Global Arc

This course is an exploration of physical performance techniques that place the embodied actor at the center of the process of theatrical creation. In a progressive set of exercises, students investigate movement dynamics, and unlock creative pathways within their bodies, minds and imaginations. Preparatory techniques lay the foundation for improvisations which make use of theatrical masks as tools for deepening play. Through playfulness, students embark on a journey toward the core of their own bodies, in relationship to the movements of the life.

Messaging is an art and most people are bad at it. Maysoon is here to teach you how to effectively amplify your message using social media, written word, and public appearances as well as how to do damage control. Students will participate in panels, mock interviews, and will design their own podcast. They will develop a 7 minute talk on their message that will be performed in front of a live Princeton audience.

This course investigates the history of theatre and performance in the United States during the past two centuries. Through archival excavations, bibliographic exercises, and close examinations of theatre history methodologies, and through a deep engagement with human and archival resources local to Princeton, this course undertakes an intensive introduction to the use of primary documents within both performance scholarship and performance practice (playwriting, directing, design, devised performance, etceteras).

Comedian Maysoon Zayid will transform students from boring to hilarious in under 14 weeks. Each comic will leave this class with a ready for primetime, original stand-up comedy set. The class will tackle how comedy intersects with under represented groups, how to make fun of your family and deal with being disowned, song parodies and politics, and will culminate in a final comedy show on campus.

A hands-on approach to this interdisciplinary field. We will apply key readings in performance theory to space and time-based events, at sites ranging from theatre, experimental art, and film, to community celebrations, sport events, and restaurant dining. We will observe people's behavior in everyday life as performance and discuss the "self" through the performativity of one's gender, race, class, ability, and more. We will also practice ethnographic methods to collect stories to adapt for performance and address the role of the participant-observer, thinking about ethics and the social responsibilities of this work.

The preparation, rehearsal and presentation of scenes from classic and contemporary plays, from Chekhov and Ibsen to Tony Kusher and Lynn Nottage. We will use the techniques and principles found in Uta Hagen's book, Respect for Acting. Skills: understanding and activating the event of the scene; mining behavior; authentic engagement with scene partners; transformation of self. Discover the level of action and commitment needed to fulfill the life of the play.

From the spirits and banshees of oral legends to Bram Stoker's Dracula, from the classic works of Yeats, Synge and Beckett to Garth Ennis's Preacher comics and Anne Rice's Vampire novels, Irish culture has been haunted by the Otherworld. Why has the Irish Gothic had such a long ghostly afterlife on page and stage? Can we learn something about modernist works like those of Yeats and Beckett by seeing them through the perspective of popular fictions of the supernatural?

This course delves into a collaborative, ethnographic approach to making theater. We will read, watch and discuss the work of subculture theorists, theater-makers and other artists and thinkers, all of whom use staged conversations as the basis for characters, scenes and entire works. We will hash out ethics and responsibilities for those of us who engage communities outside our own.What does it mean to take responsibility for someone else's words, write them down, and give them back? What is it like to put the words of a stranger in your mouth? Finally, we will make theatrical material using this approach for an end of semester showing.

A continuation of work begun in Introductory Playwriting, in this class, students will complete either one full-length play or two long one-acts (40-60 pages) to the end of gaining a firmer understanding of characterization, dialogue, structure, and the playwriting process. In addition to questions of craft, an emphasis will be placed on the formation of healthy creative habits and the sharpening of critical and analytical skills through reading and responding to work of both fellow students and contemporary playwrights of note.

Devising Theater with Youth is a service learning course that will promote experiential learning for both Princeton University students and children from Community House, an on-campus afterschool program. This hands-on course will provide an opportunity for Princeton students to elicit the voices of children, interweave them into a theatrical play, and create a collaborative community event around the culminating performance. Students will learn and apply essential contemporary theories and foundational practices of community-based devising technique.