91 courses with the subject THP, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
THP 1055Fundamentals of Acting3
Students work on basic acting skills, e.g., developing the ability to produce free, imaginative, and purposeful behavior in relation to environments, objects, and other persons; individual silent exercises; and group exercises. This work leads to in-class performances of selected scenes from a variety of American contemporary plays, with special focus on the sensory requirements in the text. No previous experience required.
Explore improvisation and performance techniques through the practical study of theatre games as developed by Viola Spolin in her seminal book, “Improvization for the Theater.” Students study this text and practice Spolin’s games and those in her lineage as an introduction to improvisation, leading to longer-form exercises which culminate in an improvised performance at the end of the semester.
THP 1240Group Voice: Ensemble for Musical Theatre2
An introductory course for performers focusing on group and ensemble vocal performance in musical theatre. Students will study and perform ensemble numbers from Golden Age through contemporary musicals. Emphasis is placed on vocal blending, character intention, basic music theory, and taking musical direction in a group setting.
Students participate in an ensemble-based studio production of a single classical text. The course is equal parts textual analysis and skills development for actors (gesture as action, rhetoric, meter, speech, diction, clowning and stage combat). Includes a lab dedicated performing heightened text with freedom and spontaneity. All are welcome. There is no audition required, no previous acting experience is necessary.
Students participate in an ensemble-based studio production of a single classical text. The course is equal parts textual analysis and skills development for actors (gesture as action, rhetoric, meter, speech, diction, clowning and stage combat). Includes a lab dedicated performing heightened text with freedom and spontaneity. All are welcome. There is no audition required, no previous acting experience is necessary. Credits: 0 COREQ: THP2000
THP 2050Introduction to Theatre for Social Change, Community, and Education3
An introduction to the methods and goals of Applied Theatre, which generates theatre as a participatory community practice, often in non-traditional settings and with marginalized groups, focusing on issues of social justice, education, and human rights.
This class introduces students to the language, process, and best practices of intimacy direction and coordination for consent in the creation and realization of performance. Students engage in discussions of terms and theory, learning the fundamentals of approaching material that is intimate in nature, and creating artistic settings where best practices can be enacted and assessed.
Students explore themes of gender and sexuality in Shakespeare’s sonnets and plays. Students learn to read, edit, and modernize Shakespeare’s words, and discover how he promoted, ridiculed, and subverted the sexual norms of his time. The course engages with modern productions, many of which subvert the toxic elements of Shakespeare’s work in provocative ways.
Students explore how Shakespeare’s works contributed to the historical formation of various racial and ethnic identities and how the global tradition of Shakespearean performance intermittently perpetuates and refutes racial and ethnic stereotypes. Additionally, students study how non-White authors and performers have and continue to respond to racism within the Shakespeare tradition. Students learn to write critically about race in Shakespeare.
This course provides students with a foundational understanding of Black performance in several disciplines including theatre, film, dance and music. Students will learn how Black performance has evolved in response to political and cultural shifts and explore artists and historical moments including the Harlem Renaissance, Black Arts Movement and Hip-Hop.
THP 2230AI-Enhanced Performance and Interactive Media4
Discover how to bring your stories to life using the latest artificial intelligence tools and interactive media. The course focuses on narrative design and methods to enhance live performances through various forms of interactive media. It offers an introduction to production with a 21st-Century toolset or audience immersion and interactivity, taking a design-based approach to content creation.
Students learn to transform poetry and personal stories into short plays and performance pieces. Poetry and movement are used to create choreopoems. Students also develop interview theatre pieces. Readings and/or video viewings include works by Ntozake Shange, Eve Ensler, and Anna Deavere Smith.
An introduction to dramatic movement for the stage. Technique, improvisation, repertoire, and composition are explored, using physical language. Students work on solos, duets, and in groups with text, objects, and music. Assignments include classroom presentations, readings, and papers. Videotapes are reviewed and discussed.
