? To what extent can we distinguish between art and life? We’ll explore these and other questions through plays by Marlowe, Kyd, Shakespeare, Maeterlinck, Pirandello, Brecht, Beckett, Genet, Peter Weiss, Handke, Levine, and Baker; and through theoretical work by Abel, Puchner, Hornby, Sofer, Fuchs, and others.

TAPS 28467, MUSI 24417. Making and Meaning in the American Musical
Section 01 Thomas Christensen TR 9:30-10:50am LC-901

TAPS 28479/34879. Theater and Performance in Latin America
Section 01 Danielle Roper

What is performance? How has it been used in Latin America and the Caribbean? This course is an introduction to theatre and performance in Latin America and the Caribbean that will examine the intersection of performance and social life. While we will place particular emphasis on performance art, we will examine some theatrical works. We ask: how have embodied practice, theatre and visual art been used to negotiate ideologies of race, gender and sexuality? What is the role of performance in relation to systems of power? How has it negotiated dictatorship, military rule, and social memory? Ultimately, the aim of this course is to give students an overview of Latin American performance including blackface performance, indigenous performance, as well as performance and activism. This course will be taught in English. Also listed as SPAN 39117, LACS 29117, LACS 39117, GNSE 29117, GNSE 39117, CRES 29117, CRES 39117.

TAPS 28702/38702, ITAL 28702/38702. Italian Comic Theater
Section 01 Rocco Rubini

A survey of the history of Italian theatre from the Erudite Renaissance Comedy to Goldoni’s reform. We will pay particular attention to the tradition of commedia dell’arte (scenarios, stock characters, and plot formation), ancient and medieval influences, evolution and emancipation of female characters, and the question of language. Readings include works by Plautus, Ariosto, Machiavelli, Angelo Beolco (Ruzante), Flaminio Scala, and Goldoni. Toward the end of the course we will consider the legacy of Italian Comedy in relation to the birth of grotesque and realist drama in Pirandello.

TAPS 32312, ENGL 32312. Virtual Theaters
Section 01 John Muse

This course probes the nature and limits of theater by exploring a range of theatrical texts whose relation to performances are either partially or fully virtual. Like the works we will read, the course transgresses disciplinary, generic, and temporal boundaries, bringing together from various centuries philosophical dialogues (Plato), closet dramas, novel chapters in dramatic form (Melville’s Moby-Dick, Joyce’s Ulysses), radio drama, nonsense drama, and new media forms that test conventional definitions of theatrical performance: twitter theater, digital theater, algorithmic theater, and transmedia games. ADVANCED UNDERGRADS ADMITTED WITH CONSENT OF THE INSTRUCTOR.

TAPS 40305, GRMN 40305. Oedipus & Hamlet: Philosophy of Tragedy
Section 01 David Wellbery

In this class we will consider closely attempts to understand tragedy philosophically. Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and Shakespeare’s Hamlet, two texts that have particularly attracted philosophical attention will serve as constant reference points, but other paradigmatic tragedies (Euripides Bacchae, Goethe’s Faust, Beckett’s Endgame) will also be considered. Among the philosophical contributions to be considered are works by Aristotle, Schiller, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Scheler, Schmitt, Benjamin, Murdoch, and Menke. Major issues to be dealt with: the structure of tragic plot; the tragic affects; catharsis; ancient and modern tragedy; tragedy and the tragic; the aesthetics of tragedy; tragedy and society; tragedy and the sacred.

TAPS 41451, EALC 41451. Palace of Lasting Life: History, Drama, Fantasy
Section 01 Judith Zeitlin

This course covers the history of Chinese theater from its emergence as a full-fledged art form in the 10th-11th centuries (the Northern Song) up through its incorporation into modern urban life and nationalist discourse in the first decades of the 20th century (the Republican period). In addition to reading selections from masterpieces of Chinese dramatic literature such as Orphan of Zhao, Romance of the Western Chamber, The Peony Pavilion, we will pay particular attention to the different types of venues, occasions, and performance practices associated with different genres of opera at different moments in time. A central theme will be the changing status of the entertainer and the cultural meanings assigned to acting. All texts to be read in English translation, but students are also encouraged to read Chinese texts in the original if feasible.

TAPS 44500, ENGL 44500, CMST 36200, CMPL 40500. Brechtian Representations: Theatre, Theory, Cinema
Section 01 Loren Kruger

Brecht is indisputably the most influential playwright in the 20th century, but his influence on film theory and practice and on cultural theory generally is also considerable. In this course we will explore the range and variety of Brecht's own theatre, from the anarchic plays of the 1920's to the agitprop Lehrstück and film esp Kühle Wampe) to the classical parable plays, as well as the work of his heirs in German theatre (Heiner Müller, Peter Weiss) and film (RW Fassbinder, Alexander Kluge), in French film (Jean-Luc Godard, Chris Marker)), film and theatre in Britain (Mike Leigh), theatre and film in Africa, from South Africa to Senegal, and a rare US Brechtian response to the 2008 crisis, The Big Short. Crucially for graduate critical work: we will also give due attention to the often unacknowledged impact of Brecht’s theorizing on a range of genres and media on his better known contemporaries Adorno, Benjamin, Lukács as well as on cultural theory elsewhere from the Situationists to the digital labor.
Requirements: oral presentations; short midterm and final research paper
Designed for: MAPH or HUM PhD; MFA with prior permission of instructor

2016-2017

Autumn 2016

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation
Section 01 David New TR 1:30-2:50pm BARS

TAPS 10200 Acting Fundamentals
Section 01     Pamela Pascoe       TR 10:30-11:50am BARS
Section 02     Pamela Pascoe       TR 12:00-1:20pm    BARS
Section 03     Leslie Danzig           TR 9:00-10:20am   LC-501

TAPS 10300. Text and Performance
Section 01 Shade Murray W 12:00-2:50pm LC-501

Course meets the General Education Requirement in the Dramatic, Musical, and Visual Arts. Many contemporary plays purposely eschew traditional forms of realistic staging, yet most contemporary theater makers are only trained to execute traditional, realistic scenes. This course is a reading of several plays and essays to learn to look at a play with an adaptable, creative mind. We develop tools that draw from contemporary theorists and non-realistic theorists of the past. The goal is to provide students with a wide theatrical vocabulary with which to approach these contemporary plays with ideas that they may not have witnessed before. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 10300-02. Text and Performance
Section 02 David Levin TR 1:30-2:50pm LC-701

Course meets the General Education Requirement in the Dramatic, Musical, and Visual Arts. This course offers an introduction to a number of important works for the stage and a number of important theorists of theater and performance. Initially, we will do what seminars in the Humanities tend to do – carefully examining texts, trying to determine what they are up to and how they are up to it. But we will quickly veer into less familiar territory, concentrating upon the work of enactment, asking how these pieces should appear on stage. This will not be merely descriptive work, but crucially it will be interpretive and physical work. Thus, I will be asking you to prepare and present applied interpretations–interpretations that will take form on stage. Experience in dramatic analysis or performance are not required. Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. This class meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. Workshops in dramatic technique, group rehearsals, and attendance at performances at Chicago theaters, outside of class time, are required. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 10700 Introduction to Stage Design
Section 01 Jessica Wardell TR 10:30-11:50am LC-501

TAPS 15500. Beginning Screenwriting
Section 01 John Petrakis T 3:30-6:20pm LC-603

TAPS 16550 Shakespeare’s History Plays
Section 01 David Bevington MW 1:30-02:50pm

This course on Shakespeare's English history plays will adopt an unusual stratagem of reading the plays in order of the historical events they depict: that is, starting with King John, who ruled England from 1199 until his death in 1216, down to Henry VIII (1509-47), the father of Queen Elizabeth. The emphasis will be on the great plays, Richard II, Henry IV Parts 1 and II, Henry V, and Richard III. My hope is that this approach will enable us to explore Shakespeare's concept of English history over a large sweep of time.

TAPS 21800. Creating a Musical Revue
Section 01 Julie Nichols T 3:00-5:50pm LC-501

This course is open to students looking to deepen and explore their relationship with music, song writing, theatrical creation and collaboration. Students will be required to attend three or four performances throughout Chicago, and become familiar with a listening, reading and watching list.
Focusing on songwriting and collaboration, though previous song writing experience is not a requirement. Goals are to explore the nature of songwriting and musical theater, and the relationship between music and storytelling. At the end of the course, students will stage performances of their collaboratively developed, original musical revue. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 23400 Visual Language: On Time and Space
Section 01 Catherine Sullivan T 9:30- 12:20pm LC-003

Through studio work and critical discussion on four-dimensional form, this course is designed to reveal the conventions of the moving image, performance, and/or the production of digital-based media. Basic formal elements and principles of art are presented, but also put into practice to reveal perennial issues in a visual field. Form is studied as a means to communicate content. Topics as varied as but not limited to narrative, mechanical reproduction, verisimilitude, historical tableaux, time and memory, the body politic, and the role of the author can be illuminated through these primary investigations. Some sections focus solely on performance; others incorporate moving image technology. Please check the time schedule for details. Visits to museums and other fieldwork required, as is participation in studio exercises and group critiques. Students must attend class for the full first week in order to confirm enrollment. Pink slip/wait list requests are due several weeks before the quarter begins. Sign up for the wait list at dova.uchicago.edu/content/wait-list-core-courses-0. Note(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, and 10300 may be taken in sequence or individually. This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. Previous experience in media-based studio courses not accepted as a substitute for this course.
First week attendance required. PINK SLIP/WAITLIST REQUESTS MUST BE RECEIVED BY 9/19/16 at this link: http://dova.uchicago.edu/content/wait-list-core-courses-0

TAPS 23700 Playwriting: Creating Natural Dialogue for the Stage
Section 01 Evan Linder M 3:00-5:50pm LC-501

TAPS 24100 Aristophanes: Analyzing and Adapting
Section 01 Sean Graney M 12:00-2:50pm LC-501

This course will examine the eleven extant plays of Aristophanes, the master of Old Comedy while concurrently analyzing an early-draft conjoined-adaptation of the eleven plays written by the instructor called the Aristophanesathon. Through critical analysis of the texts, both old and new, we will create a method for looking at these Ancient Greek comedies with immediacy, empathy and hopefully humor. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IN MANDATORY.

TAPS 24200 Performance Curation and Cultural Production
Section 01 Shoshona Currier R 3:00-5:50pm LC-603

The current landscape of curatorial practices and models for cultural production in the contemporary performance world is a unique and ever-evolving environment. Utilizing the experiences of the instructor and special guests and the resources of the Chicago performance scene, this course will provide students with the knowledge and skills to build their curatorial practice and expand their knowledge of Chicago's cultural resources, building a foundation to support a sustained career in cultural production. Students will engage in critical dialogue about their own curatorial work as well as other’s work, examining the most relevant models for funding and producing work, alternative models of artist support, and the range of skills (from budgeting to crafting an articulate curatorial statement) that are necessary to support a life in the contemporary performance world. A large portion of the coursework will include seeing live performances around Chicago and viewing national and international performances online. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IN MANDATORY.

TAPS 25200 “Neo-Futurist” Performance Workshop
Section 01 Greg Allen W 3- 5:50pm LC-501

TAPS 26100 Dance Composition
 Section 01 Julia Rhoads M 3:00-5:50pm LC- 701

TAPS 26900 Miniature Theater: Production & Performance
Section 01 Frank Maugeri W 3:00-5:50pm LC-701

"Miniature Theater" is an exploration of intimate theater inspired by the traditions of "toy theater" - a medium defined by highly stylized performance, miniature scale images, object manipulation and small scale puppetry. While there will be readings, class discussions, and lectures (focusing on the history, culture, theory and literature of miniatures, object performance and puppetry), this is primarily a PRODUCTION and PERFORMANCE-based course, and as such we will focus on creating miniature worlds, toy theatre puppets and original short performance pieces. Previous performance experience is not necessary. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 27100 Scene Painting
Section 01 Jessica Wardell W 12-2:50pm LC-111 (Logan Shop)

This course is designed to introduce students to the theatrical art of scenic painting for the stage and film. A scenic artist is the hand of the theatrical designer, translating the small scale of the designer’s rendering into full size theatrical environments. In this course, students will explore the unique tools and techniques used by scenic artists to create scenery. The end result of this class will be a basic mastery of painting “faux” surfaces and an understanding of how a scenic artist transforms the designer’s ideas into realized pieces of theatrical art. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 27900 Shopcraft: Methods and Materials
Section 01 David Wolf MW 10:30-12:20pm LC-111

Designed as a complementary course to the DOVA sculpture sequence, Shopcraft explores the tools and techniques available to students in the wood shop. Topics covered include shop safety; the properties of woods; the planning and material selection process for sculpture, furniture, and other woodworking applications; the care and use of hand tools; and interpreting and creating scale drawings and conceptual plans. A series of small projects designed to challenge and expand students' design, drafting, and woodworking skills are assigned. In addition, students are invited to incorporate projects from sculpture classes or their individual studio practice into the course. Prerequisite(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300

TAPS 28414 Writing for Performance
Section 01 L.Pope MW 10:30-12:20p LC-802

TAPS 28466 Alternate Reality Games: Theory and Production
Section 01 P. Jagoda, H. Coleman TR 12:00-1:20pm LC-501

This experimental course explores the emerging genre of “alternate reality” or “transmedia” gaming. Throughout the quarter, we will approach new media theory through the history, aesthetics, and design of transmedia games. For all of their novelty, these games build on the narrative strategies of novels, the performative role-playing of theater, the branching techniques of electronic literature, the procedural qualities of videogames, and the team dynamics of sports. Beyond the subject matter, this course is a springboard for transforming the 2017 orientation for the incoming class of approximately 1,500 first-year students into an alternate reality game. Students in this course, thus, will not only be learning how to design a game but also contributing directly to the research and construction of this large-scale project. Building on this interdisciplinary research, we intend to design the University of Chicago orientation as a game that might help undergraduate students acclimate to the University setting and develop capacities linked to collaboration, leadership, and twenty-first century literacies. In particular, we are interested in discovering how interactive and participatory learning methods might help University students discuss and better understand complicated issues of inclusivity, diversity, and safety. Instructor consent is required. To apply, see prerequisite below. Once given consent, attendance on first day is mandatory. Instructor consent required. To apply, submit writing through online form at http://bigproblems.uchicago.edu; see course description. Once given consent, attendance on the first day is mandatory. Questions: mb31@uchicago.edu. Note(s): English majors: this course fulfills the Theory (H) distribution requirement. Equivalent Course(s): ARTV 20700,ARTV 30700,ENGL 25970,ENGL 32314,TAPS 28466,CMST 25954,CMST 35954

28500-29600. Advanced Topics in Theater. PQ: Advanced experience in theater and consent of instructor. These courses are designed for students wishing to pursue advanced study in a specific field of theater/performance. Intensive study and reading is expected. Attendance at performances and labs required. Interested students should contact the TAPS office.

TAPS 28500. Advanced Study: Acting.

TAPS 28600. Advanced Study: Directing.

TAPS 28700. Advanced Study: Playwriting.

TAPS 28800. Advanced Study: Scenic Design.

TAPS 28900. Advanced Study: Costume Design.

TAPS 29000. Advanced Study: Lighting Design.

TAPS 29100. Advanced Study: Choreography.

TAPS 29200. Advanced Study: Dance.

TAPS 29300. Advanced Study: General.

TAPS 29400. Advanced Study: Stage Management.

TAPS 29500. Advanced Study: Directing Study.

TAPS 29700. Advanced Study: Production Management.

