In this course, we'll examine the musicals of Stephen Sondheim from WEST SIDE STORY (1957) to ROAD SHOW (2009) as a lens onto America. How have Sondheim's musicals conversed with American history and American society since the mid-20th century? How do Sondheim's musicals represent America and Americans, and how have various productions shaped and re-shaped those representations? We'll explore how Sondheim and his collaborators used the mainstream, popular, and commercial form of musical theatre to challenge, critique, deconstruct, and possibly reinforce some of America's most enduring myths.

In this studio course open to all, we will dive into experiences in which body and language meet. We'll think about these from aesthetic, cultural, political, medical, personal, and philosophical perspectives. We'll explore language from, in, around, and about (our) bodies. We'll question hierarchies between body and language, use embodied approaches to examine pressing issues of our time. We'll play with the physicality of voice and the material qualities of words and sentences. We'll find literary structures in movement. We'll move and create together with tools from dance, theater, visual art, improvisation, writing, and somatic practices.

The first half of Shakespeare's career, with a focus on the great comedies and histories of the 1590s, culminating in a study of Hamlet.

FRE/THR 211 will offer students the opportunity to put their language skills in motion by exploring French theater and acting in French. The course will introduce students to acting techniques while allowing them to discover the richness of the French dramatic canon. Particular emphasis will be placed on improving students' speaking skills through pronunciation and diction exercises. At the end of the semester, the course will culminate in the presentation of the students' work.

This seminar offers an intensive introduction to working with cultural documents emerging within and from LGBTQ+ communities in the United States during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Students will work individually and collaboratively as they engage a broad array of cultural texts and primary documents from the later 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s. Students will rehearse how to interpret, analyze, and contextualize such documents of the recent queer past as they also explore how to apply these skills within historical, literary/cultural, and dramaturgical analysis.

In this community-engaged class, students will be invited to learn about the dynamic history and role of the arts in Trenton through conversations with local artists and activists. Students will develop close listening skills with oral historian/artist Nyssa Chow. Readings include texts about urban invisibility, race, decoloniality, and public arts policy. Students will participate in the development of a virtual memorial and restorative project by Trenton artist Bentrice Jusu.

The purpose of this course will be to explore the dynamics of spectacle and performance (artistic, political, sexual, anthropological) in representative plays by major Italian authors of the 20th century. A close analysis of works by the Futurists, Eleonora Duse, Pirandello, Fo, and Ovadia will enable us to address questions of a textual and critical nature related to contemporary social issues. Special attention will be given to the representation of individual and societal tensions, the imaging of the female voice, and the relations between the political and artistic imagination.

An intensive immersive exploration of experimental, documentary-style music theater that investigates the history, form, and performance of the choreopoem. Navigate intricate narratives of liberation, expression, and oppression through multi-vocalism, poetic discourse, and a collaborative rigorous investigation of movement, acting, music and writing. Intensive archival research informs critical inquiries into theories of contemporary social and political power dynamics. The course will culminate in the creation of an original choreopoem.

This workshop will introduce students to the craft of writing words and music for the musical theatre. In addition to weekly and in-class practical assignments in technique and skill-building, the course will explore key moments in musical theatre history and criticism to place students' work in a larger context. Readings will illuminate how the specific areas of craft addressed have been handled by masters in different areas of musical theatre. Because collaboration is central to the creation of musical theatre, students will work in different teams during the semester. The workshop will culminate with a presentation of works-in-progress.

Students will explore the world of voice acting and vocal foley design. Students will investigate historical and contemporary techniques used in audiobooks, animation, commercials, and video games. They will utilize industry-standard Logic Pro and user-friendly Garageband to collaborate with the Princeton University Library's Special Collections and reimagine public domain masterpieces through a sonic lens.

The course will lead students toward the creation of a work of musical theater (for lack of a better term) which will run parallel to the collaboration of the two instructors of the course, Adam Gidwitz and Steven Mackey. Instrumental musical performers of any instrument, composers, writers, actors and others who feel they can contribute to a theatrical presentation are needed. The course will include introducing existing relevant works, the progress and process of the ongoing work of the instructors collaboration and of course facilitation of the student creations.