American drama considered primarily as a critique of American society, values, and life. Covers the period from 1916 to 1964, including plays by Susan Glaspell, Eugene O’Neill, Clifford Odets, Lillian Hellman, Gertrude Stein, Thornton Wilder, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Lorraine Hansberry, Adrienne Kennedy, and Edward Albee.
Students explore worldbuilding techniques and tools, covering geography, history, culture, conflict, storytelling, mythology, and religion. This course is designed to provide students with the skills and knowledge needed to create realistic and believable fictional worlds. At the end of the course, students will be able to develop unique and compelling fictional worlds that engage and excite their audiences.
Explores anatomical and kinesthetic awareness of the body, developing concepts such as strength, alignment, mobility, gesture, and physical relationship. Applying modern dance technique, students engage in physical storytelling, improvisational movement, and emotional authenticity.
An introduction to the management side of building your own work. Students learn skills in production management, stage management and company management as well as producing, fundraising and marketing. The course culminates in students developing detailed plans for new productions.
Western and world theatre from ancient Greece to 1642, when the theatres of Shakespeare’s time were finally closed. What would now be called actors, playwrights, producers, directors, designers, and theatre architects are all considered.
Western and world theatre from the 17th to the 20th centuries. Playwrights, actors, directors, producers, and designers; neoclassicism, romanticism, realism, naturalism, expressionism. This course begins where THP 2885 leaves off, but either can be taken independently.
Students receive training in lighting (hanging, focusing, and maintaining), the use of power tools, and basic set construction. Elements of lighting and set design are also discussed. Requirements include work on a minimum of two productions in the Humanities Theatre as crew and board operators.
Through practical experience working as a production dramaturg, students learn research methods that bring textual analysis, social context, and theoretical concepts into the creative process. This course functions as a workshop for students to develop dramaturgical materials that will expand and enrich the theatrical experience for both artists and audiences. PREREQ: THP2885 Or THP2890
Students create original stories from various sources of inspiration and gain the theatrical tools to tell them. The course focuses on ensemble creation and covers such areas as mime, heightened character, tréteaux, soundscapes, and object manipulation. Requirements include performing, directing, writing, and making props. Designed to help students get in touch with their creative side in a supportive group atmosphere. A background in performance/high school theatre is beneficial but not req
THP 3040Creative Collaboration I for Actors and Directors2
Offers film and television directors and actors the opportunity to develop their skills in communicating with each other. In a workshop environment, students rehearse short scenes, working alternately as actors and directors, and learn to communicate, give and take direction, and integrate feedback.
Explores the fundamental connection between voice and text, based on Linklater technique. Using technical and imagistic exercises, students find a free connection to breath, develop resonance and range, release jaw, tongue, and throat tensions, and build vocal strength.
Focuses on characterization and motivation, with emphasis on interpretation, finding interesting choices for the actor, and the “truth of the moment.” Different contemporary plays and screenplays are used by students. Scenes are used to deepen the actor’s ability to execute honest and purposeful stage acting and communication. PREREQ: ACT1055 Or THP1055
An introduction to the history and contemporary practice of physical theatre and to the traditions of commedia and pantomime. Includes lectures, mask making, scenario creation, and instruction in and physical practice of the form. PREREQ: ACT1055 Or THP1055 Or ACT%
Explores immersive design in both live and digital performance, combining practical experience with insight into emerging trends, including environmental, locative, and GPS related narratives and games. Through a mixture of lectures, collaborative design exercises, and guest speakers, the course provides a detailed overview of what it takes to produce projects that combine story and tech.
Explores interactive theater, immersive performance, alternate reality, and pervasive gaming as an alternative to traditional performance by visual artists, actors, dancers, and musicians. Building from video games, the course works through applied theatre techniques that center the spectator and participant in the creation of work. Students examine the blurred distinctions between game and narrative and design and stage interactive performances.
