Global Arc

In this Princeton Challenge course, students will participate in building a relationship between a historically significant Black theater company, Crossroads Theater in New Brunswick, and the university community. Co-taught by Sydne Mahone, Director of play development at Crossroads 1985-1997, students will research the theater through its people and its art, while making the role of women in Black art-making more visible. Students will learn oral history techniques, interview significant theater makers, and develop their own creative responses. Our collective work will culminate in creating roadmaps for continuing community relationship.

This workshop, open to playwrights, actors, directors, dramaturgs, designers, stage managers, or enthusiastic observers, aims to provide practical and theoretical techniques for collaboration on the development of new plays. Students will develop a toolbox of methods rooted in mutual respect and shared goals, as we focus on creating positive, fruitful working relationships via readings and hands-on exercises. The culmination of the course will be an evening of ten-minute plays written and developed by the class.

This course explores the many different ways in which the whole idea of a distinctively Irish theatre has been transformed every few decades, from Wilde and Shaw's subversions of England, to the search of Yeats and Synge for an authentic rural Ireland, to the often angry critiques of contemporary Ireland by Murphy, Friel and Carr. Plays of the Irish diaspora (O'Neill and McDonagh) are examined in this context. The course will also explore the ways in which ideas of physicality and performance, including the popular spectacle of Riverdance, have conflicted with and challenged Irish theatre's peculiar devotion to poetic language.

An exploration of the various aspects of costume design. Emphasis will depend to some degree on instructor's area of interest and/or student interest. Studio projects will be designed to coincide with other theater and dance courses and currently scheduled productions. Critical discussion will explore the relationship between dramatic texts and design ideas. Two three-hour seminars or studio sessions.

An introduction to the art and craft of lighting design for live performance and an exploration of light as a medium for expression. Students will develop an ability to observe lighting in the world and on the stage; to learn to make lighting choices based on text, space, research, and their own responses; to practice being creative, responsive and communicative under pressure and in company; to prepare well to create under pressure using the designer's visual toolbox; and to play well with others-working creatively and communicating with directors, writers, performers, fellow designers, the crew and others.

An introduction to the art and craft of scenic design for the stage and and exploration of the use of space as a medium of textual interpretation. Students will develop an ability to think about scenography as a way deepening and reinforcing an interpretation of a play or other form of performance event. While no experience in scenic design is anticipated, students will learn to create model renderings in order to acquire the creative, theatrical vocabulary needed to work with collaborators to turn a vision of text into a fully articulated visual world.

An opportunity to explore what theatrical sound design is, how to look at a text from the point of view of sound, how to launch your creative process, and how to take the ideas based on that creative process and turn them into sounds to be used in a show. Students will also learn how to communicate their ideas, palate, and the arc of their design in a way that demonstrates to directors how they will fulfull the director's vision while embracing their own artistry and response to the text.

A workshop devoted to the development of the student's critical sensibility. Through extensive in-class analysis of their own reviews of professional theater and dance productions and through the study of past and present models, students will learn what makes a good critic of the performing arts. One three-hour seminar.

This course examines basic ethical controversies in public life. What rights do persons have at the beginning and end of life? Do people have moral claims to unequal economic rewards or is economic distribution properly subject to political design for the sake of social justice? Do we have significant moral obligations to distant others? Other possible topics include toleration (including the rights of religious and cultural minorities), racial and gender equity, and just war.

This course will explore how women's rights activists, lawyers, and legal scholars have considered legal institutions and law to be arenas and resources for transforming women's lives and gender norms, identities, and roles. Since the early 1970s, feminist legal scholars and lawyers have challenged traditional understandings of law and the core civic values of freedom, justice, and equality. Others have questioned whether litigation-centered approaches to reform have harmed more than helped advance the goal of women's equality and liberation.