TAPS 29800. Theater and Performance Studies BA Colloquium.
Section 01 Leslie Danzig F 2-5pm LC- 501

Winter 2017

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation
Section 01 David New TR Noon-1:20pm BARS
Section 02 David New TR 1:30-2:50pm BARS

TAPS 10200 Acting Fundamentals
Section 01 Devon De Mayo TR 10:30-11:50am BARS

TAPS 10300. Text and Performance. 
Section 01 Devon De Mayo M Noon-2:50pm LC-701
Section 02 Seth Bockley TR Noon- 1:20pm LC-603

TAPS 15500/ CRWR 27102. Beginning Screenwriting
Section 01 John Petrakis T 3:30pm- 6:20pm LC-603

TAPS 18600. Introduction to Puppetry.
Section 01 Jessica Wardell W Noon-2:50pm LC-501

In this course we will explore the varied performance types of puppetry. While there will be readings, class discussions, and lectures focusing on the history, culture, theory and literature of puppetry. This is primarily a production and performance-based course, and as such we will focus on creating puppets and short performance pieces. Previous performance experience is not necessary. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 20700. Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism.
Section 01 Derek Matson W Noon – 2:50pm  LC-701

TAPS 21600. Acting Workshop
Section 01 Conor Woods M Noon-2:50pm LC- 501

TAPS 22100. Solo Performance
Section 01 Vanessa Stalling M 3-5:50pm BARS

Prior solo work not required. Students will immerse themselves in the theatrical art of solo performance and develop their own solo pieces through in-class and take-home assignments. We will explore the art form as text that is both written and embodied through live performance. Students will discover that “solo performance” is a broad descriptor and includes storytelling, performance art, monologue, character-based work, and stand-up comedy. The classroom will become our laboratory where students will develop, experiment, and demonstrate a proficiency in diverse performance skills, including the following: the generation of storytelling moments through physicality, the innovative use of objects and images as storytelling devices, the ability to explore various vocal ranges, and the ability to empathize and therefore step into the shoes of another. These skills will be developed through individual and collaborative group work. When possible, students will attend live solo performances in the city of Chicago. Assignments will include selected readings, written responses, and the generation of an original solo performance that each student will stage at the culmination of the course. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 22300 Performance Art Installation: The Dreamer and the Dream
Section 01 Pamela Pascoe T 3:00pm-5:50pm BARS

In this course we will explore the relations between dreaming and waking life using a broad interdisciplinary approach. Our point of departure will be psychological, cultural, and religious understandings of dreams. On the basis of the readings and the skills and backgrounds of participants, the class will develop a “performance installation” around the liminal spaces of dream and wakefulness. Readings will include literary texts by Apuleius, Calderon, Shakespeare, Schnitzler, and Neil Gaimen and theoretical texts by Freud, Jung, Klein, and Winnicott. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 22600/32600. Chance in Performance
Section 01 Annie Dorsen TR 10:30-11:50am LC- 501

TAPS 23000. Introduction to Directing
Section 01 Shade Murray T 3-5:50pm LC-501

This course employs a practice in the fundamental theory of play direction and the role of the director in collaboration with the development of textual analysis. By examining five diversely different texts and using the director supported play analysis, Backwards and Forwards, students will begin developing a method of directing for the stage in support of the written text. In alternating weeks, students will implement textual analysis in building an understanding of directorial concept, theme, imagery and staging through rehearsal and in-class presentations of three-minute excerpts from the play analysis the previous week. The class will culminate with a final five-minute scene combining the tools of direction with a method of analysis devised over the ten-week course. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 23400/ ARTV 10300/ CMST 10300 Visual Language: On Time and Space
Section 01     Pope L. William         TuTh 1:30-3:20pm        LC- 802
Section 02     Catherine Sullivan     TH 9:30am-12:20pm    LC-003
Section 03     Catherine Sullivan     TH 1:30pm- 4:20pm   LC- 003

TAPS 23900. Playwriting: Sketch to Play
Section 01 Evan Linder M 3-5:50pm LC-701

This course follows a story from outline to sketch to short play. Using improvisation with their fellow classmates, writers will create sketches that will be the foundation for a short play. These improvisations will help each writer learn more about the characters they are writing, helping a stock character in a sketch grow to a fully dimensional character for their short play. Classes will include roundtable discussions and active improvisation with their classmates. In addition to the weekly assignments, students write three complete sketches and one short play that will receive a reading by their classmates. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 24900 Performance Lab: Walkabout Theater
Section 01 Thom Pasculli Th 3-5:50pm LC- 501

Working with Walkabout Theater Company this course commits to developing a fully realized performance piece within the ten weeks of the quarter. Immersive in intent and demand, writing and performance skills will be developed by participants for participants. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 26400/36400 / GRMN 26400/36401 Post -Dramatic Theater
Section 01 David J. Levin, Seth Bockley Th 3-5:50pm LC-701

This class sets out to explore the gamut of contemporary experimental theater, encompassing its varied theories and practices. Using Hans-Thies Lehmann’s path-breaking study *Postdramatic Theatre* as an ongoing point of reference, we consider a diverse array of practices from an eclectic group of artists spanning a broad range of eras and theatrical cultures (e.g., Annie Dorsen, Elevator Repair Service, Forced Entertainment, Richard Foreman, Heiner Müller, Theater Oobleck, SheShePop, Robert Wilson) in a format that encompasses seminar-style discussion and laboratory-style practical experimentation. Team-taught by Seth Bockley (Chicago-based director) and David Levin (Chair of TAPS). ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 26500/36500 The Contemporary Sublime
Section 01 Annie Dorsen W 3-5:50pm LC-501

This class uses Annie Dorsen's upcoming performance project “The Great Outdoors” as a frame within which to explore contemporary notions of the sublime as both an aesthetic and a political imaginary. Our readings include a survey of the classic texts (Longinus, Burke, Kant) as well as modern and contemporary writers (Lyotard, Nye, Costa) as a way into formulating hypotheses about the position of the sublime in our hyper-linked and environmentally fragile era. Practice-based experiments and exercises will respond to the readings, offering an opportunity to test ideas against their applications. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 27800. Story through Music and Sound
Section 01 Rob Milburn & Michael Bodeen M 3-5:50pm LC- 501
M 3:30-5:50pm LC- 003

This course will explore ways in which music and sound can be used to tell and support a story in the theatre. We will examine how in the simplest moment to the more layered and complex, music and sound are used to create time, place or emotional context. We will analyze the connections of plot, dialogue, music and sound in the theatre. We will also be learning the basics of Pro Tools and sound system design enabling us to create our own audio productions interacting with live performance. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 28402 / ENGL 10950 Approaches to Theatre I: Ancient to Renaissance
Section 01 John Muse TuTh 12:00pm-1:20pm

A survey of key concepts and trends in Western and non-Western theater from the ancient Greeks through the Renaissance, the course offers its students tools to understand and interpret dramatic literature and theatrical performance. We will read plays and performances closely, taking into account form, character, plot, and genre, but also staging, acting, spectatorship, and historical conventions. In the process we will ask how various agents—playwrights, directors, performers, and audiences—generate plays and give them meaning, and students will become agents themselves by devising and performing scenes as a parallel mode of interpretation. No experience making theater required.

TAPS 28406 / ENGL 16600 / FNDL 21404 Shakespeare-2: Tragedies/Romances
Section 01 Timothy Harrison TuTh 1:30-2:50pm

This course explores some of the major plays in the genres of tragedy and romance in the latter half of Shakespeare’s career. After having examined how Shakespeare develops and deepens the conventions of tragedy in Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Antony and Cleopatra, we will turn our attention to how he complicates and even subverts these conventions in three romances: Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale, and The Tempest. Throughout, we will treat the plays as literary texts, performance prompts, and historical documents. Section attendance is required.

TAPS 28444 / ARTV 10100 Visual Language: On Images
Section 01   Lauren Beck    MW 1:30-3:20pm   LC-401
Section 02   Nicole Mauser     TuTh 1:30-3:20pm LC-401
Section 03   Carol Jackson   MW 10:30am -12:20pm LC-108

Through studio work and critical discussions on 2D form, this course is designed to reveal the conventions of images and image-making. Basic formal elements and principles of art are presented, but they are also put into practice to reveal perennial issues in a visual field. Form is studied as a means to communicate content. Topics as varied as, but not limited to, illusion, analogy, metaphor, time and memory, nature and culture, abstraction, the role of the author, and universal systems can be illuminated through these primary investigations. Visits to museums and other fieldwork required, as is participation in studio exercises and group critiques. Students must attend class for the full first week to confirm enrollment. Pink slip/wait list requests are due several weeks before the quarter begins. Sign up for the wait list at dova.uchicago.edu/content/wait-list-core-courses-0. Note(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, and 10300 may be taken in sequence or individually. This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. Previous experience in media-based studio courses not accepted as a substitute for this course. First week attendance required. PINK SLIP/WAITLIST REQUESTS MUST BE RECEIVED BY 12/18/2016 at this link: http://dova.uchicago.edu/content/wait-list-core-courses-0

TAPS 28455/ ARTV 10200 Visual Language: On Objects
Section 01 Carol Jackson MW 1:30-3:20pm LC-108

Through studio work and critical discussions on 3D form, this course is intended to reveal the conventions of sculpture while investigating its modes of production. Basic formal elements and principles of art are presented, but also put into practice to reveal perennial issues in a visual field. Form is studied as a means to communicate content. Topics as varied as, but not limited to, platonic form, analogy, metaphor, verisimilitude, abstraction, nature and culture, and the body politic can be illuminated through these primary investigations. Visits to museums and other fieldwork required, as is participation in studio exercises and group critiques. Students must attend class for the full first week to confirm enrollment. Pink slip/wait list requests are due several weeks before the quarter begins. Sign up for the wait list at dova.uchicago.edu/content/wait-list-core-courses-0. Note(s): ARTV 10100, 10200, and 10300 may be taken in sequence or individually. This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. Previous experience in media-based studio courses not accepted as a substitute for this course.

TAPS 28469/ EALC 24333/ 34333 Actors and Playwrights in Chinese Theater
Section 01 Judith Zeitlin MW 3-4:20pm TBA

Before there were playwrights, there were actors. In the Chinese case, representations of actors found in tombs or paintings (10th-11th c.) predate any extant plays; but by the 13th century, playwrights like Guan Hanqing were already producing literary masterpieces with courtesan-actresses starring in big public urban theaters. With each subsequent era and dramatic genre, the algorithm governing the relative importance of actors and playwrights shifts. This course will examine the development of Chinese theater up to the present day through a focus on the changing dynamics between actors and playwrights, troupes and patrons, public and private theatrical spaces. Thematic clusters to be explored include 1) dramatic character/role type/ actor/ star; 2) cross-dressing/gender/ sexuality; 4) text/ performance/visual images; and 5) plays within plays. We will read works such as The Injustice to Dou E (14th c.), The Peony Pavilion (1598), The Peach Blossom Fan (1699), Guan Hanqing (1958), and Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land (1986). Students may have the option of doing a creative final project in lieu of a final paper. All texts to be read in English translation, but students with Chinese are encouraged to read materials in the original.
No prereq, but previous courses on China or on theater would be helpful.

TAPS 28479/38479 / SPAN 29117/39117 / LACS 29117/39117 Theater and Performance in Latin America
Section 01 Danielle Roper MW 1:30-2:30pm Wieboldt Hall 207

This course is an introduction to theatre, performance, and visual art in Latin America and the Caribbean. We will examine the intersection of performance and social life by looking at performance practices in key historical moments in Latin America and the Caribbean. We ask: how have embodied practice, theatre and visual art been used to negotiate particular moments in Latin American history? We will study performances during independence, revolution, dictatorships, processes of democratization, truth and reconciliation, as well as the rise of neoliberalism. In our investigation, we will pay close attention to how ideologies of race, gender, and sexuality are articulated and disseminated within these performances at critical historical junctures. Our corpus may include blackface performance traditions in the Caribbean, indigenous performance, queer performance and we will look closely at the artistic works of Coco Fusco, Neo Bustamante, Las Yeguas del Apocalipsis, Yuyachkani, Griselda Gámbaro, and others. We will also read key theoretical work in Performance Studies including the work Joseph Roach, Richard Schechner, Diana Taylor, Jill Lane, and others.

TAPS 28495 / EALC 24810/34810 EALC 34895 Literature and Performance in Medieval Japan
Section 01 Asthon Lazarus TuTh 3-4:20pm TBA

This course acquaints students with some of the major genres of medieval Japanese literature and performance, including setsuwa (explanatory tales), sarugaku (“monkey music”) and dengaku (“field music”), imayō (popular songs), gunki monogatari (warrior tales), and the noh and kyōgen theaters. We will explore the religious, social, and political contexts from which these genres emerge, as well as the rich and intricate ways in which performance and literature overlap throughout the medieval period. Specific topics of interest include the significance of “medievality” in conceptions of Japanese culture, the shifting relationship between elite and commoner culture, the emergence of a “national” culture, and the role of women authors and performers. We will read primary texts in translation, examine visual materials, and watch and listen to recordings of contemporary performances. Additionally, we will read relevant secondary scholarship in order to broaden our understanding of both the medieval texts themselves and their reception over time and space. No Japanese language ability is necessary, although students who have taken Japanese literature or culture courses will be particularly well prepared.

28500-29600. Advanced Topics in Theater. PQ: Independent Study for those with advanced experience in theater. These courses are designed for students wishing to pursue self-motivated study in a specific field of theater/performance. Intensive study and reading is expected. Faculty advisor required. Completed forms to be submitted to the TAPS office by the end of first week of quarter of enrollment.

TAPS 28500. Advanced Study: Acting.

TAPS 28600. Advanced Study: Directing.

TAPS 28700. Advanced Study: Playwriting.

TAPS 28800. Advanced Study: Scenic Design.

TAPS 28810/ 38810 / CMST 28810 / ENGL 21118. Advanced Study: Games & Performance. This course is a working group to develop and implement a large scale alternate reality game (ARG) to be launched in 2017. Students in this course, thus, will not only be learning how to design a game but also contributing directly to the research and construction of this large-scale project that will develop capacities linked to collaboration, leadership, and twenty-first century literacies. In particular, we are interested in discovering how interactive and participatory learning methods might help University students discuss and better understand complicated issues of inclusivity, diversity, and safety. REQUEST FORM

TAPS 28900. Advanced Study: Costume Design.

TAPS 29000. Advanced Study: Lighting Design.

TAPS 29100. Advanced Study: Choreography.

TAPS 29200. Advanced Study: Dance.

TAPS 29300. Advanced Study: General.

TAPS 29400. Advanced Study: Stage Management.

TAPS 29500/ 39500. Advanced Study: Directing Study.

TAPS 29700. Advanced Study: Production Management.

TAPS 29800. Theater and Performance Studies BA Colloquium.
Section 01 Leslie Danzig F 1:30-4:20pm LC- 501

TAPS 32312 / ENGL 32312. Virtual Theaters
Section 01 John Muse Tu 3:00-5:50pm Classics-110

This course probes the nature and limits of theater by exploring a range of theatrical texts whose relation to performance is either partially or fully virtual. Like the works we will read, the course transgresses disciplinary, generic, and temporal boundaries, bringing together from various centuries philosophical dialogues (Plato), closet dramas, novel chapters in dramatic form (Melville’s Moby-Dick, Joyce’s Ulysses), radio drama, nonsense drama, and new media forms that test conventional definitions of theatrical performance: twitter theater, digital theater, algorithmic theater, and transmedia games. Interested 3rd and 4th year undergraduates allowed by instructor consent.