Explore the unique aesthetics of Black Theatre via analysis and performance of plays by such writers as Baraka, Cleage, Nottage, and Morisseau. Participants direct and perform scenes with attention to the impact of social and historical contexts on our understanding of genre, style, and language in performance.
Transmedia narrative can be described as storytelling across multiple forms of media, with each element making distinctive contributions to a user’s understanding of the story world. The course combines this with a study of immersive performance environments that wrap around viewers and production practices that blend video, photography, games, and music to extend the project’s meaning and theatricality.
A study of the mystery plays, morality plays, interludes, masques, and entertainments of the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries. Analysis of texts is combined with consideration of theatrical production in light of the ideological, religious, and historical contexts of the plays.
A practical exploration of the intersection between dance and theater by focusing on the body as generator and creator of meaning. Students explore a range of dance/theater and body-centric approaches to creating theater, including Lecoq, Buffon, Commedia, Japanese Butoh, Contact Improv and the gestural work of Pina Bausch and William Forsythe.
THP 3180Revolutionary Laughter: Satire and Social Dialogue4
Satire uses humor and ridicule to address fundamental moral, social and political questions. Students will analyze satirical works and practice techniques of “creative criticism” by making satire of their own. We’ll investigate how laughter gets people to let their guard down in order to challenge closed minds, provoke discussion where there was none, and plant the seeds of social change.
An introduction to the diversity of Asian American theatre and performance, from the late 19th century to the contemporary moment, with an emphasis on 21st century work and current issues. Through an exploration of archival collections, plays, multimedia performances and critical race theory, students analyze the intersections of Asian American histories, aesthetics, politics and identities.
The use of multiple mediums and immersive narrative design principles is reinventing storytelling. Students explore the bridge between traditional narratives, the emerging demands of mixed reality, and the metaverse. We will also explore how Storytelling affects changes in society. The course will introduce the use of virtuality and augmented design alongside real-world immersive environments.
Without our ancestors, we wouldn’t be here. They deserve celebration. But sometimes they did things we’d rather avoid. Students will research one or several ancestors, to honor them, and also to hold them accountable. Students will engage with family and community to research their familial and cultural pasts and relate them with our present and future through creating plays. PREREQ: THP2020 And THP2885
Focuses on postmodern theory and performance. Historical and cross-cultural study of how theatre artists and critical thinkers have addressed issues of aesthetics, representation, style, space, and time. PREREQ: THP2020 And (THP2885 Or THP2890 )
Introduces Asian theatre within a global context and explores the social, religious, historical, aesthetic, and political circumstances of traditional performance genres, including ritual, masked/painted face and puppetry, and contemporary intercultural drama and theatre. Training, audience involvement, transformation, authenticity, and theory are highlighted. Field trips are taken when possible.
Truth Commissions responding to genocides and other conflicts have often involved theatre, in formal collaboration, as in Peru’s Yuyachkani, or informally, as with Serbia’s DAH Teatret. Examining case studies, students write critical and artistic responses, culminating in the creation of an original theatrical piece that fosters truth and reconciliation for a contemporary conflict.
This course considers 20th- and 21st-century performance work by women in dance, theatre, and the visual art world (performance art) from a historical and theoretical perspective. Critical and theoretical feminist essays and other writings are assigned. Students read original texts, view documentation, and analyze contemporary works by women writers, choreographers, performance artists, and theatre directors.
An introduction to the fundamentals of designing costumes for theatre and dance productions. As they examine the design process, students explore how and why a designer makes certain choices. Emphasis is placed on how ideas are generated and communicated within the flux of the production process.
Designed to assist the actor in interpreting William Shakespeare’s stage directions and in reading clues within his verse in order to make informed performance choices. Classroom exercises assist in developing techniques of Shakespearean performance and enhanced understanding of Shakespeare’s sometimes daunting speeches. PREREQ: THP2205 And THP3315
THP 3370Staging Italian Stories: Devising Theatre for a Community4
Students engage in creating and performing an original community-based piece on site in Italy, built with Law and Justice students through an ethically designed interview-based process with local residents and refugees. In collaboration with program partner La Mama Umbria, students share a culminating project as part of the Spoleto Open Fringe Festival, hosted by the Festival Dei Due Mondi.
