Full Course Listing
TSDA 0030 - Introduction to Acting and Directing
Explores basic acting/directing concepts from a variety of perspectives including the use of the actor's imagination/impulsivity in the creation of truthful, dramatic performance; the body, as a way of knowing and communicating knowledge; and the voice, as a means of discovering and revealing emotion/thought. Areas of emphasis vary with instructor. First year students only.
More information on this course and its mandatory orientation meeting, as well as syllabi and other handouts, can be found here.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 0060 - Introduction to Playwriting Workshop
A workshop for students with little or no previous playwriting experience: practicum and theory in various playwriting styles and techniques. Weekly writing assignments and analyses, and development of a major play. Playwriting courses are also available in the Department of Literary Arts. Instructor permission required.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 0100 - Playwriting I
A workshop for students who have little or no previous experience in writing plays. Students will be introduced to a variety of technical and imaginative considerations through exercises, readings and discussions. Course is not open to those who have taken Advanced Playwriting (TSDA 1500, formerly LITR 1010C). Enrollment is limited to 17 undergraduates per section. A limited number of spaces are reserved for incoming and transfer students. S/NC.
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 0200 - Playwriting II
Emphasis is placed on dramatic conventions, such as monologues, dialogue, mise-en-scene and time. Writing includes frequent exercises in various theatrical approaches. This course is limited to undergraduate students. Instructor permission is required. Prerequisite: TSDA 0100 (formerly LITR 0110C). All writing samples should be sent by the first day of class electronically to Erik_Ehn@Brown.edu with "PW II Sample" in the subject line. Permission will be given once the manuscripts have been reviewed. S/NC.
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 0220 - Persuasive Communication
Provides an introduction to public speaking, and helps students develop confidence in public speaking through the presentation of persuasive speeches. Primarily for seniors. Limited to 18. Instructor's permission required. No permission will be given during pre-registration; interested students should sign up well in advance on the TSDA 0220 waitlist (click here for the sign-up form) and attend the first day of class. Attendance is mandatory.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 0230 - Acting
Focus on elements of dramatic analysis and interpretation as applied to the art of acting, and, by extension, directing. Monologues, scene study, and improvisation are basis for comment on individual problems. Reading of dramatic texts and theory. Substantial scene rehearsal commitment necessary. Attendance mandatory. Not open to first-year students. Submit letter of application and sign up for interview. Deadlines for submission will vary. Contact the professor for details. Written permission required.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 0250 - Introduction to Technical Theatre and Production
This course is an introduction to the basic principles of stagecraft, lighting and sound technology and the different elements of theatrical design. Enrollment limited to 15.
0.000 OR 1.000 Credit Hours
0.000 OR 1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Conference, Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 0260 - Stage Lighting
Through the study of classical paintings, film noir, pencil drawing, poetry and script analysis students will learn how to compose and focus light so as to be able to express artistic mood and vision.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
*TSDA 0270 - Clothing and the Human Experience: Costume History
A survey of the history and concepts of clothing with a strong emphasis on the art, artists, and political-social movements influencing each major period. Aims to give the theatre designer an increased knowledge of research approaches and resources. The application of historical materials to stage-worthy costumes are discussed. Lab required.
0.000 OR 1.000 Credit Hours
0.000 OR 1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Lab, Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
*TSDA 0280 - Costume Design and the Theatre
Introduction to the various elements of costume design in all performance forms and media. Examines the role of the costume designer in relation to other theatre artists. Stresses research techniques and their application. Lab required.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 0310 - Beginning Modern Dance
Introduction to the art of movement. Focuses on building a common vocabulary based on ballet, vernacular forms, improvisation, Laban movement analysis, American modern dance, and the body therapies. Individual work is explored. One and one-half hours of class, four days a week.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 0320 - Dance Composition
Focuses on building the individual's creative voice. A movement vocabulary is developed from Western techniques (ballet, American modern dance, Laban/Bartenieff movement analysis, vernacular forms, space-harmony/movement physics, and the body therapies) along with group improvisations and collaboration with artists in other disciplines.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 0330 - Mande Dance, Music and Culture
This introductory course examines, by theory and praxis, the techniques and philosophy of dance in Mande culture. Selected dances, songs and rhythms are taught as conveyors of cultural tenets, regional variation, and national trends.
Students must be injury-free and physically fit to complete the requirements of this course.
0.000 OR 1.000 Credit Hours
0.000 OR 1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Conference, Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 0410 - Persuasion and Public Controversy
Examines the role of persuasion in defining controversial public issues and producing social agreements and judgments. Includes units on classical, symbolic, and institutional perspectives on persuasion. The overall goal is to improve our critical consumption of public argumentation. No background in argument is required or assumed. Preference given to first- and second-year students.