TAPS 59306 / ENGL 59306 / CMST 62201. Performance Theory: Action, Affect, Archive
Section 01 Loren A Kruger W 1:30-4:20pm Cobb Hall 425

This PhD seminar offers a critical introduction to performance theory and its applications not only to theatre but also to performance on film and, more controversially, to ‘performativity’ to fictional and other texts that have nothing directly to do with performance. The seminar will be organized around three key conceptual clusters: a) action, acting, and other forms of production or play, in theories from the classical (Aristotle) through the modern (Hegel, Brecht, Artaud), to the contemporary (Richard Schechner, Philip Zarilli, and others) b) affect, and its intersections with emotion and feeling: in addition to the impact of contemporary theories of affect and emotion (Massumi, Sedgwick) on performance theory (Erin Hurley), we will read earlier modern texts that anticipate recent debates (Diderot, Freud) and their current interpreters (Joseph Roach, Tim Murray and others), as well as those writing about the absence of affect and the performance of failure (Sara Bailes and others) c) archives and related institutions, practices and theories of recording performance, including the formation of audiences (Susan Bennett and with evaluating print and other media yielding evidence of ephemeral acts, including the work of theorists of memory (Pierre Nora) and remains (Rebecca Schneider), theatre historians (Rose Bank, Jody Enders, Tracy Davis and others) as well as current theorists on the tensions between the archive and the repertoire

Spring 2017

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation
Section 01 Devon De Mayo           TR 9-10:20am                        BARS
Section 02 Pamela Pascoe          TR 10:30-11:50am                 BARS
Section 03   Pamela Pascoe            TR 12-1:20pm                        BARS
Section 04   Shade Murray            TR 1:30-2:50pm                      BARS

TAPS 10200. Acting Fundamentals
Section 01 Vanessa Stalling        M 3:00-5:50pm            BARS
Section 02   Vanessa Stalling        TR 3:00-4:20pm         BARS
Section 03   Thom Pasculli            TR 4:30-5:50pm         BARS
Section 04   David New                 W 12-2:50pm               BARS

TAPS 10300. Text and Performance. 
Section 01 Loren Kruger TR 10:30-11:50am LC-603

Theatre combines words and bodies in time and space in ways that audiences find convincing or realistic. What counts as realistic representation and why? How can the illusionistic stage and empathetic performances of Henrik Ibsen’s Dollhouse and the experimental dis‑illusion of Bertolt Brecht’s Ui both be called ‘realist theatre’? How do we make sense of Shakespeare’s empty stage and abundant verse? To answer these questions we will study playwrights alongside critical theory and performances. Assignments will include written analysis of theatre in Chicago as well as short physical and verbal exercises in embodiment. Course meets General Ed Requirement in Dramatic, Musical and Visual Arts. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 10300. Text and Performance. 
Section 02 Emma Stanton TR 1:30-2:50pm LC-701
Section 03 Shade Murray W 12-2:50pm LC-701

TAPS 10700. Introduction to Stage Design
Section 01 Jessica Wardell TR 12-1:20pm LC-501

TAPS 21440/31440. Court Theatre Artist Master Class
Section 01 Timothy Kane M 12-2:50pm BARS

This advanced acting class will develop the actor’s ability to apply contemporary acting technique to the performance of classical roles. Additionally, there will be opportunities to attend different stages of the rehearsal process for Harvey at Court Theatre, question the process techniques observed, and learn from guest lecturers affiliated with Chicago’s top classical theatres. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 21600. Acting Workshop
Section 01 Conor Woods W Noon-2:50pm LC- 501

TAPS 23110/ 33110. Directing Study
Section 01 Heidi Coleman

TAPS 23610. Fundamentals of Musical Improv
Section 01 Julie Nichols, Matthew Van Colton R 3-5:50pm LC-501

TAPS 23910. Advanced Playwrighting Workshop
Section 01 Calamity West W 3-5:50pm LC-701

A workshop that explores and develops authenticity in playwriting with playwright, Calamity West. Students will write original full-length plays to be developed over the course of ten weeks. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 24410/ 34410 Transmedia Puzzle Design & Performance
Section 01 Sandor Wiesz M 3-5:50pm LC- 603

Building on the momentum from Winter Quarter’s Advances Studies: Games and Performance led by Heidi Coleman and Patrick Jagoda, this course continues the working group model to develop and implement puzzles that will be an integral component of a large scale alternate reality game (ARG). Students in this course will work directly with master puzzler, Sandor Wiesz, the commissioner of The Mystery League, in collaboration with Heidi Coleman and Patrick Jagoda to embed learning objectives relevant to first-year undergraduates. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 24500. Chicago Theater: Budgets and Buildings 
Section 01 Heidi Coleman M 12-2:50p LC-603

This course examines the current state of Chicago theatre, focusing on the relationships between facilities, budgets and missions. Over the quarter the class will travel off-campus to Chicago theatres including Court Theatre, The Den, MCA, Steppenwolf, Red Orchid and Chopin. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 25500. Advanced Screenwriting
Section 01 John Petrakis   T 3:30-6:20pm LC-603

This course requires students to complete the first draft of a feature-length screenplay (at least ninety pages in length), based on an original idea brought to the first or second class. No adaptations or partially completed scripts are allowed. Weekly class sessions include reading of script pages and critique by classmates and instructor. PQ: TAPS 15500/ CRWR 27102, and consent of instructor based on twelve-page writing sample in screenplay format. Limited class size. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY. CONSENT ONLY via APPROVAL FORM.

TAPS 25510 / BRPO 25500 / ARTV 20009 / HIST 29906 / HMRT 25502.
Art and Human Rights
Section 01 Leslie Buxbaum Danzig, TAPS and Mark Philip Bradley, History
T 3:00-5:50pm LC-501

This seminar style course will explore historical and contemporary interventions in visual and performative artistic practices with human rights. Co-taught by a historian and theater-maker, the course will consider various paradigms for looking at how artists work on human rights. Course work will include critical readings, viewings of artistic work, and direct conversations with artists. Students will also participate in a multi-day summit on campus (April 29-May 2) that will bring distinguished artists from throughout the world to address the question “What is an artistic practice of human rights, conceptually, aesthetically and pragmatically?” Students will be given the option to produce either an academic or artistic final project. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY. THIRD- OR FOURTH-YEAR STANDING.

TAPS 26510/36510. Drama/Theatre/Performance and Philosophy
Section 01 Freddie Rokem W 3-5:50pm Cobb Hall 112

This seminar will explore the multi-faceted interactions between the discursive practices of Drama/Theatre/Performance and Philosophy which have recently become a central focus for theatre and performance studies. The course will explore two interrelated and closely connected dramatic, performative and philosophical constellations: Sophocles' Theban Plays, Plato's Symposium and selected passages from Aristotle's Poetics, on the one hand, and a selection of texts by Kafka, Benjamin and Brecht as well as some of Brecht's key productions like his Antigone and Mother Courage and her Children and the Model-Books that were composed on the basis of these productions.

The theoretical discussions and the dramaturgical exercises will focus on the following issues and the connections between them:
    1. The agon and the encounter
    2. Violence and the ludic logic of tragedy
    3. Entrances, exits and supernatural interventions
    4. Models 'for' and models 'of' theatrical and performative practices
    5.    Dramaturgies of thinking and doing

As a common backdrop to these issues the seminar will explore the possibilities to outline a coherent basis for a theatrical and performative dispositive, laying the basis for what Brecht in 1929 envisioned as a philosophical future for the theatre.
Interested 3rd and 4th year undergraduates allowed by instructor consent. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 28100. Lighting Design for the Stage
Section 01 Joseph "Mike" Durst M 3:00-5:50pm LC-501

TAPS 28310/38310 / CMST 26504/36504. Ingmar Bergman: Cinema & Theater
Section 01 Freddie Rokem Lectures: TR 10:30-11:50am LC-501
Screening: T 9:00-10:20am LC-501

This course will focus on cinematographic representations of theatrical and other artistic practices, primarily exemplified by many of Ingmar Bergman's films (e.g. The Seventh Seal and Fanny and Alexander) but also in the work of other film directors. It will explore historical and theoretical issues related to the mutual interactions between cinema and theatre also discussing cinematographic techniques in playwriting as exemplified in plays by Henrik Ibsen (e.g. Peer Gynt) and August Strindberg (e.g. A Dream Play and The Ghost Sonata).

Throughout most of his creative career Bergman worked both in theatre and film and even if he is mostly known outside of Sweden as a film director, his theatrical career was as innovative. The work of the film-auteur and the theatre director are for Bergman closely connected, not only through the actors he worked with—during summers for the screen and during the theatre seasons in stage productions—but also through the choice of themes, which are often in direct dialogue with each other in the two media, generating complex meta-aesthetic, inter-medial discourses, depicting and problematizing the work and role of the artist in a broad range of social and ideological contexts. Interested 3rd and 4th year undergraduates allowed by instructor consent. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 28422/38422 / GRMN 27717/37717 / MUSI 24417/34417 / CMST 28301/38301. Opera in the Age of its Mechanical Reproducibility
Section 01 David Levin Screenings: M 6:30-10:00pm Cobb Hall 311
Lectures: TH 3:00-6:00pm Cobb Hall 310

Focusing on a diverse set of productions of Mozart’s The Magic Flute by Ingmar Bergman, William Kentridge, Martin Kusej, Simon McBurney, and Julie Taymor, we will seek to locate opera in the contemporary medial landscape, exploring some of the theoretical stakes, dramaturgical challenges, and interpretive achievements that characterize opera on film, DVD, and via live-streaming. Readings by W. Benjamin, T.W. Adorno, F. Jameson, M. Dolar, C. Abbate, P. Auslander, et al. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

2015-2016

Autumn 2015

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation
Section 01 Pamela Pascoe               TR 10:30-11:50am BARS
Section 02 Pamela Pascoe              TR 12-1:20pm     BARS
Section 03 Joseph Court                TR 1:30-2:50pm       BARS

TAPS 10200 Acting Fundamentals
Section 01 Shade Murray W 12- 2:50pm BARS

TAPS 10300. Text and Performance. 
Section 01 John Muse TR 10:30-11:50am LC-501
Section 02 Pamela Pascoe T 3-5:50pm BARS

TAPS 10600. Staging Desire.
Section 01 Heidi Coleman TR 1:30-2:50pm LC-501

Course meets the General Education Requirement in the Dramatic, Musical, and Visual Arts. This course explores the interplays between romance, attractions, and distractions through in-class discussions of theoretical works and the possibilities of practical creative application. The paradox of instant gratification and prolonged desire will be considered as well as the values of shock, suspense, and subtlety. Texts will include classic and contemporary drama, vampire cult fiction, fairy tales, films, and theoretic source material. Working 4-dimensionally, we will examine how theorized stagings can evoke and undermine sentimentality. This course will constantly question how analysis itself can be a performative practice and how performance can serve as a critical endeavor. The course will culminate in a series of original scenes to be shown at the end of the quarter. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 10700 Introduction to Stage Design
Section 01 Jessica Wardell TR 12-1:20pm LC-501

TAPS 15500. Beginning Screenwriting.
Section 01 John Petrakis T 3:30-6:20pm LC-603

TAPS 20600. Adapting the Unadaptable
Section 01 Seth Bockley M 12-2:50pm LC-501

Fiction has always provided rich source material for drama. But much 20^th and 21^st century fiction can seem unadaptable—it is often sprawling, poetic, interior, fragmentary or cerebral (or all of the above!) This hands-on course will challenge students to approach modern and contemporary literature with unconventional tools of staging, editing and design. Students will also be introduced to the work of contemporary theater companies and productions that have taken on seemingly impossible adaptation projects, and closely study adaptations of Jorge Luis Borges and Roberto Bolaño currently in development. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 20800. Engineering Story: Building New Worlds with Playwriting and Performance
Section 01 Ike Holter M 12-2:50pm LC- 603

Great new work can be made very quickly with passion, precision, attitude and verve. The tools are simple: An aggressive attention to detail, an obsession for truth telling and a general fearlessness in the face of total collapse.
The class focuses on the bones that make a play: Essays that incite action, monologues, articles and news stories as inspiration for tone; Soundtracks and backstory laid out and investigated. The exploration of storytelling plays a crucial part in every single person’s daily lives whether they’re a writer, a surgeon, a janitor or an accountant: Theater Makers are encouraged, but everyone has a story and a need to tell it. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 21800. Creating a Musical Revue
Section 01 Julie Nichols W 12-2:50pm LC-501

This course is open to students looking to deepen and explore their relationship with music, song writing, theatrical creation and collaboration. Students will be required to attend three or four performances throughout Chicago, and become familiar with a listening, reading and watching list. Focusing on songwriting and collaboration, though previous song writing experience is not a requirement. Goals are to explore the nature of songwriting and musical theater, and the relationship between music and storytelling. At the end of the course, students will stage performances of their collaboratively developed, original musical revue. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 24300. Story and Stagecraft
Section 01 Nathan Allen W 12-2:50pm LC-701

Nathan Allen, founder and Artistic Director of the The House Theatre of Chicago, leads an investigation into the ancient social technologies at work in live theatrical storytelling to reconnect students with possible primal, social, and civic purposes to continue the art-form in the digital age. The class will experiment then with possible story -shapes for an original theatrical experience that satisfies such an ethic for popular storytelling.

TAPS 25200 “Neo-Futurist” Performance Workshop
 Section 01 Greg Allen W 3- 5:50pm LC-501

TAPS 26100 Dance Composition
Section 01 Julia Rhoads M 1:30-4:20pm LC- 701

TAPS 27050 Dracula: Spectacle in Miniature
Section 01 Frank Maugeri, Seth Bockley M 3-5:50pm LC- 501

This course explores the core artistic principles of creating an original devised work of spectacle art. Students will begin with Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula, and develop images, design moments, and create an arc of a fully imagined spectacle event reduced to a "miniature" scale. Through literature, visual research, film viewings and guest experts, students will be introduced to the practices of modern puppetry, spectacle art, and highly visual site-specific theater. Throughout the duration of the course, students will be responsible for generating ideas for scenery, an events storyboard, script dramaturgy, and production elements, which will together shape the first stages of a large-scale theatrical event in miniature. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 28500. Advanced Study: Acting.

TAPS 28600. Advanced Study: Directing.

TAPS 28700. Advanced Study: Playwriting.

TAPS 28800. Advanced Study: Scenic Design.

TAPS 28900. Advanced Study: Costume Design.

TAPS 29000. Advanced Study: Lighting Design.

TAPS 29100. Advanced Study: Choreography.

TAPS 29200. Advanced Study: Dance.

TAPS 29300. Advanced Study: General.

TAPS 29500. Advanced Study: Directing Study.

TAPS 29800. Theater and Performance Studies BA Colloquium.
Section 01 Heidi Coleman, Rebecca Rugg F 2-5pm LC- 501

Winter 2016

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation
Section 01 Devon DeMayo TR 10:30am-11:50am BARS
Section 02 David New TR Noon-1:20pm BARS

TAPS 10200 Acting Fundamentals
Section 01 Vanessa Stalling M Noon-2:50pm LC-501

TAPS 10300. Text and Performance. 
Section 01 Joanie Schultz M Noon-2:50pm LC-701

TAPS 15500. Beginning Screenwriting
Section 01 John Petrakis T 3:30pm- 6:20pm LC-603

TAPS 20700. Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism.
Section 01 Derek Matson W Noon – 2:50pm  LC-603

TAPS 21600. Acting Workshop
Section 01 Audrey Francis M Noon-2:50pm LC- 501

TAPS 23000. Introduction to Directing.
Section 01 Shade Murray T 3-5:50pm LC-501

This course employs a practice in the fundamental theory of play direction and the role of the director in collaboration with the development of textual analysis. By examining five diversely different texts and using the director supported play analysis, Backwards and Forwards, students will begin developing a method of directing for the stage in support of the written text. In alternating weeks, students will implement textual analysis in building an understanding of directorial concept, theme, imagery and staging through rehearsal and in-class presentations of three-minute excerpts from the play analysis the previous week. The class will culminate with a final five-minute scene combining the tools of direction with a method of analysis devised over the ten-week course. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 23600. Improv and Sketch.
Section 01 Susan Messing M 9am-11:50am LC-701

This class will explore the many different schools of thought in Chicago improv comedy community, including but not limited to The Second City, iO, and The Annoyance. Organic discovery and plot will be highlighted within scenework as well as the group dynamic, with comedy as the result. Come ready to play and play hard. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 23700 Playwriting: Creating Natural Dialogue for the Stage
Section 01 Evan Linder M 3-5:50pm LC- 501

This course employs collaboration among the students to help each individual writer create natural dialogue for the stage. Students will utilize improvisation to write a contemporary scene focusing on the natural rhythms and nuances of modern communication. Through these improvisations, the students create a framework for their narrative with a special focus on developing unique voices for each character. Students read scenes from contemporary plays, which emphasize spontaneous and realistic dialogue. Students have weekly assignments that further explore the characters they are writing. Each class includes an active roundtable discussion of the weekly assignments as well as collaborative exercises that further explore the voices of their characters. In addition to the weekly assignments, students write two complete scenes that will receive readings by their classmates. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 24900 Performance Lab: The Girl Show
Section 01 Heidi Coleman R 3-5:50pm LC- 501

Working with curator, Jane Beachy, choreographer, Erin Kilmurray, and Composer, Julie Nichols, this course commits to developing a fully realized performance piece entitled THE GIRL SHOW, within the ten weeks of the quarter. Immersive in intent and demand, writing and performance skills will be developed by participants for participants. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY. CONSENT ONLY via REQUEST FORM.