Meeting at the Academy of Drama in Prague, students study and perform plays by Václav Havel, the dissident playwright imprisoned during the Communist era who became president of the Czech Republic. Students explore political and cultural contexts of theatrical performance, enhanced by meetings with theatre professionals and visits to sites relevant to the intersection of artistic creation and political revolution.
Virginia Woolf captures sensory detail and internal thought like few other writers. This dramatization of perception makes her work ripe for adaptation. Students will read selections of Woolf’s essays, short stories, and novels, and study theatrical adaptations of her work. Students will explore translating Woolf’s iconic vision into theatrical shape by creating immersive stage adaptations of her work
An in-depth exploration of fundamental stage-management skills in each phase of the production process: preproduction, first rehearsal, rehearsal period, preparing for the tech, technical rehearsals, previews, opening, running of the show, and closing.
This course aims to define a decolonized canon of Black American dramatic works. Plays are read as literature and considered in sociopolitical contexts, alongside study of significant creative movements and influential artists. Playwrights studied span the 20th and 21st centuries, including James Baldwin, Katori Hall, Lorraine Hansberry, Adrienne Kennedy, Tarell Alvin McCraney, and Tyler Perry, among others.
THP 3500Documentary Theatre: Performing Real Life4
Students collect, assemble, and perform scripts based on “lore” (oral history, personal narratives). History is seen as a performative way to construct identity. Includes readings by documentary playwrights like Brecht, Emily Mann, and Caryl Churchill.
Invites students on an introspective journey that uses performance to answer the question “Who am I?” Throughout the semester, students will explore various styles of solo performance, including as creator, audience and/or subject. Assignments include both creative and writing based projects.
Explores how LGBTQ identities and issues are represented in diverse dramatic forms, performance styles, and cultural venues. Through discussions, presentations, and writing assignments, students analyze queer theatre in relation to production history, theories of sexuality, and cultural and political contexts (both past and present).
Students analyze film, television and stage performances that depict Black gay men. Students synthesize historical and political context, artistic perspectives, and the unique intersectional realities of Black and gay identity towards a deeper understanding of these artistic and cultural perspectives. Works studied include both mainstream hits that permeate the zeitgeist, and niche, yet culturally significant works that shift the narrative.
THP 3535Contemporary Indigenous Theatre and Performance4
This course investigates indigenous theatrical literature and performances from the 1970s to the present. This global course examines indigenous theatre from North and South America, the Pacific Rim, and the Middle East. Attention is given to patterns of colonialism and capitalism, along with designing plans of action to initiate racial, economic, and environmental justice in response to works examined.
THP 3555Michael Chekhov Technique: A Psycho-Physical Approach to Acting3
The historical importance of Michael Chekhov lay in bringing revised Stanislavsky acting methods to America, emphasizing responses to psychological impulses via movement in harmony with the character’s thoughts, emotions, and desires. Students infuse tangible actions of body and voice with intangible feelings, sensations, and images from the actor’s imagination, using techniques such as archetypal/psychological gestures and “centers” in character development. PREREQ: ACT1055 Or THP1055
Students explore the use of technology and new media as a real-time collaborator in the theatrical creation process. By integrating software and hardware early in the rehearsal process, students are able to investigate and experiment with new radical performance processes. Through discussion, laboratory-style work sessions, and small-scale creative assignments, students will engage with technology as a dynamic and responsive collaborator with unexpected and unexplored capabilities.
