This class is designed as a Zero Textbook Cost course with the support of the CUNY GC Open Knowledge Fellowship. There are no required textbooks for this class and all the required readings and watchings are organized on this page and embedded in the weekly breakdown. Please read texts carefully and watch the assigned videos before the class, come to class prepared with your own thoughts and questions to discuss the assigned texts for the day.

Weekly Breakdown

 

M Aug.29     Introduction to syllabus

Due short response 1#: A recipe for yourself

Collective writing of ground rules in class

 

 

M Sep.12   What’s (not) Theatre

Read: Elinor Fuchs: “EF’s Visit to a Small Planet: Some Questions to Ask a Play”

Watch: In Miami, Making Live Theatre During the Pandemic

Watch: Peter Brook Conversations about Theatre

 

M Sep. 19    Disrupting Audience as Monolith

Due short response 2# (Im)possible task with a budget of $10

Read: Chapter 24 “Ethics in audience research” in The Routledge Companion to Audiences and the Performing Arts

Read: Simpson Hannah (2018). Tics in the Theatre: The Quiet Audience, the Relaxed Performance, and the Neurodivergent Spectator. Theatre Topics, 28(3), 227–238.

Watch: Chinchilla Arsehole, eyey by Rimini Protokoll

 

 

Thu Sep. 29  Acting: Decolonizing Shakespeare with Japanese Noh theater

 Read: Monica Alcantar (2021). Shakespeare on the Edge of Intercultural Theatre: Lear Dreaming by Ong Keng Sen, a New Nō Performance. Antropologia e Teatro, 13, 121–155.

 Read: King Lear by William Shakespeare

 Watch: Lear Dreaming by Ong Keng Sen

 

M Oct. 3      Acting: Decolonizing Stanislavski with Boal’s Technique

Due short response 3# Your Theatre Manifesto

Read: Antonia Pereira Bezerra (2015). “Truth on Stage, Truth in Life: Boal and Stanislavski.” Revista Brasileira de Estudos da Presença 5, no. 2 (2015): 413–430. 

Watch: Augusto Boal’s talk at the ATHE Conference (1992) and the performance Legislative Theater (1990).

 

M Oct. 17     Afrocentric Approaches of Directing

Read: Clinnesha Sibley (2016). Chapter 7 “Remembering, rewriting and re-imagining: Afrocentric approaches to directing new work for the theatre.” In Black Acting Methods. Taylor & Francis.

Read: Jasim, & Janoory, L. (2018). Oppression and Emancipation of African American Women in Suzan Lori Parks’ Venus. International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature, 7(7), 142–148. 

Explore the rehearsal videos, interviews, and set design of Venus directed by Lear deBessonet at Signature Theatre in 2017.

 

M Oct 24      Designs on Stage: Can Sunset Tell a Story?

Due short response 4# Visual Language

Watch Introduction to Lighting Design            

Try Out: Color and Gobo Labs

 

M Oct 31    Midterm Check-in, Self-Evaluation, and Peer Review 

Due Performance Review First Draft

 

M Nov 7     Costume Design

Read: Stephen Curtis & Neil Armfield. (2014). “Chapter 5 Communicating Our Ideas Visually,” “Chapter 9 Using Characters as Design Tool” in Staging Ideas: Set and Costume Design for Theatre. Sydney: Currency Press.

Watch: Introduction to Costume Design

 

 M Nov 14   Unpack Final Creative Project

Due one-paragraph creative project proposal

 

M Nov 21   Dramatic Literature: Greek Tragedy and Adaptation 

Due Performance Review Final Draft

Read: Antigone by Sophocles

Watch: Sophocles in Staten Island by Ma-Yi Theatre Company

 

M Nov 28   Dramatic Literature: Theater of Absurd and Community Theatre

Due short response 5# Why adaptation?

Read: Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Watch the interview of Paul Chan’s motivation for the production in the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans

Explore Paul Chan’s project Waiting for Godot in New Orleans (2009)

 

M Dec 5    Creative Project Presentation

 

M Dec 12   Creative Project Presentation