TAPS 27500 Costume Design for the Stage.
Section 01 Jessica Wardell W Noon-2:50pm LC-028

In this course, students will learn the basics of designing costumes for theatrical productions, encompassing the skills of text and character analysis, theatrical rendering and sketching. Students will learn to adopt a vocabulary using the elements and principles of design, understand and experience the process intrinsic to producing costumes for the theater, analyze the production needs related to costumes, and prepare a finalized costume design for a theatrical production. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

REES 24400/TAPS 28445 Twentieth Century Central and East European Theater
Winter 2016 MW 3:00-4:20 Instructor: Cheryl Stephenson cas1@uchicago.edu

This course provides an introduction to drama, performance, and production in Central and Eastern Europe in the twentieth century. Focusing on major developments in Czech, Russian and Polish theatrical practice, we will examine the relationship between the performance and the dramatic text, changing approaches to both the practical and creative work of staging a play, and the social and political climates that impacted theatrical production. Rather than attempting a broad survey of Central and East European theater, we will focus our attention on major turning points, high and low moments, and major innovators and innovations in theatrical culture.

TAPS 28500. Advanced Study: Acting.

TAPS 28600. Advanced Study: Directing.

TAPS 28700. Advanced Study: Playwriting.

TAPS 28800. Advanced Study: Scenic Design.

TAPS 28900. Advanced Study: Costume Design.

TAPS 29000. Advanced Study: Lighting Design.

TAPS 29100. Advanced Study: Choreography.

TAPS 29200. Advanced Study: Dance.

TAPS 29300. Advanced Study: General.

TAPS 29400. Advanced Study: Stage Management.

TAPS 29500. Advanced Study: Directing Study.

TAPS 29700. Advanced Study: Production Management.

TAPS 29800. Theater and Performance Studies BA Colloquium.
Section 01 Heidi Coleman F 2-5pm LC- 501

Spring 2016

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation
 Section 01 Devon DeMayo TR 9:00-10:20am BARS
Section 02 Seth Bockley TR 4:30- 5:50pm BARS

TAPS 10200 Acting Fundamentals 
Section 01 Joanie Schultz M 12-2:50pm BARS
 Section 02 Pamela Pascoe TR 10:30-11:50am BARS
 Section 03 David New W 12-2:50pm BARS
Section 04 David New W 3-5:50pm BARS

TAPS 10300 Text and Performance: Dramaturgy
 Section 01 Loren Kruger          TR 10:30-11:50am         LC-603
Section 02 Seth Bockley                  TR 1:30-2:50pm            LC-701
Section 03 Shade Murray        W 12-2:50pm                LC- 701

Course meets the General Education Requirement in the Dramatic, Musical, and Visual Arts. Experience in dramatic analysis or performance not required. Many contemporary plays purposely eschew traditional forms of realistic staging, yet most contemporary theater makers are only trained to execute traditional, realistic scenes. This course is a reading of several plays and essays to learn to look at a play with an adaptable, creative mind. We develop tools that draw from contemporary theorists and non-realistic theorists of the past. The goal is to provide students with a wide theatrical vocabulary with which to approach these contemporary plays with ideas that they may not have witnessed before. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 20110. Twentieth-Century American Drama
Section 01 Heidi Coleman TR 12-1:20pm LC-701

Beginning with O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night through the American avant-garde to the most recent production on Broadway, this course focuses on American contemporary playwrights who have made a significant impact with regard to dramatic form in context to specific decade as well as cumulatively through the twentieth century. Textual analysis is consistently oriented towards production possibilities, both historically and hypothetically. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 21550. The Space Between
Section 01 Vanessa Stalling T 3-5:50pm LC-501

This course explores the idea that a compelling performance event is created through precise choices about the manipulation of space and visual aesthetics. We will examine the space between actors and the space between actor and audience. Students will develop skills for heightening their awareness of stimuli from the world around them and their ability to be in kinesthetic response. We will pay particular attention to the psychic dimensions of space, the idea that a theatrical event is made all the more compelling when deep attention to the spectator’s perception of space is considered. This includes a developed understanding about theatrical planes, levels, line, point, vacuums, focus, and power. Classes will include readings, discussions, and writings about action in time and space, as well as scene work based upon improvisation or text. Students will work collaboratively in pairs and groups and will often take on roles as director, designer, or performer. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST https://www.acheterviagrafr24.com/prix-du-viagra/ CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 21600. Acting Workshop.  
Section 01 Audrey Francis M 12-2:50pm LC-501

TAPS 21700 Acting: An Actor Observes

Section 01 Pamela Pascoe TR 12-1:20pm BARS

This course addresses techniques and modes of observation and their application to scene study. Observation study is used to strengthen acting choices, build the physical world of the play, and create original, vital characterizations. It also serves to deepen awareness of group dynamics, integrate symbolic, psychological and physical meaning in a character's behavior, and guide the process of breaking down a scene. Students will perform observation exercises and apply their discoveries to scene work. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 22500. Styles and Practice in Storytelling.
Section 01 Emily Lansana W 12-2:50pm LC-603

“What is storytelling? It can be said that it is the oldest form of observing, synthesizing and communicating feelings thoughts and information.” -Temujin the Storyteller
Everyday we use stories to communicate. This course provides students with an overview of the art and practice of storytelling. Chicago is a storytelling town from the Moth to Second Story and from Story Slams to traditional storytelling; performance artists give voice to a wide range of expression. Throughout this learning experience, students will be encouraged to explore the world of storytelling and to nurture their creative voices. Students will create and adapt tales focusing on personal experience, folklore, history and ethnography. We will learn through participation and observation. The creative experiences in this course will enable students to further their skills in: oral presentation, story construction, performance, artistic critique and analysis. Students will develop and perform stories from at least three distinct areas of experience. The course provides a creative space for learning and exploration. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 23900. Playwriting: Sketch to Play
Section 01 Evan Linder M 3-5:50pm LC-701

TAPS 25500. Advanced Screenwriting.
Section 01 John Petrakis   T 3:30-6:20pm LC-603

This course requires students to complete the first draft of a feature-length screenplay (at least ninety pages in length), based on an original idea brought to the first or second class. No adaptations or partially completed scripts are allowed. Weekly class sessions include reading of script pages and critique by classmates and instructor. PQ: TAPS 15500/ CRWR 27102, and consent of instructor based on fifteen-page writing sample in screenplay format. Limited class size. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY. CONSENT ONLY via REQUEST FORM.

TAPS 27300. Principles of Stage Management
Section 01 Amanda Frederickson M 12-2:50pm LC-603

This course introduces the basics of stage management. We will follow the timeline of the theater process, learning practices and paperwork for prep week, rehearsal, technical rehearsals and performance. We will also spend time discussing interpersonal communication and the importance of the stage manager's role as the hub of communication. Class will be part lecture and part in-class project and part group discussion. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 28100. Lighting Design for the Stage
Section 01 Joseph "Mike" Durst M 3:00-5:50pm LC-501

28500-29700. Advanced Topics in Theater. PQ: Advanced experience in theater and consent of instructor. These courses are designed for students wishing to pursue advanced study in a specific field of theater/performance. Intensive study and reading is expected. Attendance at performances and labs required. Interested students should contact the TAPS office.

TAPS 28500. Advanced Study: Acting.

TAPS 28600. Advanced Study: Directing.

TAPS 28700. Advanced Study: Playwriting.

TAPS 28800. Advanced Study: Scenic Design.

TAPS 28900. Advanced Study: Costume Design.

TAPS 29000. Advanced Study: Lighting Design.

TAPS 29100. Advanced Study: Choreography.

TAPS 29200. Advanced Study: Dance.

TAPS 29300. Advanced Study: General.

TAPS 29400. Advanced Study: Stage Management.

TAPS 29500. Advanced Study: Directing Study.

TAPS 29700. Advanced Study: Production Management.

2014-2015

Autumn 2014

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation
Section 01 David New TR 12-1:20pm BARS

TAPS 10200 Acting Fundamentals
Section 01   Devon De Mayo M 9-11:50am BARS
Section 02   Pamela Pascoe TR 10:30-11:50am BARS
Section 03   Shade Murray W 12:00-2:50pm            BARS

TAPS 10500 Text and Performance: Staging Terror
Section 01 Heidi Coleman TR 10:30-11:50am LC- 501

Course meets the General Education Requirement in the Dramatic, Musical, and Visual Arts. This course explores the interplay between horror, terror, and pleasure through in-class discussions of theoretical works and the possibilities of practical creative application. The paradox of the attraction to repulsion will be considered as well as the values of shock, suspense, and subtlety. Texts will include Grand Guignol, Shakespeare, Gothic Novels, and horror films. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 10700 Introduction to Stage Design
Section 01 Jessica Wardell TR 12-1:20pm LC-501

TAPS 15500. Beginning Screenwriting (=CRWR 27102)
Section 01 John Petrakis T 3-5:50pm LC- 603

TAPS 21700 Acting: An Actor Prepares
Section 01 Pamela Pascoe TR 9-10:20a BARS

This course addresses techniques and modes of observation and their application to scene study. Observation study is used to strengthen acting choices, build the physical world of the play, and create original, vital characterizations. It also serves to deepen awareness of group dynamics, integrate symbolic, psychological and physical meaning in a character's behavior, and guide the process of breaking down a scene. Students will perform observation exercises and apply their discoveries to scene work. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY

TAPS 22800 Introduction to Performance Theory
Section 01 Kristin Leahey TR 9-10:10am LC 603

Every act is a performance. Theatre, dance, music, and art to rituals, celebrations, protests, and social media, among many other sites, are the fodder for contemporary performance theory. This class is an introductory exploration of performance as a theory and a practice. Some of the questions we will address through a survey of scholarship, performances, and application activities include: What is performance? How can performance live outside of the theatre and where? How do we perform the past, present, and future? How can performance incite dialogue, which may inspire sociopolitical change?  Some of the scholar/artist/activists’ work we will examine include Bertolt Brecht, Dwight Conquergood, Richard Schechner, Victor Turner, Augusto Boal, Michel Foucault, Richard Foreman, Diana Taylor, Jill Dolan, Peggy Phelan, Anna Deavere Smith, and Susan Foster, among others. We will investigate how ideologies of affect, race, gender, sexuality, class, technology, and citizenship are articulated through performance. This course is intended as preparation aimed towards Majors and Minors that will be taking BA Colloquium in the following year. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 23700 Playwriting: Creating Natural Dialogue for the Stage
Section 01 Evan Linder M 3-5:50pm LC- 501

This course employs collaboration among the students to help each individual writer create natural dialogue for the stage. Students will utilize improvisation to write a contemporary scene focusing on the natural rhythms and nuances of modern communication. Through these improvisations, the students create a framework for their narrative with a special focus on developing unique voices for each character. Students read scenes from contemporary plays, which emphasize spontaneous and realistic dialogue. Students have weekly assignments that further explore the characters they are writing. Each class includes an active roundtable discussion of the weekly assignments as well as collaborative exercises that further explore the voices of their characters. In addition to the weekly assignments, students write two complete scenes that will receive readings by their classmates. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 25200 “NeoFuturist” Performance Workshop
 Section 01 Greg Allen W 3- 5:50pm LC-501

TAPS 26100 Dance Composition
 Section 01 Julia Rhoads M 3-5:50pm LC- 701

TAPS 27100 Scene Painting
Section 01 Jessica Wardell W 3-5:50pm LC- 111

This course is designed to introduce students to the theatrical art of Scenic Painting for the stage and film. A scenic artist is the hand of the theatrical designer, translating the small scale of the designer’s rendering into full size theatrical environments. In this course, students will explore the unique tools and techniques used by scenic artists to create scenery. The end result of this class will be a basic mastery of painting “faux” surfaces and an understanding of how a scenic artist transforms the designer’s ideas into realized pieces of theatrical art. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 27550 Costume Design and Technology for the Stage
 Section 01 Nathan Rohrer TR 12-1:20pm LC- 032

TAPS 27900 Shopcraft: Methods and Materials. (PQ ARTV 10100, 10200 or 10300)
Section 01 David Wolf MW 10:30-12:20pm LC- 111

TAPS 28100 Lighting Design for the Stage
Section 01 Matthew Gawryk M 12-1:20pm LC- 501

TAPS 28400 History and Theory of Drama I (=ENGL 13800, CLAS 31200, CLCV 21200, CMLT 20500, CMLT 30500, ENGL 3100)
Course        David Bevington    TR 1:30-2:50pm
Dis. 01        David Bevington    F 12:30-1:20pm
Dis. 02        David Bevington    F 1:30-2:20pm

This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. The course is a survey of major trends and theatrical accomplishments in drama from the ancient Greeks through the Renaissance: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, classical Sanskrit theater, medieval religious drama, Japanese Noh drama, Kyd, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Molière, along with some consideration of dramatic theory by Aristotle, Sir Philip Sidney, Corneille, and others. Students have the option of writing essays or putting on short scenes in cooperation with other members of the course. The goal of these scenes is not to develop acting skill but, rather, to discover what is at work in the scene and to write up that process in a somewhat informal report. End-of-week workshops, in which individual scenes are read aloud dramatically and discussed, are optional but highly recommended.

TAPS 28414 Writing for Performance (PQ: ARTV 10100, 10200, 10300)
Section 01 William L. Pope MW 10:30-12:20pm LC- 603

TAPS 28417 Munich-Chicago Performance Laboratory: Jephta’s Daughter. ( =GRMN 28914/38914, RLST 28914, RLIT 38914, MUSI 28914/38914)
Section 01 David Levin and Saar Magal (Choreographer and Director, Tel Aviv) TR 3:00 - 4:20pm LC-701

In July, 2015, the Bavarian State Opera in Munich will present the world premiere of a piece tentatively titled Jephta’s Daughter to be directed by Saar Magal and conceived by Magal in collaboration with U of C Professor David Levin. In the autumn quarter, Magal and Levin will offer a laboratory course in which to prepare the piece. As presently conceived, the piece will combine theater, dance, oratorio, film, contemporary composition, and a variety of contemporary performance idioms to adapt and interrogate the story of Jephta’s daughter (in the Book of Judges, from which the story is adapted, she remains nameless). We are hoping to attract students keen to explore a broad cross-section of materials through seminar-style discussion and experimentation on stage (we will work through biblical criticism, films like Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers (2013) or Ulrich Seidl’s Paradise: Love-Faith-Hope, operas like Mozart’s Idomeneo, oratorios like Handel’s Jephta and Carrisimi’s Jephte, and a range of critical theory, including Rene Girard’s Violence and the Sacred and Derek Hughes’ Culture and Sacrifice). Stage work will encompass improvisational, physical, and text-based work. Students with an interest in any of the following are especially welcome: adaptation, theater practice, performance theory, dramaturgy, design, and/or directing. Undergraduate students require consent of instructor.