Shakespeare goes to celluloid, Hollywood, Japan, TV, and elsewhere. On the one hand, this is a Shakespeare seminar, with emphasis on discussions of the plays themselves. On the other, it becomes a film course, focusing on analyses of screen adaptations. PREREQ: THP2205 Or LIT2205
A team-taught introduction to collaboration between designers and directors with a focus on communication in realizing a given theatrical production. Students focus on the scenic designer and director collaboration with guest artists from other design and production areas. For directing and production concentrations in THP and anyone interested in learning skills of collaboration in the theatre. PREREQ: THP2895
An immersion in project-based study of projection design for theater and contemporary performance. Students will develop designs based on script analysis, visual interpretation and collaboration with other designers and directors. Alongside learning principles of video projection and techniques for image editing and visualization, students will be introduced to software applications used in professional theatre.
Engaging with a wide variety of plays and performances, students explore U.S. Latino theatre as a site of personal, cultural, and political intervention. Readings reflect the aesthetics, narratives, historical contexts, and systems of theatrical production pertinent to Latino culture in the U.S. English and Global Literatures Description and requirements Faculty Courses Description: Students majoring in English and Global Literatures at SUNY Purchase learn to read texts closely and critically and to understand literature in relation to the social and historical conditions in which it is written and read.
Deepen our knowledge of the science, politics, and history around climate change, studying companies and artists who have used theatre to incite societal change, and interfacing with contemporary theatre artists addressing the climate crisis. Create theatrical actions and interventions designed to push public dialogue and action around this most crucial of issues.
THP 3670It’s a Small World: International Theme Park Performances4
Together we map a geography of tourist productions across the globe. Through readings, lectures, fieldwork and archival research, students explore concepts related to tourist conventions and the tourist gaze. Topics include display culture and performances of ethnicity and identity; experience economies and the politics of travel and leisure; globalization and the commodification of culture and place.
Examine the social construction of dis/ability, primarily in the US, with a focus on the role of theatre and performance in shaping and challenging dis/ability narratives. Through interdisciplinary, intersectional and interpersonal analyses, students explore issues and identities (as well as solidarities) related to physical, sensory, intellectual and psychological differences and variabilities.
An introduction to directing plays. Students stage scenes from a diverse array of contemporary plays and investigate methods for preparation, text analysis, research, and the rehearsal/ production process. Readings from Anne Bogart, Katie Mitchell and others introduce the basics of the director’s craft while also imagining how to discover and shape the impact, or the “why now?” of a production.
Study the craft of directing through staging a classic experimental play in translation, creating theatrical responses that radically interrogate form and trace its legacy in contemporary performance. Students explore language, intention, time, space and multidisciplinary tools while also learning best practices in collaboration. Study of innovative productions that re-imagine/explode classical work complements this invention, inspiring students’ own developing directorial voice. PREREQ: THP3680
THP 3685Ensemble Creation: Movement Based Theatre3
In this introduction to strategies of collective creation, students are engaged in a process that culminates in an end-of-semester performance. Students engage with multiple modes of physical theatre creation, including training in Viewpoints, Laban and Lecoq.
American theatre and society during the last 50 years. Plays by Jones (Baraka), Mamet, Shepard, Hwang, Kushner, Fornes, Marsha Norman, Sarah Ruhl, and August Wilson. Some knowledge of the American drama of O’Neill, Williams, and Miller is required.
Is there a childhood picture or storybook or graphic novel that you’ve always wanted to see onstage? This course studies the contexts and conventions related to page-to-stage adaptations of children’s literature. Through the interpretation of source materials, and the development of dramatic and sensory storytelling techniques, students will create multigenerational theatre designed to foster empathy, inclusion and imagination.