0.000 OR 1.000 Credit hours
0.000 OR 1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Conference, Primary Meeting
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
*TSDA 0500 – Topics
No Description Available
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Do not Schedule
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 0500D - Surveillance, Performance and Culture
This course will introduce students to a range of social, political and artistic applications of surveillance technologies in the 20th and 21st Centuries. Through a mix of theoretical and practical explorations, students will examine surveillance technologies as tools of socio-political discipline as well as tools of performance in social and artistic frameworks. From artists using technologies of surveillance to create interactive performance and installation works, such as The Surveillance Camera Players, institute for Applied Autonomy and the Shunt Collective, to social software systems such as Facebook, we will explore the ways in which we have culturally embraced and responded to techniques and technologies of surveillance in our aesthetics and everyday lives.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 0800 - First Year Seminar
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Do not Schedule
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
Course Attributes: First Year Seminar
TSDA 0800A - 21st Century American Drama
This course is designed to familiarize students with contemporary American playwriting from 2000-2007. We will explore how these plays and performances reflect our current moment. Playwrights may include Jorge Cortinas, Sarah Ruhl, Tony Kushner, Juliana Francis, Young Jean Lee and Carl Hancock Rux. This is a first year seminar. Upperclassmen should take the course when offered as TSDA 1650.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
Course Attributes: First Year Seminar
*TSDA 0910 – Study at RISD
Eligible for consideration for credit are courses in beginning architecture, apparel design, patterning, water color, and graphics. Specific courses cannot be named until after the RISD catalog is issued. A list of courses approved for cross-registration will be posted in the registrar's office and the theatre arts office. This credit is only valid for theatre arts concentrators.
TSDA 0930 - The Actor's Instrument
Advanced vocal and physical technique for performers. Development of the actor's voice and body with the goal of increasing their effective use as the means of artistic expression on the stage and, by extension, in the media. Emphasis will vary. Course may be repeated for credit, with permission of TSDA concentration advisor. Prerequisite: TSDA 0230. Enrollment limited to 16. S/NC only.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 0930A - The Actor's Instrument: Voice
A complete and well-seasoned actor has the ability to perform with specificity and ease, both vocally and physically. Specificity comes from an integration of speech and movement technique. Ease is only possible when a mastery of technical skills reaches the point where the actor can integrate them without loss of spontaneity. This is a life long process that begins by learning the fundamentals of technique and the continual refinement of them on a personal level. The goal of this class is to give the student the fundamental techniques of voice and speech in relation to the body. In the event of over subscription, student will be enrolled on the basis of seniority. Prerequisite: TSDA 0230. Enrollment limited to 16. S/NC only.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
*TSDA 0930B - The Actor's Instrument: Improvisation
This course is designed to help students explore the development of relationships in theatrical space without the benefit (or confinement) of a script. By cultivating and developing basic performance skills including spontaneity, self-awareness, creative use of the body and mind, access to the imagination, and collaborativity, this course has applications for actors and other performers interested in all types of performance as well as those interested in improvised performance specifically.
One of the intentions of this course is to generate truthful, creative, and collaborative play, which can lead naturally to material that is humorous as an organic outcome of the moment. However, “comedy,” or “improve comedy,” which has a different set of intentions altogether, will be strongly discouraged in this course. “Getting laughs,” as a goal in and of itself, manufactures unproductive pressure to “be clever” or to “succeed” in ways that are inconsistent with truly creative engagement.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 0930C - The Actor's Instrument: Stage Movement for Actors and Directors
Students will be engaged in a process of exploration that centers on the physical relationship of the actor to the physical reality of the stage including sound, props and costumes. Work with a broad spectrum of contemporary and classic movement theories/approaches to constructing performance.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
*TSDA 0960 - Musical Theatre Topics
Individual topics may include: lyric writing, song writing, construction of libretti, and musical theatre production. Course may be repeated for credit, with permission of TSDA concentration advisor. Enrollment limited to 12. Permission of instructor required. S/NC only.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Do not Schedule
Undergraduate College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 0960A - Musical Theatre Songwriting
A practical study in the creation of songs for the musical theatre. Students enrolled in this course will develop the skills necessary to write the music and lyrics for pieces intended for use in dramatic works. American and international musical theatre writers from the last eighty years will be studied and analyzed. Those enrolled may choose a focus of composition, lyric writing, or both. They will present and perform (or arrange performances of) new material (and rewritten material) each week to be examined by the class, culminating in a cabaret of new works. While beginners are encouraged to join, this is not a music theory course, and composers are expected to have a basic knowledge of theory (or self-taught skills).