TAPS 28444. Visual Language: On Images.
Section 01 Robert Peters TR 10:30-12:20pm LC-108
Section 02 William L. Pope MW 1:30-3:20pm LC-401

This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. Through studio work and critical discussions on 2D form, this course is designed to reveal the conventions of images and image-making. Basic formal elements and principles of art are presented, but they are also put into practice to reveal perennial issues in a visual field. Form is studied as a means to communicate content. Topics as varied as, but not limited to, illusion, analogy, metaphor, time and memory, nature and culture, abstraction, the role of the author, and universal systems can be illuminated through these primary investigations. Visits to museums and other fieldwork required, as is participation in studio exercises and group critiques. Students must attend class for the full first week to confirm enrollment. Pink slip/wait list requests are due several weeks before the quarter begins. Sign up for the wait list at dova.uchicago.edu/content/wait-list-core-courses-0.

TAPS 28445. Visual Language: On Objects.
Section 01 Karthik Pandian WR 10:30-12:20pm LC-110
Section 02 Robert Peters TR 1:30-3:30pm LC- 108

This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. Through studio work and critical discussions on 3D form, this course is intended to reveal the conventions of sculpture while investigating its modes of production. Basic formal elements and principles of art are presented, but also put into practice to reveal perennial issues in a visual field. Form is studied as a means to communicate content. Topics as varied as, but not limited to, platonic form, analogy, metaphor, verisimilitude, abstraction, nature and culture, and the body politic can be illuminated through these primary investigations. Visits to museums and other fieldwork required, as is participation in studio exercises and group critiques. Students must attend class for the full first week to confirm enrollment. Pink slip/wait list requests are due several weeks before the quarter begins. Sign up for the wait list at dova.uchicago.edu/content/wait-list-core-courses-0.

TAPS 28472. Iphigenia: Text, Dramaturgy, and Performance.
Section 01 A. Akavla MW 3-4:20pm G-B - 411

What is the relation between script and performance, between academia and theater production, and between the Classics and the present? The course is an investigation of these questions, using Euripides’Iphigenia in Aulis and Court Theatre’s concomitant production of it as a case study. It has three foci: First, we will look at the complex history of transmission and reception of Euripides’ text, from antiquity through modern to postmodern adaptations (including Racine, Gluck, Svich, and Teevan). Second, we will explore the development of the role of dramaturg from when it was first coined by Lessing in 1767 to present-day literary managers. Third, we will follow closely the Court production, observing rehearsals and engaging in conversation with Charles Newell (director) and Nicholas Rudall (translator). Through all this we will ask ourselves, what is the role of the scholar of Classics for contemporary culture and society? Why and how are the Classics still relevant for us?

TAPS 28500. Advanced Study: Acting.

TAPS 28600. Advanced Study: Directing.

TAPS 28700. Advanced Study: Playwriting.

TAPS 28800. Advanced Study: Scenic Design.

TAPS 28900. Advanced Study: Costume Design.

TAPS 29000. Advanced Study: Lighting Design.

TAPS 29100. Advanced Study: Choreography.

TAPS 29200. Advanced Study: Dance.

TAPS 29300. Advanced Study: General.

TAPS 29500. Advanced Study: Directing Study.

TAPS 29800. Theater and Performance Studies BA Colloquium.
Section 01 Heidi Coleman F 2-5pm LC- 501

This two-quarter sequence is open only to fourth-year students who are majoring and/or minoring in theater and performance studies.

Winter 2015

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation
Section 01 Matthew Gawryk     TR 10:30-11:50am          BARS
Section 02 David New TR 12-1:20pm     BARS
Section 03 Devon DeMayo TR 1:30-2:50pm    BARS

TAPS 10300. Text and Performance. 
Section 01 Seth Bockley TR 9-10:20am LC-501
Section 02 Joanie Schultz M 12-2:50pm BARS 
Section 03 David Levin TR 1:30-2:50pm LC-501

This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. Many contemporary plays purposely eschew traditional forms of realistic staging, yet most contemporary theater makers are only trained to execute traditional, realistic scenes. This course is a reading of several plays and essays to learn to look at a play with an adaptable, creative mind. We develop tools that draw from contemporary theorists and non-realistic theorists of the past. The goal is to provide students with a wide theatrical vocabulary with which to approach these contemporary plays with ideas that they may not have witnessed before. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 15500. Beginning Screenwriting.
Section 01 John Petrakis T 3-5:50pm   LC-603

TAPS 20700. Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism.
Section 01 Derek Matson M 12 – 2:50pm  LC-603

TAPS 21600. Acting Workshop.
Section 01 Audrey Francis M 9am-11:50am LC-701

This advanced acting course will prep you for the professional industry. The classes are based on the Meisner Technique and the Black Box Acting Studio Method. You will work on technique, auditions and learn to consistently bring your full self to the table. Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. CONSENT ONLY via APPROVAL FORM.

TAPS 21900. Clown Performance: Intro Le Jeu Lab.
Section 01 Jay Torrence W 12-2:50pm LC-701

In this introductory class, we are in a savage pursuit to understand the act of “playing” specifically in clown performance. How it functions and engages the stage and possibly the world at large. What specific clown presence is inherent to you? And how do you apply that into performance? The majority of the term will be spent actively pursuing “clown play” and defining one’s own personal clown presence, status and character development. Weekly meetings will include physical conditioning, clown/game/play exercises, performance labs, critiques, discussion and presentations on historical clown archetypes and key movements. Students will also be expected to investigate, create, showcase and critique short original solo, partner and group performance pieces. Audience interaction, breath and heightening emotional impact on stage are a few of the key practical skills students will gain useful and applied knowledge of through this coursework. Students should come to the work with a focused willingness to risk emotionally and physically while also learning to support and engage, not just as classmates, but as an active, experimenting, artistic ensemble. All performance experience levels are welcome; a disciplined focus and engagement is required by all participants. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 22100. Solo Performance.
Section 01 Vanessa Stalling W 12-2:50pm LC-501

TAPS 23000. Introduction to Directing.
Section 01 Shade Murray R 3-5:50pm LC-501

This course employs a practice in the fundamental theory of play direction and the role of the director in collaboration with the development of textual analysis. By examining five diversely different texts and using the director supported play analysis, Backwards and Forwards, students will begin developing a method of directing for the stage in support of the written text. In alternating weeks, students will implement textual analysis in building an understanding of directorial concept, theme, imagery and staging through rehearsal and in-class presentations of three-minute excerpts from the play analysis the previous week. The class will culminate with a final five-minute scene combining the tools of direction with a method of analysis devised over the ten week course. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 23800. Playwriting: Writing Utilizing Improvisation.
Section 01 Evan Linder   M 3-5:50pm LC- 701

This course incorporates the spontaneity and freedom allowed by improvisation into the writing process. In addition to focusing on the natural rhythms and nuances of modern communication, the class will also learn to write for individual performers and ensembles. Through these improvisations, the students focus on developing unique voices for each character. Students read scenes from contemporary plays that emphasize spontaneous and realistic dialogue. Students have weekly assignments that further explore the characters they are writing. Each class includes an active roundtable discussion of the weekly assignments as well as collaborative exercises that further explores the voices of their characters. In addition to the weekly assignments, students write three complete scenes that will receive readings by their classmates. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 24000. Director/Designer Collaboration

Section 01 Heidi Coleman & Jessica Wardell T 3-5:50pm LC-802

The concept phase of the shared creative process in theater requires clarity of vision and impulse to dream while negotiating the realities of budget and space. With students in the roles of director and designer, this class tackles the preproduction period from initial concept meetings to design presentations for rehearsal. Students develop vocabulary that fully expresses the director's vision and simultaneously provides creative room for the designer. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 26600. Interactive Comedic Musical Workshop.
Section 01 Tim Mason & Julie Nichols T 3-5:50pm LC-501

This course will work as a laboratory for an interactive comedic musical exploring the nature of privacy and information in contemporary culture. Classes will include improvisation, scene work and musical performance as well as collaborative devising of technologically driven audience interactions. Ensemble members will be asked to attend several productions around Chicago as well as completing weekly performance, reading, writing, and/or songwriting assignments. The Winter Course culminates in UT/TAPS mainstage production as a cast member in the premiere of the work. Casting in class, assumes participation in the spring production to be rehearsed in spring quarter and perform 5th and 6th week. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY. CONSENT ONLY.

TAPS 27800. Story through Music and Sound.
Section 01 M. Milburn & R. Bodeen M 12-2:50pm LC-501 & LC 003

TAPS 28000. Scenic Design.
Section 01 Jessica Wardell M 3-5:50pm LC-028

This course is an exploration of various forms and processes of designing sets for theatrical performance. We pay particular attention to a cohesive reading of a text, contextual and historical exploration, and visual and thematic research, as well as the documentation needed to complete a show (e.g., model, drafting, paint elevations). We also explore, nominally, the history of stage design and look at major trends in modern stage design. PQ: TAPS 10700 or consent of instructor required; previous experience in stage design or visual art recommended. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 28400 History and Theory of Drama I (=ENGL 13800, CLAS 31200, CLCV 21200, CMLT 20500, CMLT 30500, ENGL 3100)
TBD

TAPS 28500. Advanced Study: Acting.

TAPS 28600. Advanced Study: Directing.

TAPS 28700. Advanced Study: Playwriting.

TAPS 28800. Advanced Study: Scenic Design.

TAPS 28900. Advanced Study: Costume Design.

TAPS 29000. Advanced Study: Lighting Design.

TAPS 29100. Advanced Study: Choreography.

TAPS 29200. Advanced Study: Dance.

TAPS 29300. Advanced Study: General.

TAPS 29500. Advanced Study: Directing Study.

TAPS 29800. Theater and Performance Studies BA Colloquium.
Section 01 Jay Torrence F 10:30a-12:20p LC- 501

This two-quarter sequence is open only to fourth-year students who are majoring and/or minoring in theater and performance studies.

Spring 2015

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation
 Section 01 Pamela Pascoe TR 10:30-11:50am BARS
Section 02 Pamela Pascoe TR 12-1:20pm BARS

TAPS 10200 Acting Fundamentals 
Section 01 Vanessa Stalling M 9-11:50am BARS
 Section 02 Joanie Schultz M 12-2:50pm BARS
 Section 03 David New W 12-2:50pm BARS

TAPS 10300 Text and Performance: Dramaturgy
 Section 01 John Muse             TR 10:30-11:50am         LC-501
Section 02 Loren Kruger          TR 10:30-11:50am         LC-603
Section 03 Shade Murray        W 12-2:50pm                LC-501
Section 04 Pamela Pascoe      W 3-5:50pm                  BARS

TAPS 10700 Intro to Stage Design 
Section 01 Jessica Wardell TR 12-1:30pm LC-501

This course explores the application of the visual and aural arts to the varied forms of design for the stage (i.e., scenic, lighting, costume, sound). We pay particular attention to the development of a cogent and well-reasoned analysis of text and an articulate use of the elements of design through a set of guided practical projects. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 21600. Acting Workshop.  
Section 01 Audrey Francis M 12-2:50pm LC-501

TAPS 23400 Visual Language: On Time and Space.
Section 01 Karthik Pandian R 3:30-4:50pm Lab, TR 1:30-3:20pm Course LC-003
Section 02 Daniel Volk W 1-4:50pm Course LC-003

(=ARTV 10300, CMST 1300) Through studio work and critical discussion on four-dimensional form, this course is designed to reveal the conventions of the moving image, performance, and/or the production of digital-based media. Basic formal elements and principles of art are presented, but also put into practice to reveal perennial issues in a visual field. Form is studied as a means to communicate content. Topics as varied as but not limited to narrative, mechanical reproduction, verisimilitude, historical tableaux, time and memory, the body politic, and the role of the author can be illuminated through these primary investigations. Some sections focus solely on performance; others incorporate moving image technology. Please check the time schedule for details. Visits to museums and other fieldwork required, as is participation in studio exercises and group critiques. Students must attend class for the full first week in order to confirm enrollment. Pink slip/wait list requests are due several weeks before the quarter begins. Sign up for the wait list at dova.uchicago.edu/content/wait-list-core-courses-0.

TAPS 23500. Aerial and Circus with Actors Gymnasium. 
Section 01 N.Drackett & K.Kato R 3-5:50pm LC-701

Students gain an introduction to aerial and circus arts, developing a basic skill set while increasing their strength and flexibility. Skills covered in class may include: trapeze, silks, lyra, unicycling, juggling, tightrope, tumbling, and acro. While no acrobatic experience is necessary to enroll in this class, it is recommended that participants be in good physical health. Students should wear comfortable clothes to class, being aware that they will be, at times, upside down. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY. CONSENT ONLY via APPROVAL FORM.

TAPS 23900. Playwriting: Sketch to Play
Section 01 Evan Linder M 3-5:50pm LC-701

TAPS 24300. Story and Stagecraft
Section 01 Nathan Allen W 12-2:50pm LC-603

Nathan Allen, fouder and Artistic Director of the The House Theater of Chicago, leads an investigation into the ancient social technologies at work in live theatrical storytelling to reconnect students with possible primal, social, and civic purposes to continue the artform in the digitial age. The class will experiement then with possible story -shapes for an original theatrical experience that statisfies such an ethic for popular storytelling.

TAPS 24500. Chicago Theater: Budgets and Buildings 
Section 01 H. Coleman & C. Besse M 12-2:50p LC-603

This course examines the current state of Chicago Theater, focusing on the relationships between facilities, budgets, and missions. Field trips required to venues including Timeline, Raven, Steppenwolf, Theater Building, and Green House. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 25500. Advanced Screenwriting.
Section 01 John Petrakis   T 3:30-6:20pm LC-603

TAPS 26515 Opera, Society and Politics.
Section 01 Claudio Vellutini TR 1:30-2:50pm GO H- 402

(MUSI 26514, ITAL 26514, HIST 23608) This course explores the role of opera within the history of modernity. We will study representative works spanning four centuries—from Claudio Monteverdi to John Adams—in relation to important political and social issues raised in pertinent documentary sources and theoretical writings. Our approach to these materials will revolve around five overarching themes: (1) opera’s interaction with different kinds of social elites and with the ideology of absolutism in the 17th and early 18th centuries; (2) the political implications of opera’s becoming a topic of public debates before and after the French Revolution; (3) opera’s complex relation with national ideologies and the notion of the Other; (4) the responsiveness of opera to changing conceptions of subjectivity and social order at the turn of the 20th century; (5) opera’s political and social function amid the rise of mass media after World War II.

TAPS 28444 Visual Language: On Images.
Section 01      Laura Letinksy           W 9:30-12:20pm LC-401
Section 02      David Schutter          MW 1:30-3:20pm LC-601
Section 03      Lauren Beck               MW 1:30-3:20pm LC-110
Section 04      Nicole Mauser            F 9- 12:20pm            LC-401

(=ARTV 10100) Through studio work and critical discussions on 2D form, this course is designed to reveal the conventions of images and image-making. Basic formal elements and principles of art are presented, but they are also put into practice to https://www.acheterviagrafr24.com/prix-du-viagra/ reveal perennial issues in a visual field. Form is studied as a means to communicate content. Topics as varied as, but not limited to, illusion, analogy, metaphor, time and memory, nature and culture, abstraction, the role of the author, and universal systems can be illuminated through these primary investigations. Visits to museums and other fieldwork required, as is participation in studio exercises and group critiques. Students must attend class for the full first week to confirm enrollment. Pink slip/wait list requests are due several weeks before the quarter begins. Sign up for the wait list at dova.uchicago.edu/content/wait-list-core-courses-0.