Introduction to Theater Making is a working laboratory, which gives students hands-on experience with theatre's fundamental building blocks -- writing, design, acting, directing, and producing. Throughout the semester, students read, watch and discuss five different plays, music theater pieces and ensemble theater works. We will analyze how these plays are constructed and investigate their social and political implications. In-class artistic responses provide hands-on exploration as students work in groups to create and rehearse performances inspired by our course texts.

An introduction to the craft of acting. Emphasis will be placed on honesty, spontaneity, and establishing a personal connection with the substance of the material.

This is a workshop in the fundamentals of writing plays. Through writing prompts, exercises, study and reflection, students will be guided in the creation of original dramatic material. Attention will be given to character, structure, dramatic action, monologue, dialogue, language and behavior.

An exploration of theatrical sound design and engineering, this class will explore sound for both theater and music theater. We will investigate text from the point of view of sound, and learn how to communicate the ideas, palette and arc of a design to others. We will explore developing a creative process and turning our ideas into sounds that can be used onstage.

The South African Anti-Apartheid movement saw mass resistance against the government's racial segregationist policies. Students will learn about the conditions that gave rise to Apartheid and the Anti-Apartheid movement, taking a look at the instrumental role that the performing arts and protest theatre played in dismantling the unjust system. Participants will develop performance work of their own based in South African protest theatre, encouraging a rejection of excess and on seeing obstacles as opportunities. Students will craft original protest theatre works that address sociopolitical concerns of their choosing.

This cross-genre, interdisciplinary, and creative project based course explores digital imagery combined with human movement. Students work with technologies including projectors, projection mapping software, modular coding, Unreal engine, and mocap suits, to create works of art and shareable experiences incorporating images, space, and the human body. They will learn of the body as a robust technology through embodiment, movement, and motion capture. Discover how to get beyond the screen: how working with multimedia can involve movement in space, and how images can escape from your screen to become part of the three dimensional world.

In this course, we will study the works of feminist-identified scholars and performers to examine how they use different mediums to excavate, stage, and theorize lives that place, front and center, the relationship between (P)olitics, embodied knowledge, and creative expression. Examining works in theater, students will learn about different forms of feminist practice and how those forms may support and conflict with each other. Students will also learn how to incorporate and articulate theories and mediums into their own creative practices.

From Cross Colours to boom boxes, the 1990s was loud and colorful. But alongside the fun, black people in the U.S. dealt with heightened criminalization and poverty codified through the War on Drugs, welfare reform, HIV/AIDS, and police brutality. We will study the various cultural productions of black performers and consumers as they navigated the social and political landscapes of the 1990s. We will examine works growing out of music, televisual media, fashion, and public policy, using theories from performance and cultural studies to understand the specificities of blackness, gender, class, and sexuality.

This course offers an exploration of visual storytelling, research and dramaturgy, combined with a grounding in the practical, collaborative and inclusive skills necessary to create physical environments for live theater making. Students are mentored as designers, directors or project creators on realized projects in our theaters, or on advanced paper projects. Individualized class plans allow students to imagine physical environments for realized and un-realized productions, depending on their area of interest, experience and skill level. Students will see one or two shows off campus, typically in NYC, during the course of the semester

The course is designed to encourage the development of directors for Theater and Music Theater. The course will incorporate a strong practical element, giving student directors the opportunity to explore and hone their own practices, developing useful and appropriate style and language as they move forward in their work as young directors.

Students will work with professional director Bi Jean Ngo in rehearsals towards performances of Naomi Iizuka's play Anon(ymous), a powerful retelling of Homer's epic Odyssey. The play explores themes of identity, coming-of-age, and the shifting nature of home, through the story of a young refugee. Performing roles will be cast through our Try On Theater process on April 29th, open to all - please see the theater program website for details. Performances will be held early November in the Berlind Theater.

This studio class will explore a broad range of approaches to art-based performance: from instruction pieces and happenings, to the body as language and gesture, to performance as a form of archiving. We move through the history of performance to investigate techniques of narrative, site, the audience, duration, voice, movement, installation, with a particular emphasis on documentation and how performance has engaged virtual spaces. Readings and critiques expand vocabulary in assessing performance art. Exercises explore different forms of performance building a foundation of techniques and positions for developing art-based performance work.