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 0960B - Musical Theatre Writing Workshop
A practical study in the creation of new works for the American musical theatre. Students enrolled in this course will learn the craft of musical theatre writing, and will be able to workshop their material for their peers. Musicals from the last eighty years will be studied and analyzed. Those enrolled may choose a focus of composition, lyric writing, playwriting, or any combination thereof. Collaborators are welcome to work together in this class, and those looking for potential collaborators will be paired with other students if they so desire. While amateur composers are encouraged to join, this is not a music theory course, and composers are expected to have a basic knowledge of theory (or self-taught skills).
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 0960C - The History of Musical Theatre
A study of the history of American Musical Theatre from Tin Pan Alley to today's Broadway musicals. Students enrolled will study primary-source libretti, musical scores and interviews, as well as historical articles and essays on musical theatre and society. Special emphasis will be placed on musicals and their implication in helping to shape and define American social history, including topics such as national identity, race relations, and the treatment of minorities.
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1000 - Intermediate Dance
Designed to expand the student's knowledge of and proficiency in dance as an art form. Mainly a studio course, but selected readings, papers, critiques, and field trips are important components of the course. Prerequisite: TSDA 0310 or the equivalent is required.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1040 - Interpersonal Communication
This course introduces principles of interpersonal communication by using dyads and small groups. Topics include: the self in interpersonal communication, verbal messages, nonverbal messages, message reception, and interpersonal relationships. Attendance mandatory.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1100 - Theatre Management
An overview of the process of theatrical performance from script selection to closing, with emphasis on production and stage management. In addition, the role of front-of-house operations and the various theatrical unions are studied as components of different types of theatre organizations.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1160 - Style and Performance
For qualified sophomores, juniors, and seniors who offer TA 23 as a prerequisite. Period scene study and monologues are basis for comment on individual progress in acting/directing. Extensive reading of dramatic texts and historic research materials. Work in voice, movement, dialect, and poetic text. Substantial commitment necessary for preparation of class scenes. Attendance mandatory.
Limited to 21. Instructor's permission required. No permissions will be given during pre-registration; interested students should sign up on the TA 1160 waitlist (form is at http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Theatre_Speech_Dance/) and attend the first day of class.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1210 - Solo Performance
An exploration of the challenges and rewards of performing solo. Students research, write, and perform a one-person show. Other projects may include performance art, stand-up comedy, and monologuing. Substantial time commitment. Attendance mandatory. For advanced students with appropriate background and experience. Submit proposal and resume in the fall, For guidelines and information contact Lowry_Marshall@brown.edu. Permission required in advance.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1220 - The Development of the American Theatre from Colonial Times to 1915
Concentrates on theatre production, actors, business management, architectural styles and changes, styles of acting, and selected representative plays. Suggested for concentrators in theatre arts, American civilization, and American literature.
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1230 - Performance Theory: Ritual, Play and Drama in Context
What is ritual? What is play? What is mimesis? What is an act? This course offers an introduction to basic texts in Performance Studies applied to the study of ancient and medieval theatre in global perspective. Students will learn fundamentals of performance theory while studying the histories of ancient Greek and Roman theatre, Medieval European ritual, Indian Sanskrit drama and theatrical form, Yoruban traditional performance, and modes of cross-cultural comparison.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1240 - Performance Historiography and Theatre History
This course will provide an introduction to performance history and historiography by concentrating on analysis of dramatic texts, theatrical events, festival performances and "performative" state and religious ceremonies from 1500-1850. We will explore incidents in Asia, the Americas and Europe as related to state consolidation, colonization, incipient nationalism(s), urbanization, cultural negotiation, and the representational practices the enacted.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1250 - Twentieth-Century Western Theatre and Performance
The study of key figures and movements in 20th-century Western theatre and performance, from approximately 1870 to 2000. We explore naturalism and alternative strategies to realism such as symbolism, futurism, surrealism and constructivism, along with myriad figures in the modern and postmodern "avant-garde."
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1270 - Non-Western Theatre and Performance: Mask and Festival
Considers examples of festival theatre that deploy masks or strategies related to masking and asks why transformative play is so important in these holiday performances. Examples include: New Guinean pay-back ceremonies, civic festivals of Bali and ancient Greece, Yoruba Gelede festivals, and contemporary passion plays in Iran, India, and Vermont. Readings from various academic disciplines. Extensive use of films, slides, audio, and video.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1280 - Topics in Theatre Studies
No description available.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Do not Schedule
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1280A - Acting for Camera
Introduces students to theories of acting for camera to develop the practical skills required for film and television performance. Attention will be paid to the ways in which stage techniques can be adapted for use in media performance. Students will prepare scenes and monologue material written specifically for film and television. 20-30 minute final project film is shot on location.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1280B - The Creative Ensemble
Develops skills in acting, improvisation, directing, teaching, and writing. Through research, performance and collaboration, participants explore individual/group talents and creative passions. Ensemble-created final performance project. Prerequisite: TSDA 0230 or equivalent.
