This workshop will translate the actor’s imagination into stage action by building one’s performance vocabulary. The class engages students’ essential self by expanding their craft through a wide-ranging set of training techniques. This class meets twice a week.

This course is for students with little or no design or technical experience who are curious about design and want exposure to multiple design areas. It is also a useful tool for directors, playwrights, and actors who want to increase their understanding of the design and technical aspects of theatre to enhance their abilities as theatrical artists. This is a very hands-on class, in which students will learn the basics needed to execute set, costume, lighting, and sound designs. We will use a short scene or play as the focus of our discussions of the collaborative design process. Class format will include both classes with the full design faculty and classes focused on specific design areas.

This course is for students who have design or technical experience or have taken Design Elements I and want to explore design and technical theatre in greater depth. This course is also useful for students who are studying one area of design and want an introduction to other areas. Students will explore two of the four design areas (set, costume, lighting, and sound design) in greater depth, building their technical skills, design basics, and collaborative communication skills. Class format involves classes with the full design faculty and six weeks of classes in each of two design areas with individual design teachers. The goal of this semester is to have students develop the ability to create a simple design in their chosen areas. Open to students who have taken Design Elements I or with faculty permission.

This course is a shorter, one-semester version of History and Histrionics. Like History and Histrionics, it is designed to give students an overview of major periods in world theatre but in a more concise format. Students will explore theatre as both a product of its time and place and of the vision of individual playwrights. Through a combination of lecture and discussion, students should emerge with access to the major idioms of dramatic writing. This class meets once a week.

This course is designed to give students an overview of major periods in world theatre. We will explore theatre as both a product of its time and place and of the vision of individual playwrights. Through a combination of lecture and discussion, students should emerge with access to the major idioms of dramatic writing.

This course is an introduction to the Sarah Lawrence College performance spaces and their technical capabilities.

Exploring forms, styles, and collaborative techniques needed to create musicals, the students will develop book and lyrics based on original material. Students will research the history of musicals from the emergence of European cabaret and performance, with a particular focus on the influence of interdisciplinary needs of contemporary musicals. The process of adaptation, auditioning, casting, rewriting, rehearsals, and performance will also be presented. Open to actors, singers, composers, lyricists, and musicians. Audition required

The plays of Anton Chekov, Tennessee Williams, and August Wilson will serve as the point of departure in our exploration of the craft of acting. In this class, students will be challenged to expand their range of expression and build their confidence to make bold and imaginative acting choices. Particular attention will be paid to learning to analyze the text in ways that lead to defining clear, specific, and playable actions and objectives.

Those actors rooted in the tradition of playing Shakespeare find themselves equipped with a skill set that enables them to successfully work on a wide range of texts and within an array of performance modalities. The objectives of this class are to learn to identify, personalize, and embody the structural elements of Shakespeare’s language as the primary means of bringing his characters to life. Students will study a representative arc of Shakespeare’s plays, as well as the sonnets, with the goal of bringing his characters to life. Class time will be divided between physical, vocal, and text work.

A specific, text-driven approach to performance, based upon identifying, analyzing, and exploiting particular attributes common to characters in all plays, this class provides a foundation and a context for the most vital and decisive characterizations. Students will read, discuss, and act scenes from contemporary plays and adaptations.

Using the foundations learned during their first years in the Theatre program, students will apply their theatrical training to the camera. The students will learn how to maintain an organic experience in spite of the rigid technical restrictions and requirements. The second half of each semester will be dedicated to putting a scene on its feet and shooting it. We will use a monitor playback system for reviewing work to help identify specific problems. Limited enrollment. This class meets twice a week.

Comedy Workshop is an exploration of the classic structures of comedy and the unique comic mind. It begins with a strong focus on improvisation and ensemble work. The athletics of this creative comedic mind is the primary objective of the first semester exercises. Status play, narrative storytelling, and the Harold exercise are used to develop the artist’s freedom and confidence. The ensemble learns to trust the spontaneous response and their own comic madness. Second semester educates the theatre artist in the theories of comedy. It is designed to introduce students to Commedia dell arte, vaudeville, parody, satire, and standup comedy. At the end of the final semester, each student will write five minutes of standup material that will be performed one night at a comedy club in New York City and then on the SLC campus on Comedy Night.

It is a sanctum of discovery, enabling the actor to explore non-Western movement: centering energy, concentration, the voice, and the “mythos” of a character to discover one’s own truth in relation to the text, contemporary as well as the classics. Traditional, as well as alternative, approaches to acting techniques are applied. Fall semester concentrates on working on roles such as Hamlet, Leontes, Caliban, Othello, Lear, Macbeth, Hecuba, Medea, Antigone, and Lady Macbeth; spring semester, applied to scene study from such works by Arrabal, Beckett, Ionesco, Maria Irene Fornes, Sam Shepard, Albert Camus, and Jean Genet.

Using experimental exercises and improvisation, we will explore the character’s connections to his or her environment, relationships, needs, and wants. In the second semester, we will concentrate on fashioning a workable technique, as well as on using improvisation to illuminate scene work from the great dramatic playwrights: Lorca, Chekhov, Strindberg, O’Neill, Shaw, etc. This course is available to students who are willing to approach material experimentally in a laboratory setting.

We will explore an actor’s performance with songs and various styles of popular music, music for theatre, cabaret, and original work—emphasizing communication with the audience and material selection. Dynamics of vocal interpretation and style will also be examined. This class requires enrollment in a weekly voice lesson and an Alexander Technique class. Audition required. This class meets once a week.