TAPS 28445 Visual Language: On Objects.
Section 01      Theaster Gates          W 1-4pm                    LC-401
Section 02      Geof Oppenheimer   T 1:30-4:20pm          LC-110
Section 03      Karthik Pandian        TR 10:30-12:20pm   LC-601

(=ARTV 10200) Through studio work and critical discussions on 2D form, this course is designed to reveal the conventions of images and image-making. Basic formal elements and principles of art are presented, but they are also put into practice to reveal perennial issues in a visual field. Form is studied as a means to communicate content. Topics as varied as, but not limited to, illusion, analogy, metaphor, time and memory, nature and culture, abstraction, the role of the author, and universal systems can be illuminated through these primary investigations. Visits to museums and other fieldwork required, as is participation in studio exercises and group critiques. Students must attend class for the full first week to confirm enrollment. Pink slip/wait list requests are due several weeks before the quarter begins. Sign up for the wait list at dova.uchicago.edu/content/wait-list-core-courses-0.

TAPS 28474 Don Juan’s Word: Speech Acts, Acting and Lying.
Info to be annouced.

TAPS 28482 “Unsavory Plays”: Polish Modernist Drama
Section 01 Bożena Shallcross MW 1:30-2:50pm C- 202

(= POLI 25500/ 35500) This course explores the main artistic practices, innovations and trajectories taking place in the Polish drama and theatre from the early twentieth century to the first decade of this century. Our reading list includes the plays, which were initially considered as hermetic texts written by obscure authors which became part and parcel of the Polish literary canon; on the other hand, we read textual collages, fragmentary scores and notations, which demonstrate how the great theatre reformers Kantor and Grotowski gradually dissolved the drama’s formal characteristics.

TAPS 28492 Introduction to Japanese Theater.
Section 01 Reginald Jackson TR 1:30-2:50pm WB-301N

(=EALC 29491) In this course we will explore a variety of Japanese theatrical forms from the fourteenth century to the present, including Noh, Kyogen, Bunraku, Kabuki, Shimpa, Shingeki, Butoh, and Takarazuka. Our emphasis will be on understanding the forms in their historical and performative contexts through close textual analysis as well as performance analysis of video footage, whenever possible. No background assumed or required in Japanese language or theater.

TAPS 28500. Advanced Study: Acting.

TAPS 28600. Advanced Study: Directing.

TAPS 28700. Advanced Study: Playwriting.

TAPS 28800. Advanced Study: Scenic Design.

TAPS 28900. Advanced Study: Costume Design.

TAPS 29000. Advanced Study: Lighting Design.

TAPS 29100. Advanced Study: Choreography.

TAPS 29200. Advanced Study: Dance.

TAPS 29300. Advanced Study: General.

TAPS 29500. Advanced Study: Directing Study.

2013-2014

Autumn 2013

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation
Section 01 T/TH 3:00-4:20   Matthew Gawryk (Bartlett Arts Rehearsal Space)
Section 02 T/TH 4:30-5:50  David New (Bartlett Arts Rehearsal Space)

TAPS 10200 Acting Fundamentals
Section 01 T/TH 10:30-11:50  Pamela Pascoe (Bartlett Arts Rehearsal Space)
Section 02 Mon 10:30-1:20 Halena Kays (Bartlett Arts Rehearsal Space)

TAPS 10300 Text and Performance: Dramaturgy
Section 01 T/Th 12:00-1:20  David Levin (Logan Center 501)

TAPS 10700 Intro to Stage Design
Section 01 T/TH 9:00-10:20 Jessica Wardell (Logan Center 501)

TAPS 15500 Beginning Screenwriting
Section 01 T 12:00-2:50p John Petrakis (Logan Center 603)

TAPS 20100. Twentieth-Century American Drama
Section 01 T/TH 10:30-11:50 Heidi Coleman (Logan Center 501)

Beginning with O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night through the American avant-garde to the most recent production on Broadway, this course focuses on American contemporary playwrights who have made a significant impact with regard to dramatic form in context to specific decade as well as cumulatively through the twentieth century. Textual analysis is consistently oriented towards production possibilities, both historically and hypothetically. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 21500 Advanced Acting
Section 01 T 1:30-4:20 Timothy Kane (Logan Center 501)

This advanced class will be a further development of performance technique as it relates to the professional rehearsal process. Scene work from classical texts will be used as a means of exercising the actor’s ability to apply studio work to the text; specifically exploring those classical roles most age appropriate for young professionals and how to avoid the pitfalls of contemporary attitudes when dealing with style. Additionally, there will be opportunities to attend all stages of the rehearsal process for An Iliad at Court Theatre, question process techniques and learn from guest lecturers. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY. CONSENT ONLY.

TAPS 21700 Acting: An Actor Observes

Section 01 R 12-2:50pm Pamela Pascoe (Bartlett Arts Rehearsal Space)

This course addresses techniques and modes of observation and their application to scene study. Observation study is used to strengthen acting choices, build the physical world of the play, and create original, vital characterizations. It also serves to deepen awareness of group dynamics, integrate symbolic, psychological and physical meaning in a character's behavior, and guide the process of breaking down a scene. Students will perform observation exercises and apply their discoveries to scene work. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 23000 Introduction to Directing
Section 01 M 1:30-4:20 Joanie Schultz (Logan Center 501)

This course employs a practice in the fundamental theory of play direction and the role of the director in collaboration with the development of textual analysis. By examining five diversely different texts and using the director supported play analysis, Backwards and Forwards, students will begin developing a method of directing for the stage in support of the written text. In alternating weeks, students will implement textual analysis in building an understanding of directorial concept, theme, imagery and staging through rehearsal and in-class presentations of three-minute excerpts from the play analysis the previous week. The class will culminate with a final five-minute scene combining the tools of direction with a method of analysis devised over the ten-week course. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 23400. Visual Language: On Time and Space
Section 01 T 9:00am- 12:50pm Course Pandian Karthik (LC 003)
R 10:30am-12:50pm Lab Pandian Karthik (LC 014)

(= ARTV 10300,CMST 10300) ARTV 10100, 10200, 10300 meet the core requirement in dramatic, musical, and visual arts and may be taken in any order. First week attendance is mandatory. Sign up for the wait list here.

TAPS 23500. Aerial and Circus with Actors Gymnasium.
Section 01 TH 3:00-5:50pm Kasumi Kato, Alexander Knapp (Logan Center 701)

TAPS 23700. Playwriting: Creating Natural Dialogue for the Stage
Section 01 M 12:00-2:50 Evan Linder (Logan Center 603)

This course employs collaboration among the students to help each individual writer create natural dialogue for the stage. Students will utilize improvisation to write a contemporary scene focusing on the natural rhythms and nuances of modern communication. Through these improvisations, the students create a framework for their narrative with a special focus on developing unique voices for each character. Students read scenes from contemporary plays, which emphasize spontaneous and realistic dialogue. Students have weekly assignments that further explore the characters they are writing. Each class includes an active roundtable discussion of the weekly assignments as well as collaborative exercises that further explore the voices of their characters. In addition to the weekly assignments, students write two complete scenes that will receive readings by their classmates. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 25200 “NeoFuturist” Performance Workshop
Section 01 TH 3:00- 5:50 Greg Allen (Logan Center 501)

TAPS 26100 Dance Composition
Section 01 M 1:30-4:20  Julia Rhoads (Logan Center 701)

TAPS 27550. Costume Design and Technology for the Stage
Section 01 M 3:00-5:50 Nathan Rohrer (Logan Center 032)

TAPS 28400. History And Theory Of Drama-1
Section- 00 TR 1:30-2:50pm Lecture David Bevington, Drew Dir (SS-302)

F 12:30- 1:20pm Discussion David Bevington, Andrew Inchiosa (SS-302)

F 1:30- 2:20pm Discussion David Bevington, Drew Dir (SS-302)

(=CLAS 31200, CLCV 21200, CMLT 20500/30500, ENGL 13800/31000) The course is a survey of major trends and theatrical accomplishments in drama from the ancient Greeks through the Renaissance: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, classical Sanskrit theater, medieval religious drama, Japanese Noh drama, Kyd, Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Molière, along with some consideration of dramatic theory by Aristotle, Sir Philip Sidney, Corneille, and others. Students have the option of writing essays or putting on short scenes in cooperation with other members of the course. The goal of these scenes is not to develop acting skill but, rather, to discover what is at work in the scene and to write up that process in a somewhat informal report. End-of-week workshops, in which individual scenes are read aloud dramatically and discussed, are optional but highly recommended.

Notes: This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. Preference will be given to students with third- or fourth-year standing. May be taken in sequence with ENGL 13900/31100 or individually. Equivalent courses: CLAS 31200, CLCV 21200, CMLT 20500/30500, ENGL 13800/31000.

TAPS 28414. Writing for Performance Writing for Performance

Section - 01 MW 1:30-3:20pm William L. Pope (LC 802)

(=ARTV 24301,ARTV 34301) PQ: ARTV 10100, 10200, or 10300

TAPS 28426. Tell Me the Truth: The Politics of Narrative Construction

- 01 MW 3:00-4:20pm Course Schilt, Kristen (GSRP 101)

W 4:30-5:50pm Screening Schilt, Kristen (GSRP 101)

(=GNSE 27502,ARTV 27502,SOCI 20227)

TAPS 28428. 20th Century Performance Art

- 01 TR 4:30-5:50pm Maydanchik, Michelle (CWAC 156)

(=ARTH 25800)

TAPS 28441. Anagnorisis & the Cognitive Work of Theater

- 01 W 1:30-4:20pm Wild, Christopher (WB 206)

(=GRMN 26913,CMLT 26913,GRMN 36913,CMLT 36913,CLCV 25513,CLCV 35513)

TAPS 28444. Visual Language: On Images

- 01 MW 10:30-12:20pm Peters, Robert C (LC 110)

- 02 MW 10:30-12:20pm Pope, William L. (LC 401)

- 03 TR 1:30-4:20pm Rosen, Danielle (LC 401)

- 04 TR 1:30-4:20pm Harvath, Katherine (LC 601)

(=ARTV 10100) ARTV 10100, 10200, 10300 meet the core requirement in dramatic, musical, and visual arts and may be taken in any order. First week attendance is mandatory. Sign up for the wait list here.

TAPS 28445. Visual Language: On Objects

- 01 TR 10:30-12:20pm Ginsburg, Amber (LC 108)

- 02 MW 1:30-3:20pm Peters, Robert C (LC 110)

(= ARTV 10200) ARTV 10100, 10200, 10300 meet the core requirement in dramatic, musical, and visual arts and may be taken in any order. First week attendance is mandatory. Sign up for the wait list here.

TAPS 28452. Media Ecology: Embodiment & Software

- 01 TR 12:00-1:20pm Browning, Margot (C 409)

(=HUMA 25202,LLSO 27801,HIPS 25203,CMST 25204)

TAPS 28500-29600 Advanced Topics (e.g. Directing, Design, Dramaturgy, Choreography)
Consent of Advisor and Director of Undergraduate Studies (Heidi Coleman) NEEDED

TAPS 29800. BA Colloq

Section 01
F 11:30-1:20p Alternating Weeks
Heidi Coleman (Logan Center 501)

Required of fourth-year students who are majoring in TAPS. Creative Writing or MAPH students who are preparing theses for performance may participate with consent from their home department and the Director of Undergraduate Studies. NOTE: Students participate in both Autumn and Winter Quarters but register once and receive one grade.

Winter 2014

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation
T/TH 4:30-5:50pm
David New (BARS)

Course meets the General Education Requirement in the Dramatic, Musical, and Visual Arts. At least three sections are offered per quarter with enrollment limited to twenty. This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. Students examine the performance and the aesthetics of two dramatic works in contrasting styles but with unifying themes. The goal of the course is to develop in the students an appreciation and understanding of a variety of techniques and of the processes by which they are theatrically realized. Rather than focus on the dramatic text itself, this course concentrates on the piece in performance, including the impact of cultural context on interpretation. To achieve this, students are required to act, direct, and design during the course. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 10200. Acting Fundamentals.
W 10:30a- 1:20pm
Shade Murray (BARS)

Course meets the General Education Requirement in the Dramatic, Musical, and Visual Arts.PQ: Consent of instructor. Prior theater or acting training not required. This course introduces fundamental concepts of performance in the theater with emphasis on the development of creative faculties and techniques of observation, as well as vocal and physical interpretation. Concepts are introduced through directed reading, improvisation, and scene study. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 10300. Text and Performance.
T/TH 1:30- 2:50pm
Seth Bockley (Logan 501)

Many contemporary plays purposely eschew traditional forms of realistic staging, yet most contemporary theater makers are only trained to execute traditional, realistic scenes. This course is a reading of several plays and essays to learn to look at a play with an adaptable, creative mind. We develop tools that draw from contemporary theorists and non-realistic theorists of the past. The goal is to provide students with a wide theatrical vocabulary with which to approach these contemporary plays with ideas that they may not have witnessed before. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 10600. Staging Desire.
T/TH 10:30- 11:50am
Heidi Coleman (Logan 501)

This course explores the interplays between romance, attractions, and distractions through in-class discussions of theoretical works and the possibilities of practical creative application. The paradox of instant gratification and prolonged desire will be considered as well as the values of shock, suspense, and subtlety. Texts will include classic and contemporary drama, vampire cult fiction, fairy tales, films, and theoretic source material. Working 4-dimensionally, we will examine how theorized stagings can evoke and undermine sentimentality. This course will constantly question how analysis itself can be a performative practice and how performance can serve as a critical endeavor. The course will culminate in a series of original scenes to be shown at the end of the quarter. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 15500. Beginning Screenwriting.
T 12-2:50pm
John Petrakis (Logan 603)

TAPS 18600. Introduction to Puppetry.
W 10:30- 1:20pm
Jessica Wardell (Logan 501)

In this course we will explore the varied performance types of puppetry. While there will be readings, class discussions, and lectures (focusing on the history, culture, theory and literature of puppetry), this is primarily a PRODUCTION and PERFORMANCE-based course, and as such we will focus on creating puppets and short performance pieces. Previous performance experience is not necessary. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 20700. Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism.
TH 1:30-4:20pm
Derek Matson (Logan 802)

TAPS 21600. Acting Workshop.
M 1:30-4:20pm
Audrey Francis (Logan 501)

This advanced acting course will prep you for the professional industry. The classes are based on the Meisner Technique and the Black Box Acting Studio Method. You will work on technique, auditions and learn to consistently bring your full self to the table. Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. CONSENT ONLY via APPROVAL FORM.

TAPS 22500. Styles and Practice in Storytelling.
T 3-5:50pm
Emily Lansana (Logan 501)

TAPS 23600. Improv and Sketch.
R 10:30a 1:20pm
Susan Messing (Logan 701)
This class will explore the many different schools of thought in Chicago improv comedy community, including but not limited to The Second City, iO, and The Annoyance. Organic discovery and plot will be highlighted within scenework as well as the group dynamic, with comedy as the result. Come ready to play and play hard. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY. CONSENT ONLY via APPROVAL FORM.

TAPS 23800. Playwriting: Writing Utilizing Improvisation
M 10:30-1:20pm
Evan Linder (Logan 701)

This course incorporates the spontaneity and freedom allowed by improvisation into the writing process. In addition to focusing on the natural rhythms and nuances of modern communication, the class will also learn to write for individual performers and ensembles. Through these improvisations, the students focus on developing unique voices for each character. Students read scenes from contemporary plays which emphasize spontaneous and realistic dialogue. Students have weekly assignments that further explore the characters they are writing. Each class includes an active roundtable discussion of the weekly assignments as well as collaborative exercises that further explores the voices of their characters. In addition to the weekly assignments, students write three complete scenes that will receive readings by their classmates. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 24400. Circus Performance Lab.
T 10:30- 1:20pm
Halena Kays (Logan 701)

This course will work as a laboratory for an ensemble created circus and physical theater production based on the work of Studs Terkel. Classes will include a collaborative devising of story and character using dance, classic and contemporary circus skills, clown and improvisation. Ensemble members will divide their time researching both Terkel and contemporary circus culture and group physical stunts to generate the basis for the final script. As part of the research students will also be asked to attend several productions around Chicago. The Winter Course culminates in UT/TAPS mainstage production as a cast member or playwright in the premiere of the work. Casting in class, assumes participation in the spring production to be rehearsed in spring quarter and perform 5th and 6th week. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY. CONSENT ONLY.