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1280C - Advanced Stage Lighting
This course focuses on implementation of lighting techniques learned in the introductory course. Emphasizes work in a studio environment with other theatre designers, implementing CAD and vector works techniques as well as scale models. Course culminates in a full lighting design for a production. (Prerequisite: TSDA 0260: Stage Lighting)
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1280F - Introduction to Set Design
The overview of the class will to instruct the student in the practical skills necessary to develop essential techniques required for set design. Drafting and scale modeling techniques will be closely examined and practiced. Some emphasis will be placed on exploring script analysis and its importance in realizing a functional and exciting set design. Additionally time will be spent considering the collaborative process between director, set designer and the other designers involved in the production process. Other areas to be studied will be research, sketching, storyboarding and rendering.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1280H - Modern Asian Performance
This course studies contemporary Asian performance with a special focus on modernity. Students are encouraged to move beyond a Western historiography toward an understanding of alternative modernities. This course explores most nations in the Asian continent and covers wide theoretical and aesthetic ground; from performances of healing to revolutionary theatre to diasporic utterances. Essentialized and Orientalist notions are problematized. This course aims to familiarize students with different historical instances of Asian performances, while at the same time enabling critical thinking about the relation between theory and practice by paying close attention to the questions of gender, identity, aesthetics and politics.
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1280J - Introduction to Dramaturgy
Seminar in the theory and practice of theatrical dramaturgy, with a particular emphasis on new play development in the contemporary American theatre. Examines basic historical theory, contemporary theatrical texts, production dramaturgy, and the role of the dramaturg in the rehearsal and development process.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1280L - Modern American Drama
Modern American Drama is a broad overview of dramatic writing, from Glaspell and O'Neill through Kushner and Parks. Particular attention will be paid to the theatrical, social and performance context of the plays under study.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1280N - New Theories for a Baroque Stage
This course re-conceptualizes and re-models seventeenth-century "baroque" theatricality through the lenses of Russian formalist theory, phenomenology, (post-)surrealist literature and objects, Oulipian literature of constraints, Deleuzian theory, ontological-hysteric theatre, film, etc.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1280O - New Works/World Traditions: Innovation and Tradition
In this research-to-performance course, students train in a variety of movement, music and performance traditions towards the development of new theatrical works that tour regionally, national and internationally.
New Works is committed to using the power of performance to promote social engagement and deliberation on issues related to the environment, disease prevention and current political landscapes.
By audition only.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1280T - Contemporary Mande Performance
This course examines the influences of contemporary society upon traditional Mande Performance. Equal emphasis will be given to the theory and practice of embodied performance as it responds to selected music traditions, oral literatures, and aesthetic traditions. Films, readings, guest lectures and collaborative research projects will help to facilitate a deeper understanding of contemporary Mande society and its artistic production. Students must register for a lecture section.
0.000 OR 1.000 Credit Hours
0.000 OR 1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Conference, Filming/Screening, Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1280V - Theatre and Conquest in the Americas, from Cortes to NAFTA
Explores the intimate relationship between theatre and conquest in the Americans as contained in missionary accounts, plays, performances and visual art from Cortés arrival to the present. Students will analyze plays and performances that stage the Spanish Conquest, consider the theatrical procedures of the conquest and examine theatrical representation as a methodology of conquest in the Americas.
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1280Y - Issues in Performance Studies
This seminar introduces students to a wide range of performance practices. Each week a different genre or category of performance is discussed. Instead of following a linear trajectory of development this course embraces wide regional, political and historical instances of performance to provide a global lexicon of aesthetic practice. Audio-visual media are extensively used throughout the course. Students are required to think critically about the relation between text, technology and the body by paying attention to the demands performance places on us as participants, spectators, scholars and commentators. Questions about how scholarship can enrich artistic practice are also explored.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Extra Credit Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1281A - Director/Designer Collaborative Studio
Students will explore the relationship between director and designer within the production process. The main objective is to improve collaboration and production output by learning the language, tools, and skills involved in each area of discipline so as to enhance creative output. Enrollment limited to 17 students.