For the ensemble director and actor/creator, a course in creating devised theatre. Using a range of source materials, including short stories, news articles, and interviews, students learn tools and strategies for company-created works. This is a rigorous immersion in building a collaborative vision through structured improvisation, space, character, narrative arc, and mise-en-scène. PREREQ: THP3680 Or THP3685
THP 3735Embodied Images: Directing as Composition4
Examines major artists who work visually, experientially, and sonically across multiple performance platforms of theatre, opera, dance and installation, including William Kentridge, Ariane Mnouchkine, Simon McBurney, Bill T. Jones, Janet Cardiff, Kara Walker among others. Students create their own projects inspired by these artists’ experiments in order to explore new compositional approaches to theatrical form as directors and creators. PREREQ: THP3680
Malaise, futility, despair, and, sometimes, hope in the plays of Pirandello, Brecht, Giraudoux, Beckett, Ionesco, Genet, Osborne, Pinter, Churchill, and others, from World War I to somewhere short of tomorrow.
Study and dramatic interpretation of 20th-century lyric poetry, including Eliot, Roethke, Sexton, Plath, Olds, Ginsberg, Rich, Stafford, and Giovanni. Workshop atmosphere; solo and group techniques of performance and script making; written analyses.
Focuses on the relation between text and production in the theatre through play analysis, theoretical readings, research, student presentations, and discussion of campus productions. A substantial research paper and senior project proposal with annotated bibliography are required. Required for all junior theatre and performance majors, and normally open only to them. PREREQ: THP2020 And THP2885 And THP2890 And (THP2205 Or LIT3224 Or LIT3618 Or PHI3205 Or THP2215 Or THP2220 Or THP3620 )
Students rehearse and perform a role or work on the production of a main-stage show directed by a faculty member or other professional director. Students may enroll only after they have been cast or assigned to the production.
Students who are planning a senior project in performance studies should consult with their faculty advisor about additional course options. The senior project in Theatre and Performance is a rigorous project which requires research and writing, regardless of concentration. All concentrations except Theatre History/Theory/Criticism require the execution of a creative project (such as the performance of a production or the writing of a script) as well as the following scholarly components: a statement of artistic aims, a contextual research essay, and a technical essay evaluating the process and results of the creative project. The concentration in Theatre History/Theory/Criticism does not require a creative component, and consists solely of a scholarly project. In most cases, students must receive formal faculty approval of their specific senior project proposal by the end of the Junior Seminar. Acceptance of proposals is not automatic. It is dependent on adequate student preparation and fulfillment of required courses, as well as faculty availability and expertise. Students may be asked to submit an alternate proposal or take additional courses before proceeding. Advanced students who plan to explore the intersections of two or more areas in their senior project should consult with their faculty advisor well in advance to shape an acceptable course of study and senior project.
Examines queer performance beyond traditional drama and theatre including drag shows, stand-up comedy, and live music. Students critically analyze and explore the ways in which queer performance engages with current struggles surrounding issues of queer identity, community, and representation. Assignments include both creative and writing projects.
THP 4180Women, Water, and Autonomy: Ecofeminism in Performance4
This course offers a workshop in creating performance/installation adapted and devised from these writings to celebrate how femme bodies (both human and from nature) rise and rebel against systematic abuse. Students study the ecofeminist movement, and performance that addresses climate change to guide their own investigations into creating original work about rising sea levels and female agency.
This course puts theatre and other modes of performance from the Nazi Era in conversation with contemporary works that address the legacies of fascism today. Through the exploration of plays, films, music, visual art, historical documents, and theoretical writings, students examine how the arts have participated in promoting and resisting fascist ideology.
A deep dive into the theatrical culture of the 1980s-from Broadway musicals (Dreamgirls, Sunday in the Park with George) and popular plays (Neil Simon, August Wilson) to experimental theatre (Caryl Churchill, María Irene Fornés)-in an era pulled between multiculturalism and conservatism. The dramatic arts are positioned within a broader cultural landscape including film, music, television, and visual art. PREREQ: THP2890
How do we as actors use our voices to convey story, character, opinion, emotion and information to the audience? Students work to build more dynamic, flexible, present and responsive physical instruments through the practice of tangible, reliable skills and techniques that integrate the breath, the body and the voice into text and performance.