TAPS 28100. Lighting Design for the Stage.
M 10:30-1:20pm
Matt Gawryk, (Logan 501)

TAPS 28439. Seminar & Workshop: Absorption, Distanceation, Distraction: Wagner, Brecht, Kluge.
T/TH 12-1:20pm
David Levin (Logan 501)

( = GRMN 29614/33914) Explores Richard Wagner's music-dramas, Bertolt Brecht's plays, and Alexander Kluge's films as a forum for the formulation, circulation, and contestation of absorption, distanceation, and distraction. While a conventional historical account would map the tensions among these terms as a one-way trip, moving from absorption (in Wagner) to distanceation (as coined by Brecht) to distraction (as deployed by Kluge), we will explore how each artist deploys each term to varying effects. Works to be considered include Wagner's *The Flying Dutchman* & *Parsifal*, Brecht's *Man is Man* & "The Measures Taken", and Kluge's *Yesterday Girl* and *The Power of Emotions." Readings by each artist, as well as by TW Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Michael Fried, Miriam Hansen, Andreas Huyssen, and Gertrud Koch. In addition to our academic engagement with each of these artists, students will be asked to propose creative solutions to the questions raised by the works under consideration. In English. Some experience in film studies, theater, or musical analysis will be helpful. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 28500-29600 Advanced Topics (e.g. Directing, Design, Dramaturgy, Choreography) Consent of Advisor and Director of Undergraduate Studies (Heidi Coleman) NEEDED

TAPS 29800. BA Colloq
Section 01
 F 10:30- 12:20p Alternating Weeks 
Heidi Coleman, Jay Torrence (Logan Center 501)

Spring 2014

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation
Section 01 T/TH 10:30am-11:50pm Pamela Pascoe (BARS)
Section 02 T/TH 12pm- 1:20pm Pamela Pascoe (BARS)
Section 03 T/TH 9am-10:20am Matthew Gawryk (BARS)

TAPS 10200. Acting Fundamentals. 
Section 01 M 10:30a- 1:20pm Halena Kays (BARS)
Section 02 M 1:30pm- 4:20pm Joanie Schultz (BARS)
Section 03 T 1:30pm-4:20pm David New (BARS)

TAPS 10300. Text and Performance. 
Section 01 T/TH 9am- 10:20am Devon de Mayo (Logan Center 701)
Section 02 T/TH 10:30am- 11:50am Loren Kruger (Logan Center 603)
Section 03 W 3-5:50pm Pamela Pascoe (BARS)

TAPS 10700 Intro to Stage Design 
T/TH 10:30am-11:50am Jessica Wardell (Logan Center 501)

TAPS 21600. Acting Workshop.
 M 1:30-4:20pm  Audrey Francis (Logan Center 501)

TAPS 22800. Introduction to Performance Theory.
T/TH 9-10:20am Kristin Leahey (Logan Center 603)

Every act is a performance. Theatre, dance, music, and art to rituals, celebrations, protests, and social media, among many other sites, are the fodder for contemporary performance theory. This class is an introductory exploration of performance as a theory and a practice. Some of the questions we will address through a survey of scholarship, performances, and application activities include: What is performance? How can performance live outside of the theatre and where? How do we perform the past, present, and future? How can performance incite dialogue, which may inspire sociopolitical change?
Some of the scholar/artist/activists’ work we will examine include Bertolt Brecht, Dwight Conquergood, Richard Schechner, Victor Turner, Augusto Boal, Michel Foucault, Richard Foreman, Diana Taylor, Jill Dolan, Peggy Phelan, Anna Deavere Smith, and Susan Foster, among others. We will investigate how ideologies of affect, race, gender, sexuality, class, technology, and citizenship are articulated through performance. This course is intended as preparation aimed towards Majors and Minors that will be taking BA Colloquium in the following year. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 23100. Advanced Directing.
T 1:30pm- 4:20pm Heidi Coleman (Logan Center 501)

This course is intended for more experienced students interested in exploring professional careers as directors. Students will work with both composition and scene work to further develop a critical eye with regard to staging through alternated showings and critique. Focus will additionally be on use of self in rehearsal and communication with actors, designers, and audience. The scene work will include work with a range of representational and presentational styes. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS IS MANDATORY. CONSENT ONLY via APPROVAL FORM.

TAPS 23900. Playwriting: Sketch to Play

M 10:30a-1:20p Evan Linder (Logan Center 701)

TAPS 25500. Advanced Screenwriting.
 T 12-2:50pm  J. Petrakis (Logan Center 603)

This course requires students to complete the first draft of a feature-length screenplay (at least ninety pages in length), based on an original idea brought to the first or second class. No adaptations or partially completed scripts are allowed. Weekly class sessions include reading of script pages and critique by classmates and instructor. PQ: TAPS 15500/ CRWR 27102, and consent of instructor based on fifteen-page writing sample in screenplay format. Limited class size. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY. CONSENT ONLY via APPROVAL FORM.

TAPS 27000. Spectacle, Ephemera and Urban Engagement.
Seminars meet M 10:30- 1:20pm 3/31, 4/7, 4/21, 5/5, 5/19, 6/2 (Logan Center 603)
and will meet at 6-8:50pm on 4/14, 4/28, 5/12, TUES 5/27
Rebecca Rugg & Jim Lasko

This course will focus on interventions into public space – fleeting expressions of art and culture that fully embrace their social context. We will consider how ephemeral rituals such as the Olympic Games, The Tomatina Festival, The The Burning Man Festival, and other cultural events function in culture and what difference they make, what leftover they leave.
The professors for this course both hail from Redmoon theater company, a 23-year-old Chicago institution where the mission is to transform the experience of our city through free large-scale theatrical events that promote community, creativity, and an empowered democracy. Our inquiry into interventions in public space in the course will be fueled by the large scale project in which Redmoon is currently engaged: creating a new urban ritual for the City of Chicago. Presented by Redmoon in partnership with the City, Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, the inaugural Great Chicago Fire Festival in October 2014 will be a massive, citywide event that celebrates the city’s powerful spirit of resilience. The festival was born from the city’s determination to innovate, reinvent, to rise from the ashes. From the aftermath of the Great Chicago Fire to Millennium Park’s spectacular emergence out of the old rail yards, the epic story of Chicago has been one of destruction and renewal. Drawing on this rich history, the Fire Festival will be a city-wide event built around urban planner and MIT professor Mark Schuster’s concept of a ‘signature event’ on par with New Orleans’ Mardi Gras and Pampelona’s Running of the Bulls.
The format of the course will alternate seminar meetings with four open roundtable conversations, curated by Lasko and Rugg, to be held every other week during the spring quarter. These will be held at Redmoon, the Logan Center, The Cultural Center, and Homan Square Community Center. We will bring together leaders in a variety of disciplines, as well as artists, city culture workers, representatives from the Fire Festival’s core partner institutions: Young Chicago Authors, Family Focus, and Cure Violence, in conversations about the function of public art in civic life.
ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 27400. Staging Sound and Unseen Theatre.
W 10:30a- 1:20pm M. Fiksel, S.Murray (Logan Center 501)

Is "showing" always better than "telling"? Can our ears paint a better picture than our eyes? When is the thing UN-seen is what best effects our audience?
Audience - from audire (Latin) - to HEAR.
Through script analysis, discussion and multiple small collaborative performance projects, this class will explore these questions using various sound design tools such as live foley, pre-recorded sound, live music as well staging techniques - direct address, radio dramas, off-stage action, etc. Every student will be a part of several small group performances and will have a chance take on the role of the director, the designer and the performer. Prior experience in sound design or music not required. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 27500 Costume Design for the Stage.
W 1:30pm- 4:20pm Jessica Wardell (Logan 032)

In this course, students will learn the basics of designing costumes for theatrical productions, encompassing the skills of text and character analysis, theatrical rendering and sketching. Students will learn to adopt a vocabulary using the elements and principles of design, understand and experience the process intrinsic to producing costumes for the theater, analyze the production needs related to costumes, and prepare a finalized costume design for a theatrical production. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 28200. Onstage Presence.
 TH 10:30am-1:20pm  Adrian Danzig (Logan Center 701)

The relationship to ones partners is the single most predictably generative asset we have on stage. How can we use this reliable relationship to create work that is truthful and grounded in the real, so that we can forge experience with audiences rather than asking them to "suspend disbelief." In this class we will explore action and aliveness in theater performance and creation. At the very core of the theatrical act is the live interaction between the actor and her/his partners. We will look at improvisation, action art, and 500 Clown techniques as ways of finding ourselves present on stage. There will be writing (creative and papers) and reading (you know...books), but this class is mostly a time to acquire knowledge with the body. We will be stretching physically and emotionally each class period. Journaling will be required, as will clothes that allow for free movement with no flashiness or logos. (Burlap sack not required). Performance experience not required. If you're not interested in performance though, why are still reading this? 500 Clown is a Clown-theater company founded in 1999. The core members of which have developed a way of teaching performance that produces visceral and accessible theater. Adrian Danzig is the founding Artistic Director of 500 Clown. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 28500-29600 Advanced Topics (e.g. Directing, Design, Dramaturgy, Choreography) Consent of Advisor and Director of Undergraduate Studies (Heidi Coleman) NEEDED.

2012-2013

Autumn 2012

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation

Section 01 T/TH 12:00-1:20
David New (Logan Center 701)

Section 02 T/TH 1:30-2:50
David New (Logan Center 701)

Section 03 T/TH 3:00-4:20p
Devon de Mayo (Logan Center 701)

TAPS 10200 Acting Fundamentals

Section 01 T/TH 10:30-11:50
Pamela Pascoe (Bartlett Arts Rehearsal Space)

Section 02 Wed 10:30-1:20pm
Halena Kays (Logan Center 701)

TAPS 10300 Text and Performance: Dramaturgy

Instructor: David Levin
When: T/Th 12:00-1:20
Where: Logan Center 603

TAPS 10500 Text and Performance: Staging Terror

Instructor: Heidi Coleman
When: T/Th 12:00-1:20
Where: Logan Center 501

This course explores the interplay between horror, terror, and pleasure through in-class discussions of theoretical works and the possibilities of practical creative application. The paradox of the attraction to repulsion will be considered as well as the values of shock, suspense, and subtlety. Texts will include Grand Guignol, Shakespeare, Gothic Novels, and horror films. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS IS MANDATORY

TAPS 10700 Intro to Stage Design

Instructor: Matthew Gawryk
When: T/Th 10:30-11:50
Where: Logan Center Shop

TAPS 15000 Beginning Playwriting

Instructor: Seth Bockley
When: W 10:30-1:20
Where: Logan Center 501

This course is a writing workshop introducing students to the art of playwriting. The workshop introduces a range of strategies for writing dramatic text, with a special focus on the playwright as collaborator, use of source materials and found text, and the writer’s relationship to practices of staging and styles of performance. Students read several contemporary and classic plays from a range of styles to develop a playwriting vocabulary that includes the concepts of character, dramatic action, voice and mise-en-scene. Students write three complete scenes in contrasting styles over the course of the quarter and engage in active discussion of the writing presented by their colleagues during each workshop session. Writers are required to complete weekly exercises and post responses to the reading list on a class website.ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 15500 Beginning Screenwriting

Instructor: John Petrakis
When: Tuesday 1:30 - 4:20
Where: Logan Center 603

TAPS 21700 Acting: An Actor Observes

Instructor: Pamela Pascoe
When: Tuesday 1:30-4:20
Where: Bartlett Arts Rehearsal Space

This course addresses techniques and modes of observation and their application to scene study. Observation study is used to strengthen acting choices, build the physical world of the play, and create original, vital characterizations. It also serves to deepen awareness of group dynamics, integrate symbolic, psychological and physical meaning in a character's behavior, and guide the process of breaking down a scene. Students will perform observation exercises and apply their discoveries to scene work. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY

TAPS 23000 Introduction to Directing

Instructor: Andrew Hobgood
When: Mon/Wed 1:30-2:50
Where: Logan Center 501

This course employs a practice in the fundamental theory of play direction and the role of the director in collaboration with the development of textual analysis. By examining five diversely different texts and using the director supported play analysis, Backwards and Forwards, students will begin developing a method of directing for the stage in support of the written text. In alternating weeks, students will implement textual analysis in building an understanding of directorial concept, theme, imagery and staging through rehearsal and in-class presentations of three-minute excerpts from the play analysis the previous week. The class will culminate with a final five-minute scene combining the tools of direction with a method of analysis devised over the ten week course. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 23600 Improv and Sketch

Instructor: Susan Messing
When: Monday 10:30-12:20
Where: Logan Center 701

TAPS 23700 Playwriting: Creating Natural Dialogue for the Stage

Instructor: Evan Linder
When: Tuesday 1:30-4:20
Where: Logan Center 501

This course employs collaboration among the students to help each individual writer create natural dialogue for the stage. Students will utilize improvisation to write a contemporary scene focusing on the natural rhythms and nuances of modern communication. Through these improvisations, the students create a framework for their narrative with a special focus on developing unique voices for each character. Students read scenes from contemporary plays which emphasize spontaneous and realistic dialogue. Students have weekly assignments that further explore the characters they are writing. Each class includes an active roundtable discussion of the weekly assignments as well as collaborative exercises that further explores the voices of their characters. In addition to the weekly assignments, students write two complete scenes that will receive readings by their classmates. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 25200 “NeoFuturist” Performance Workshop

Instructor: Greg Allen
When: Thursday 3:00-5:50
Where: Logan Center 501

This course is a hands-on introduction to Neo-Futurism - a method of transforming your own thoughts, feelings, and experiences into creative, task-oriented, audience-participatory, non-illusory, unique theatrical events. Students will be encouraged to find their own voice as fully rounded theater artists by writing, directing and performing their own short performances using their own lives as source material. By pursuing the goal of absolute truth on stage, the class will focus on an alternative to narrative Realism by embracing such elements as deconstruction, found-text, collage, abstraction, sythesis, and chaos. Classes will consist of original group exercises as well as presentations of weekly performance assignments. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY

TAPS 26100 Dance Composition

Instructor: Julia Rhoads
When: Monday 2:30 - 5:20
Where: Logan Center 701

TAPS 27500 Costume Design for the Stage

Instructor: Nathan Rohrer
When: Monday 3:00-5:50
Where: Logan Center Costume Shop

In this course, students will learn the basics of designing costumes for theatrical productions, encompassing the skills of theatrical rendering and sketching, as well as the implementation of the design and basic sewing techniques. Students will learn to adopt a vocabulary using the elements and principles of design, understand and experience the process intrinsic to the producing costumes for the theatre, analyze the production needs related to costumes, and prepare a finalized costume design for a theatrical production.