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1281B - Postdramatic Theatre (And Beyond)
This course offers a close look at avant-garde theatre practice in the German speaking countries since the 1990s and will introduce current tendencies in theorizing performance as that theory relates to the practice. Starting from the notion of "Postdramatic Theatre" (H.T. Lehmann), we will discuss the politics of (re-)presentation and spectatorship, analyzing as well as experimenting with their implications for performance, for writing for performance, and for writing about performance. (In English)
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1281C - Memory Plays: Theatricality and Time
This course will read philosophy and critical theory about memory and time beside dramatic works and performance art that take up the topic of history, repetition, and temporality in live art. Readings will be selected from Sophocles, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Noh, Freud, Benjamin, Bergson, Brecht, Muller, Stein, Duras, Homi Bhabha, Paula Vogel, Suzan-Lori Parks, W. G. Sebald, Gilles Deleuze, Thomas King, Philip Deloria, Coco Fusco, Diana Taylor, Charles Ludlam, Teching Hsieh, Wooster Group, Spiderwoman Theatre, Ubu and the Truth Commission, Errol Morris, Robin Soans, and Erik Ehn to ask about time, memory, history, act, Mneme, anamnesis, recognition, and “reconciliation.”
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1281J - Farce
This is a physical acting class exploring farce and comedic improvisation in high and low art and performance. The class will involve an investigation of the work of Moliere and other playwrights inspired by Commedia dell'Arte, classical and contemporary. We will examine texts, excavate comedy, explore extension of gesture and techniquest of exaggeration and improvisation.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1281K - New Media Theory and Composition: Performing With Media
This studio course is for choreographers, dancers, directors, film-makers, performance artists, designers or anyone interested in the collision between New Media (primarily projection and sound environments) and theatrical performance (e.g. dance & theater). Through the creation of new works we will explore practical issues, compositional strategies, and aesthetic aspects of hybrid performance. Beginning with a directed collaborative project, students will then create independent multimedia performance works. Though some instruction in media applications will be offered, this is primarily a class for students wishing to explore aesthetic and performative issues rather than in-depth study of technology. S/NC only.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1281L - Critical/Performance Ethnography
This course introduces students to key theories and methods of critical/performance ethnography. Because critical ethnography concerns the rhetorical, ethical, and political effects of what ethnographers do, performance is a fundamental dynamic in this seminar. We will explore performance as theory, method, event, and everyday occurrence. We will examine the interpenetrating relationships among performance, ethnography, economy, and culture. Since culture is made visible to us through its representations, e.g., its structures, dramas, symbols, metaphors, habits, everyday practices, landscapes, language patterns, etc., performance becomes a primary point of entry and inquiry where we may be/act, see/hear, feel/sense, and think/evaluate within an Other world and our own. The aim of this seminar then is to come to understand what is at stake in the practice of gathering and telling stories - the core of the ethnographer's trade.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
Course Attributes: Diversity Perspectives
TSDA 1281M - Introduction to Costume Construction
An introduction to the study and practice of core costume construction skills. Topics include basic machine, hand sewing and patterning techniques.
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1281N - Practice: Exploring Contemplative Practice in Creative Process
An experimental dialogue between Buddhist and Catholic Contemplative Practices as a ground for creating performance works; an interdisciplinary/interfaith/inter-institutional exploration. Students from both Brown and RISD will be participating. Instructor permission is required and will be granted on the basis of a) an interview with one of the teachers (which may be scheduled at the time of the first session), and b) a short statement of goals and intentions (reasons for taking the course) not to exceed one page, due to Erik_Ehn@brown.edu prior to the first session. Enrollment limited to 12.
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1290 - Advanced Costume Design
Costume design and rendering approaches to various genres of performing arts, including opera, musicals, and dance. Designed for the serious student of theatrical design. Advanced work on rendering, emphasizing character, practicality, line, form, and color. Lab required. Prerequisite: TSDA 0280
0.000 OR 1.000 Credit Hours
0.000 OR 1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Lab, Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1300 - Advanced Scenic Design
The examination of the working relationship between designer and director. An emphasis on the design abilities needed to communicate varied visual approaches. Developing the creative, theatrical vocabulary needed to turn a director's vision into a fully articulated set design. A substantial amount of plays will be read and researched. Drafting and model rendering techniques will be applied.
Prerequisite: TSDA 1280: Intermediate Set Design.
0.000 OR 1.000 Credit Hours
0.000 OR 1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Lab, Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1310 - Advanced Modern Dance
Designed for dancers who have attained an advanced level in any dance technique. The purpose is to help such dancers come to understand both intellectually and kinesthetically the diversity of one of the few indigenous American art forms: modern dance.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1320 - Choreography
Designed for those who have had some experience in composition and would like to work, under supervision, on making dances. Emphasizes making full-length dances for small and large groups and demands a sophisticated use of space, dynamics, and music. Further emphasis on viewing and interpreting classic and contemporary works from a choreographic viewpoint.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1330 - Dance History: The 20th Century
An exploration of the major figures and trends in modern dance. While the main focus of the course is on American Dance, attention is given to earlier European and other dance traditions that have contribited to the American dance heritage. May be of particular interest Americanists, art historians, dancers, and theatre majors.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1340 - Dance Styles
This course focuses on the diverse styles, techniques and movement theories of Modern Dance. The students will practice the techniques and styles and will also study biographical material, view films, and attend live performances when possible.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1350 - Dance Performance and Repertory
Half course credit each semester. A study of dance repertory through commissioned new works, reconstruction, coaching, rehearsal, and performance. Guest artists and consultants from the American Dance Legacy Institute. Enrollment is by audition. Limited to skilled dancers. Instructor permission required.
0.000 OR 0.500 Credit Hours
0.000 OR 0.500 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Conference, Lab, Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
Course Attributes: First Half of Year Course
TSDA 1360 - Dance Performance and Repertory (continuation)
A study of dance repertory offered through commissioned new works, reconstruction, coaching, rehearsal, and performance. The course will explore the phenomenology of dance, audience-performer connection, theatre production and dance criticism, among other topics. Enrollment is by audition. Limited to skilled dancers. Instructor permission?
0.000 OR 0.500 Credit Hours
0.000 OR 0.500 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Conference, Lab, Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
Course Attributes: Second Half of Year Course
TSDA 1380 - Mise en Scene
A reconstruction of the idea of a stage and a frame on the evidence of theory, novels, plays, and especially films-the seen and the unseen-using the organizing strategies of mystery. Art's "impossible" brokering of the real and the representational in a dialectic of space is considered from a multiplicity of perspectives in diverse works. Enrollment limited to 45. Instructor permission required.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1400 - Advanced Performance
An investigation into abstract and nonlinear modes of performance, working from fragmentary and recombined narrative, dramatic, and found sources. Seeks to evolve a conceptual approach to performance of the individual actor-director-writer through supervised and independent exercises and projects. Prerequisite TSDA 0230. For juniors and especially seniors.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1430 - Russian Theatre and Drama
An overview of Russian theatre and drama from the 18th century to the late 20th century. Emphasis on plays as texts and historical documents, and on theatrical conditions, productions, and innovations. All readings are in English. Russian area studies concentrators are encouraged to enroll. Instructor permission required.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1440 - Seminar on Selected Figures in Theatre and Drama
May be repeated for credit.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Do not Schedule
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1500 - Advanced Playwriting
The purpose is to progress through a series of writing exercises working through purgation, illumination and unity. Course work includes a body of exercises, significant writing, workshop conversations and conferences. Advanced Workshops provide students with a forum for extended practice of the art of writing. Students must submit writing samples by the first day of classes electronically by sending to Erik_Ehn@Brown.edu. Please list "Advanced PW" in subject heading. Permission will be issued by the instructor as soon as the manuscripts are reviewed. S/NC.
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Do not Schedule
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1500A - Advanced Playwriting: Guhahamuka
Guhahamuka is a Kinyarwanda word meaning "breathlessness," sometimes applied to the wordlessness that befalls survivors of trauma. We will progress through a series of graduated exercises designed to work-out the fundamentals of writing for the live encounter. Emphasis will be on the uses of testimony and language that pushes into spaces where language doesn't fit, doesn't belong, fails, and then converts itself to different energies. How a writer's technique images spiritual practice and avails of the useful impossibilities of incarnation and transcendence. See TSDA 1500 description for writing sample instructions.
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1500C - Reality: A Playwriting Class
This advanced playwriting class is designed to explore, critique and expand notions of theatrical realism. The curriculum will include research into the history of realism in theater/visual art, practical work in site-specific theater, and local field trips designed to investigate the "realism" of daily life. The class will also address other realities as they relate to playwriting, include virtual reality, the reality of subatomic particles and reality TV. Assignments include the creation of a site-specific performance and one new play. Submit 25 pages of a play to Lisa_Damour@brown.edu by the first class meeting to be considered for admission to the class. Instructor permission required. Prerequisites: TSDA 0100 and TSDA 0200, or equivalent related experience.