TAPS 27100 Scene Painting

Instructor: Jessica Wardell
When: Thursday 3:00-5:50
Where: Logan Center Scene Shop

TAPS 27600 Manual Cinema

Instructor: Drew Dir and Sarah Fornace
When: Monday 3:00 - 5:50
Where: Logan Center 501

Manual Cinema’s work combines handmade shadow puppetry, cinematic motifs, and live sound manipulation to create immersive theatrical stories. In this course, students will collaborate with Manual Cinema company members on the development of a new work. In the process, we will explore the theory and practice of creating a live cinematic experience, especially through the techniques of shadow puppetry, staging, sound design, and music. Critical thinking about the aesthetic parameters of theater, cinema, and liveness will be central to the creative and theoretical work of the course. (A special track will be offered for musicians and sound designers; for these students, experience with audio editing software is encouraged but not required. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 28400 History and Theory of Drama - I

Instructor: David Bevington/John Muse
When: T/TH 1:30-2:50
Where: Stuart 102

TAPS 28449 The Interaction of Light and Matter: Art and Science

Instructor: Sidney Nagel and Jamie Carpenter
When: Fridays 9:30am - 12:20
Where: TBA

(= ARTV 25412 / 35412, PHYS 30100) Co-taught by a physicist and an architect/designer, this experimental studio course taught in the new Logan Center for the Arts explores the relationship between light and matter with a special focus upon low-level light. Topics include: light phenomena as they are perceived within various environments as well as the physiological and cultural impact of light. Instructors: Sidney Nagel, Stein-Freiler Distinguished Service Professor, Department of Physicsand Visiting Architect/Designer Jamie Carpenter of James Carpenter Design Associates, Inc.
The course will be aimed primarily at advanced undergraduates and interested graduate students from multiple disciplines. Students will establish collaborative partnerships and working groups. Each group will document its investigations for class presentations and ultimately for publication and produce a ‘work’ that demonstrates or allows the experience of a ‘low-light phenomenon’.
This course is sponsored by the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry and the Mellon Residential Fellowship for Arts Practice and Scholarship Program, which is supporting a long-term experimental collaboration between Nagel and Carpenter. Open to PhD, MA, and advanced undergraduate students from a wide variety of fields by permission only. For permission, please send a paragraph describing your background and interest in the course to lbdanzig@uchicago.edu.

TAPS 28455 Transmedia Games: Theory and Design

Instructor: Patrick Jagoda
When: Thursday 3:00 - 6:00pm
Where: TBA

(= ENG 25953) This experimental course explores the emerging game genre of “transmedia,” “pervasive,” or “alternate reality” gaming. Transmedia games are not bound by any single medium or hardware system. Conventionally, they use the real world as their primary platform while incorporating text, video, audio, social media, live performance, phone calls, email, websites, and locative technologies. The stories that organize most of these games are nonlinear and broken into discrete pieces that audiences must discover and actively reassemble. Players of these games must generally collaborate to solve puzzles. Throughout the quarter, we will approach new media theory through the history, aesthetics, and design of transmedia games. For all of their novelty, these games build on the narrative strategies of novels, the performative role-playing of theater, the branching narratives of electronic literature, the procedural qualities of videogames, and the team dynamics of sports contests. Moreover, their genealogical roots stretch back to a diverse series of gaming practices such as nineteenth-centuryEnglish “letterboxing,”the Polish tradition of “podchody,” scavenger hunts,assassination games, and pervasive Live Action Role-Playing games. An understanding of these related forms will be critical to our analytical and creative work.

TAPS 28456 Mediating Japanese Gesture

Instructor: Reginald Jackson
When: TBD
Where: WB 301N

(=EALC 41920) This course takes up gesture as a concept through which to explore the relationship between Performance Studies and Japanese Studies. Through close readings of literary, cinematic, and theoretical texts, we will examine a range of issues related to embodiment in Japanese culture. What is gesture and how should we understand the aesthetic and political work it performs? How does technological medium alter the shape and significance of bodily movements? The centerpiece of the course will be a two-week residency by award-winning choreographer and filmaker Yasuko Yokoshi during which she will engage students as she develops her newest dance composition, which melds Kabuki and ballet. Students will develop skills of performance analysis and critical writing. Readings by Tanizaki, Sontag, Sedwick, Zeami, Lamarre, Berlant, J. Butler, A. Lippit, Kittler, Uchino.

TAPS 28464 The Martial Arts Tradition in Chinese Cinema

Instructor: Judith Zeitlin
When: T/Th 1:30 -2:50
Where: Cobb

(=EALC 24323/34323) This year’s course focuses on the martial arts film in Hong Kong cinema, in conjunction with a special quarter-long series on this topic at Doc Films. We will pay particular attention to the wuxia genre, tracing the genealogy of the chivalric code in the Chinese literary and performing tradition, and examining its continuous reinvention in the films of masters like King Hu, Chang Cheh, Bruce Lee, and Tsui Hark. Recurrent issues to be examined include the representation of violence, fantasy, and nationalism; the interplay between body, film style, and technology; the performance of masculinity and femininity; and the complex interactions between the global and local in today’s trans-national film culture.

TAPS 28500-29600 Advanced Topics (e.g. Directing, Design, Dramaturgy, Choreography)

Consent of Advisor and Director of Undergraduate Studies (Heidi Coleman) NEEDED

TAPS 29800 BA Colloq

Instructor: Heidi Coleman
When: Friday 3:00-4:20p
Alternating Weeks
Where: TBA

Winter 2013

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation

Section 01
TR 1:30p-2:50p
Seth Bockley (Logan Center 501)

TAPS 10200. Acting Fundamentals

Section 01
T 1:30-4:20pm
Halena Kays (Logan Center 701)

Course meets the General Education Requirement in the Dramatic, Musical, and Visual Arts. PQ: Prior theater or acting training not required. This course introduces fundamental concepts of performance in the theater with emphasis on the development of creative faculties and techniques of observation, as well as vocal and physical interpretation. Concepts are introduced through directed reading, improvisation, and scene study. ATTENDANCE AT THE FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 15500. Beginning Screenwriting

Section 01
T 1:30-4:20p
John Petrakis (Logan Center 603)

TAPS 21600. Acting Workshop

Section 01
M 1:30-4:20p
Audrey Francis (Logan Center 501)

TAPS 23800. Playwriting: Writing Utilizing Improvisation

Section 01
W 10:30-1:20p
Evan Linder (Logan Center 501)

This course incorporates the spontaneity and freedom allowed by improvisation into the writing process. In addition to focusing on the natural rhythms and nuances of modern communication, the class will also learn to write for individual performers and ensembles. Through these improvisations, the students focus on developing unique voices for each character. Students read scenes from contemporary plays which emphasize spontaneous and realistic dialogue. Students have weekly assignments that further explore the characters they are writing. Each class includes an active roundtable discussion of the weekly assignments as well as collaborative exercises that further explores the voices of their characters. In addition to the weekly assignments, students write three complete scenes that will receive readings by their classmates. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.

TAPS 24000. Director/Designer Collaboration

Section 01
T 3:00-5:50p
Heidi Coleman & Jessica Wardell (Logan Center 601)

TAPS 24900. New Colony Performance Workshop

Section 01
R 1:30-4:20p
Evan Linder & Andrew Hobgood (Logan Center 701)

The course will employ an ensemble-based method to devising new work by utilizing the process of Chicago theatre company The New Colony. Starting with nothing more than a concept or brief outline, The New Colony process draws fro the ensemble's areas of expertise and develops all of the moving parts of the story before any part of the script is solidified. The process is grounded in the idea that there are three fields of creative expertise in any production: the actors are experts in who the characters and how they think and feel at any given moment, the playwright is the expert on the story, and the directors and designers are experts on the audience experience. Classes will include a collaborative devising of story and character monologues, as well as presentations of weekly performance assignments. Winter Course culminates in UT/TAPS mainstage production as cast member in premiere of work. Casting in class, assumes acting in the spring production to be rehearsed in spring quarter and perform 5th and 6th week. ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.CONSENT ONLY.

TAPS 24700. Examining Greek Tragedy

Section 01
M 10:30-1:20p
Sean Graney (Logan Center 501)

This course is designed to submerge students in the process of creating a script that adapts all of the surviving Greek Tragedies. We will read classic translations as well as the adaptations prepared by the instructor; there will be discussions comparing and contrasting. This course will also discuss the relevancy of Greek Tragedy for contemporary audiences and their relation to contemporary plays.

TAPS 28100. Lighting Design for the Stage

Section 01
R 3-5:50p
Matthew Gawryk (Logan Center 501)

TAPS 28200. Onstage Presence

Section 01
M 1:30-4:20p
Adrian Danzig (Logan Center 701)

TAPS 28436. Lohengrin Laboratory: Opera, Dramaturgy, and Stage Practice

Section 01
W 1:30- 4:30p
David Levin, Majel Connery (Logan Center 901)

GRMN 29113/39113 (TAPS 28436, MUSI 39113/29113). In 2014, the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) will stage a production of Salvatore Sciarrino's *Lohengrin* directed by Majel Connery, Executive Director of Opera Cabal, an experimental opera company based in New York City and Chicago. This team-taught, interdisciplinary seminar will serve as a laboratory for the production. The first half of the class explores in depth the work’s genesis (Wagner’s opera, *Lohengrin*) and subsequent adaptation (a short story by Symbolist poet Jules Laforgue which, in turn, is re-adapted for opera by Sciarrino). As a class we will cultivate a fluency with the theoretical stakes of these multiple *Lohengrins* (including Alain Badiou’s and Adorno’s writings on Wagner, Michel Poizat on voice, and Slavoj Zizek/Mladen Dolar on opera, voice and the gaze) in order, finally, to develop a suite of mini-Lohengrins—group-based scenic reflections and solutions. No previous experience staging opera is expected, although an interest in exploring the intersection of textual exegesis, conceptual analysis, and stage practice is essential. Students with an interest in any of the following are especially welcome: contemporary music, performance theory, dramaturgy, design, and/or directing. Instructors: Majel Connery (Executive Director, Opera Cabal, NYC/Chicago) and David Levin (Germanic Studies, Theater & Performance Studies, Cinema and Media Studies, and Director of the Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry). ATTENDANCE AT FIRST CLASS SESSION IS MANDATORY.CONSENT ONLY.

TAPS 28500-29600 Advanced Topics (e.g. Directing, Design, Dramaturgy, Choreography)
Consent of Advisor and Director of Undergraduate Studies (Heidi Coleman) NEEDED

TAPS 29800. BA Colloq

Section 01
F 11:30-1:20p Alternating Weeks
Jay Torrence (Logan Center 501)

Spring 2013

TAPS 10100. Drama: Embodiment & Transformation

Section 01
TR 10:30a-11:50a
Pamela Pascoe (BARS)

Section 02
TR 12-1:20p
Pamela Pascoe (BARS)

Section 03
TR 4:30-5:50p
Drew Dir (BARS)

Course meets the General Education Requirement in the Dramatic, Musical, and Visual Arts. This course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. Students examine the performance and the aesthetics of two dramatic works in contrasting styles but with unifying themes. The goal of the course is to develop in the students an appreciation and understanding of a variety of techniques and of the processes by which they are theatrically realized. Rather than focus on the dramatic text itself, this course concentrates on the piece in performance, including the impact of cultural context on interpretation. To achieve this, students are required to act, direct, and design during the course. Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory.

TAPS 10200. Acting Fundamentals

Section 01
TR 12-1:20p
David New (Logan Center 701)

Section 02
T 1:30-4:20p
C. Sullivan (Logan Center 501)

TAPS 10300. Text and Performance

Section 01
T 1:30-4:20p
P. Pascoe (BARS)

Section 02
TR 9-10:20a
L. Kruger (COBB 425)

Section 03
R 10:30a- 1:20p
Halena Kays (Logan Center 501)

Course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. Many contemporary plays purposely eschew traditional forms of realistic staging, yet most contemporary theater makers are only trained to execute traditional, realistic scenes. This course is a reading of several plays and essays to learn to look at a play with an adaptable, creative mind. We develop tools that draw from contemporary theorists and non-realistic theorists of the past. The goal is to provide students with a wide theatrical vocabulary with which to approach these contemporary plays with ideas that they may not have witnessed before. Experience in dramatic analysis or performance not required. Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory.

TAPS 10400. Text and Performance: Staging Secrecy

Section 01
M 10:30a-1:20p
Seth Bockley (Logan Center 501)

Course meets the general education requirement in the dramatic, musical, and visual arts. What are the dynamics of a secret society, a closed community? This research-based course will examine alternative staging practices using found texts from American history and popular culture. From the Manhattan Project to Scientology to Alcoholics Anonymous, secrecy and closed and intentional communities are part of the lifeblood of American culture. This course will investigate codes, cryptography, double meanings and exclusionary groups and their possible manifestations onstage. Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory.

TAPS 10700. Introduction to Stage Design

Section 01
TR 4:30-5:50p
Matt Gawyrk (Logan Center 501)

Course explores the application of the visual and aural arts to the varied forms of design for the stage (i.e., scenic, lighting, costume, sound). We pay particular attention to the development of a cogent and well-reasoned analysis of text and an articulate use of the elements of design through a set of guided practical projects. Lab Fee is required. Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory.

TAPS 21600. Acting Workshop

Section 01
M 1:30-4:20p
Audrey Francis (Logan Center 501)

This advanced acting course will prep you for the professional industry. The classes are based on the Meisner Technique and the Black Box Acting Studio Method. You will work on technique, auditions and learn to consistently bring your full self to the table. Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. CONSENT ONLY.

TAPS 23500. Aerial and Circus with Actors Gymnasium

Section 01
R 3-5:50p
N. Drackett (Logan Center 701)

Students gain an introduction to Aerial & Circus Arts, developing a basic skill set while increasing their strength and flexibility. Skills covered in class may include: trapeze, silks, lyra, unicycling, juggling, tightrope, tumbling, acro and Spanish web. While no acrobatic experience is necessary to enroll in this class, it is recommended that participants be in good physical health. Students should wear comfortable clothes to class, being aware that they will be, at times, upside down. Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. CONSENT ONLY via APPROVAL FORM.

TAPS 23900. Playwriting: Sketch to Play

Section 01
W 10:30a-1:20p
Evan Linder (Logan Center 501)

TAPS 24500. Chicago Theater: Budgets and Buildings

Section 01
R 1:30-4:20p
Heidi Coleman (Logan Center –Theater West)

This course examines the current state of Chicago theater, focusing on the relationships between facilities, budgets, and missions. Field trips required to venues including Side Project, Timeline, Raven, Steppenwolf, Theater Building, and Green House. Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory.

TAPS 24600. Developing Mozart

Section 01
T 1:30-4:20
Heidi Coleman (Logan Center 701)

Working with Broadway producers, Gregory Young and Atanas Ilitch, this class rises to to the challenge of developing a book and lyrics for the contemporary French musical, Mozart, l'Opera Rock. Within the course of ten weeks, we will translate the original, and adapt it for an American audience, with the potential of our work being realized in the ultimate production. This class seeks those interested in the challenge, with a passion for script development and musicals. Those with French verbal skills also highly encouraged. Attendance at all classes is mandatory. CONSENT ONLY. No email requests will be considered.

TAPS 25500. Advanced Screenwriting

Section 01
T 1:30-4:20p
J. Petrakis (Logan Center 603)

This course requires students to complete the first draft of a feature-length screenplay (at least ninety pages in length), based on an original idea brought to the first or second class. No adaptations or partially completed scripts are allowed. Weekly class sessions include reading of script pages and critique by classmates and instructor. PQ:TAPS 27311, and consent of instructor based on eight-page writing sample in screenplay format. Limited class size. Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. CONSENT ONLY via APPROVAL FORM.

TAPS 27800. Story through Music and Sound

Section 01
M 1:30-4:20p
M. Milburn & R. Bodeen (Logan Center 003)

This course will explore ways in which music and sound can be used to tell and support a story in the theatre. We will examine how in the simplest moment to the more layered and complex, music and sound are used to create time, place or emotional context. We will analyze the connections of plot, dialogue, music and sound in the theatre. We will also be learning the basics of Pro Tools and sound system design enabling us to create our own audio productions interacting with live performance. Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory. CONSENT ONLY.

TAPS 28000. Scenic Design

Section 01
TR 10:30-11:50a
Jessica Wardell (Logan Center 401)

This course is an exploration of various forms and processes of designing sets for theatrical performance. We pay particular attention to a cohesive reading of a text, contextual and historical exploration, and visual and thematic research, as well as the documentation needed to complete a show (e.g., model, drafting, paint elevations). We also explore, nominally, the history of stage design and look at major trends in modern stage design. PQ:TAPS 10700 or consent of instructor required; previous experience in stage design or visual art recommended. Attendance at first class meeting is mandatory.

Video

TAPS Teaching Arists. Video credit: Sean Raju

TAPS Artists on Teaching. Video credit: Sean Raju

TAPS integrating Art and Teaching. Video credit: Sean Raju