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1520 - Seminar in Theatre Arts
Seminar designed primarily for senior theatre arts concentrators, required during Semester VII. Topics focus on career planning, theatre arts and performance studies subjects not dealt with in other courses.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1610 - Political Theatre of the Americas
This course will explore the political theatre and performance in the Americas (Latin America, the US and Canada). The course employs the term political theatre in a broad sense, but will be concerned primarily with the use of performance in indigenous rights, queer rights, and gender equity campaigns; anti-globalization, anti-consumerist, anti-militarization and anti-corruption movements (including election fraud) and general critiques of socioeconomic inequity. We will examine the strategies used by actors and participants in theatrical performances, performance art, and political protests that use the tools of performance so as to explore the rich relationship between politics and performances. There are no prerequisites, but one course in either Latin American Studies or Theatre and Performance Studies is recommended. No enrollment limit.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
Course Attributes: Diversity Perspectives
TSDA 1630 - Performativity and the Body: Staging Gender, Staging Race
Bodies come in many shapes, colors, and sizes. In performances practices, the body is an instrument sometimes used to "talk back" to the ways shapes, colors, and sizes are haunted by histories of racialization, sexual discrimination, and other biases. This class explores various feminist and race critical theories in tandem with work of performance artists, visual artists, and theatre artists.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1640 - Theatre and Conquest in Greater Mexico: From Cortes to NAFTA
Explores the intimate relationship between theatre and conquest in the Americans as contained in missionary accounts, plays, performances and visual art from Cortés arrival to the present. Students will analyze plays and performances that stage the Spanish Conquest, consider the theatrical procedures of the conquest and examine theatrical representation as a methodology of conquest in the Americas.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1650 - 21st-Century American Drama
This course is designed to familiarize students with contemporary American playwriting from 2000-2005. We will explore how these plays reflect our current moment with attention to conceptions of gender, sexuality, national identity, trauma and memory. Playwrights may include Jorge Cortinas, Sarah Ruhl, Tony Kushner, Juliana Francis, Sabina Berman and Carl Hancock Rux.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1670 - Latino/a Theatre and Performance
This course will be an introduction to Latino/a theatre concentrating on the following themes: borders, diaspora and exile, political and personal identities, sexuality, gender and violence, and latino re-imagination of U S and Latin American history. We will read and view Chicano/a, Cuban American and Nuyorican drama and performance art. No prerequisites.1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1690 - Performance, Art, and Everyday Life
This class provides an introduction to performance-based art. Some knowledge of the historical avant-garde is required. The class will explore site-specific work, time-based work, life art, body art, instruction art, and a variety of intermedial artwork. Theories of “theatricality” and “performativity” will be explored as will expressive properties of repetition, excess, mimesis, banality, mobility, framing, failure, and shock.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1700A - Voices Beneath the Veil (AFRI 1110)
Interested students must register for AFRI 1110 S01 (CRN 13228).
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Do not Schedule
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1700B - African American Folk Traditions and Cultural Expression (AFRI 1120)
Interested students must register for AFRI 1120 S01 (CRN 13760).
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Do not Schedule
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1700C - Advanced RPM Playwriting (AFRI 1050A)
Interested students must register for AFRI 1050A S01 (CRN 13217 for fall 2009; CRN 21807 for spring 2010).
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Do not Schedule
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1700D - Intermediate RPM Playwriting (AFRI 1050D)
Interested students must register for AFRI 1050D S01 (CRN 13219 for fall 2009; CRN 21808 for spring 2010).
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Do not Schedule
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Studies Department
TSDA 1700E - Introduction to Post-Colonial African and African Diasporic Theatre (AFRI 1050H)
Interested students must register for AFRI 1050H S01 (CRN 23702).
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Do not Schedule
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1700F - RPM Africana Music History and Vocal Performance (AFRI 1050J)
Interested students must register for AFRI 1050J S01 (CRN 14546 for fall 2009; CRN 23703 for spring 2010).
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Do not Schedule
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1700G - Roots of African American Fiction: Oral Narrative through Richard Wright (AFRI 1050M)
Interested students must register for AFRI 1050M S01 (CRN 24804).
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Do not Schedule
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Studies Department
TSDA 1700H - Art and Civic Engagement: Creativity/Reality (AFRI 1050P)
Interested students must register for AFRI 1050P S01 (CRN 25013).
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Do not Schedule
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1700I - RPM Playwriting (AFRI 1050E)
Interested students must register for AFRI 1050E S01 (CRN 13222 for fall 2009; CRN 21809 for spring 2010).
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Do not Schedule
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1970 - Independent Reading and Research
Intensive reading and research on selected topics arranged in terms of special needs and interests of the student. A written proposal must be submitted to the instructor and the chair of the theatre arts department before the project can be approved. Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Independent Study/Research
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 1990 - Senior Honors Thesis Preparation
To be taken by all students accepted into the theatre arts honors program. Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Independent Study/Research
Undergraduate College College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 2100 - Seminar in Dramatic and Theatrical Theory
This is an interactive seminar designed to explore various approaches to theorizing dramatic writing, theatrical activity, and the wider class of phenomena known as performance. The course is required of graduate students in the Theartre and Performance Studies Program and, at the discretion of the instructor, to a limited number of undergraduate concentrators and graduate and advanced undergraduate students from other disciplines who are sufficiently familiar with dramatic literature and theatrical history. Topics currently addressed include: the Platonic and Aristotelean legacies as continued and contested by later theorists and practitioners; alternative theories of theatre, including those of Zeami and Bharat-muni; baroque and neo-classical aesthetics; Brechtian and Russian approaches to “making strange”; structuralism, semiotics, deconstruction, and the avant-garde; phenomenology and perspectives gained from the cognitive neurosciences as applied to performance; the impact of feminist approaches, queer studies, and critical race theory; and the emergence of Performance Studies as a field of study. Though much of the content is historical in nature, the course follows a thematic rather than a temporal progression and mixes historical and contemporary writings.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Graduate School College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 2120 - Revolution as a Work of Art
A study of Russian revolutionary culture and new personhood, ca. 1905-1930, with readings from Russian fiction, philosophy, art criticism, dramatic and political theory, and cultural and theatre history. Topics include the revolution of the spirit, the culture of the future, iconography and spectacle, charismatic authority, and revolutionary terror. For graduate students and qualified juniors and seniors. All readings are in English. Those who can may read some materials in Russian.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Graduate School College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 2200 - Graduate Seminar in Theatre History
No description available.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Do not Schedule
Graduate School College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 2200A - Abstraction and Resistance
A study of the uses of abstraction in modernist and postmodern theatre and drama, film, painting, and narrative fiction and of the engagement of resistance as a performative strategy for conceptualizing such nominally unframed and alogical texts. The works of selected theatre directors and playwrights, philosophers and theorists, novelists, filmmakers, and artists are examined and discussed.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Graduate School College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 2200E - Historiography
This seminar is a thorough examination of theater and performance historiography. We will analyze various modes of performance history with respect to ideology, discursive and representational practices. This course considers how historiography is understood within other disciplines as well as performance and theatre studies, paying special attention to the problems performance raises in respect to the writing of history.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Graduate School College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 2200F - Archive Culture, Memory, and Repetition
If live performance is ephemeral, what is its function in archive culture? Theatre, visual culture, orature, and "performatives" will be explored for temporality, memory, and remains. Enrollment limited to 20. Written permission required. S/NC
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Graduate School College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 2200G - Performance, Photography, and the Live
What are the limits of approaching live performance as essentially ephemeral? What are the limits of habitually considering image capture to document time gone by, or exhibit "death at work" (as Cocteau wrote of cinema)? What are the limits of parsing the documentary and the theatrical as if those categories, and the media they imply, were mutually exclusive? What is at stake in the lines drawn between media histories and theatre histories that account for the "still"? What is the bodily labor of the pose? Or the temporality of held gesture? Questions such as these will be posed across media as we explore histories of photography and tableaux vivant, as well as critical theories in performance studies, visual studies, art history, media studies, and theatre studies. We will look at images documenting violence, images re-presenting documented violence, and violence to documentary images in the course of a broader conversation about the "life" or "liveness" of the still.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Graduate School College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 2310 - Graduate Playwriting I
With Word as the bodying forth into social reality of original experience, the structures, purposes and ethical risks of writing for performance are examined; experienced through the reading of each other's works-in-progress, through the reading of essays and in session exercises. Graduate Workshop in Playwriting ordinarily limited to Graduate students; however, on occasion, undergraduates will be admitted with permission of the instructor. Writing samples must be submitted electronically by the first day of class to Erik_Ehn@Brown.edu. Please use "Grad PW" in the subject line. Permission will be given once manuscripts have been reviewed. S/NC.
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Graduate School College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 2315 - Collaborative Languages
A course for artists and scholars to develop a lexicography for theatrical collaboration. The course will explore a variety of collaborative approaches to performance creation through practical exercises, viewing archival video of contemporary performers, guest lecturers, and analyzing collaborative techniques used by a variety of performance creators. This course is limited to participants in the MFA program in acting, directing and playwriting. Instructor permission required. S/NC.
1.000 Credit hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Primary Meeting
Graduate School College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 2890 - Special Topics in Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
No description available.
1.000 Credit Hours
1.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Do not Schedule
Graduate School College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 2970 - Comprehensive Examination Preparation
For graduate students who have met the tuition requirement and are paying the registration fee to continue active enrollment while preparing for a preliminary examination.
0.000 Credit Hours
0.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Grad Enrollment Fee/Dist Prep
Graduate School College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 2980 - Graduate Level Independent Reading and Research
A program of intensive reading and research on selected topics arranged in terms of special needs and interests of the student. Section numbers vary by instructor. Please check Banner for the correct section number and CRN to use when registering for this course.
1.000 TO 5.000 Credit Hours
1.000 TO 5.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Independent Study/Research
Graduate School College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
TSDA 2990 - Thesis Preparation
For graduate students who have met the tuition requirement and are paying the registration fee to continue active enrollment while preparing a thesis.
0.000 Credit Hours
0.000 Lecture hours
Levels: Graduate, Undergraduate
Schedule Types: Grad Enrollment Fee/Dist Prep
Graduate School College
Theatre Arts and Performance Studies
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