SLC Lampoon is a comedy ensemble of actors, directors, and writers. The techniques of Second City and Theatersports will be used to create an improvisational troupe that will perform throughout the campus. The ensemble will craft comic characters and write sketches, parodies,  and political satire. This work will culminate in a final SLC Lampoon Mainstage performance in the style of Second City or Saturday Night Live. Audition required.

This course examines how theatre reflects and defines its times. By studying the artists, theatre companies, and some of the most provocative plays and musicals written in and around recent events (from the social and political upheaval of the 1960s to the AIDS crisis of the mid-1980s to 9/11), we will come to see how theatre shapes a point of view on the world. Students will study a large selection of plays and documentaries and participate in discussions that will range from the history of the time periods studied to why different plays on the same subject (Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America) differ so greatly in form, style, and purpose. A wide range of topical issues and various aspects of theatre production will be discussed. Students will make presentations, show scene work, and/or write on topics that reflect their own particular points of view.

This course will ask theatre artists (directors, actors, playwrights, designers) to explore their own understanding of the acting process through physical action and scene study techniques. Each student will work on four scenes over the course of the year. The scenes will be chosen to develop emotional range, to create comic character, to experience extreme physical movement, and to discover an individual approach to diversity.

During the fall semester, we will develop—through theatrical exercises, improvisations, character development, and “hands-on” collaboration with the screenwriting team—an ensemble cast. As the webisodics are developed, workshopped, and revised, the filmmakers will be shooting and editing the weekly staged readings as performed by the actors. The actors will further explore, investigate, and create three-dimensional complex characters. We will review and discuss revisions and complexity of plot in class. Camera blocking and comprehension of camera movements will be taught. When principal photography is wrapped, the actors will further develop their craft by working with the screenwriters doing table reads and staged readings of original material. These workshop pieces will be shot, edited, and discussed in class to enhance the revision process. The outcome of this past year’s course is the Web series, “Socially Active,” which can be viewed online at: http://vimeo.com/channels/sociallyactive. This class will be team-taught by Theatre instructor Douglas Mac Hugh and Filmmaking instructor Fred Strype. Enrollment is limited. Permission of the instructors is required. This class meets once a week for four hours.

The historic La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York's East Village hosts this survey of contemporary and historic international theatre. Students will have the opportunity to meet and experience artists from around the world who are presenting performances at La MaMa ETC. In addition to learning the history of international theatre in New York through the La MaMa archives, students will have workshops with visiting artists and see examples of their work. Coordinators of the La MaMa International Symposium for Directors, David Diamond and Mia Yoo, will host students in New York where, each week, they will exchange ideas with visiting and local artists.

The Alexander Technique is a neuromuscular system that enables the student to identify and change poor and inefficient habits that may be causing stress and fatigue. With gentle hands-on guidance and verbal instruction, the student learns to replace faulty habits with improved coordination by locating and releasing undue muscular tensions. This includes easing of the breath and the effect of coordinated breathing on the voice. It is an invaluable technique that connects the actor to his or her resources for dramatic intent. This class meets once a week.

Students will improve their vocal power and ease of speech through an understanding of basic breathing mechanics and principles of speech. Utilizing recent discoveries of breathing coordination, performers can achieve their true potential by freeing their voices, reducing tension, and increasing concentration and stamina. Students will consolidate their progress by performing pieces in their field (theatre, dance, music, etc.) in a supportive atmosphere. This class meets once a week.

A continuation of Breathing Coordination for the Performer, which is suggested as a prerequisite, students may work on scenes that they currently are rehearsing and also bring in pieces of their own choosing. Emphasis will be on physical ease and the use of breathing coordination to increase vocal range and power. This class meets once a week.

Successful performances in dance and theatre rely on training that prepares performers in mind, body, and spirit to enter the realm of aesthetic exploration and expression. In this class, we will work toward acquiring skills that facilitate the investigation of previously unimagined ways of moving. Through traditional and experimental practices, students will develop a sense of form, energy use, strength and control, and awareness of time and rhythm. Improvisation is an important aspect of this study.  Audition required.

Students will learn the basics of armed and unarmed stage fighting, with an emphasis on safety. Actors will be taught to create effective stage violence, from hair pulling and choking to sword fighting, with a minimum of risk. Basic techniques will be incorporated into short scenes to give students experience performing fights in both classic and modern contexts. This class meets once a week.

This course is a continuation of Introduction to Stage Combat and offers additional training in more complex weapons forms, such as rapier and dagger, single sword, and small sword. Students receive training as fight captains and have the opportunity to take additional skills proficiency tests, leading to actor/combatant status in the Society of American Fight Directors. This course meets once a week.

This is a movement class for anyone interested in performance; no movement experience is necessary. All that is required is an open, curious mind when approaching the work. Daily warmups and improvisation lead to moving in larger ranges and creating original movement. Later in the semester, we will explore the integration of text and movement composition for the theatre. As a requirement of the class, there will be unique opportunities to observe rehearsals and/or performances of Mr. Neumann’s professional engagements in New York City. This class meets twice a week.

This course will focus on the art and practice of stage management. Students will be assigned productions and will be mentored through the process from auditions through tech week and strike. This class meets once a week. Greta Minsky will teach during the fall semester; Rebecca Sealander, during the spring semester.

This course creates a working process for the presentation of plays. Student actors and directors will work together on chosen scripts as a way of determining and shaping a common and shared approach to the text that will provide a foundation for the most vivid, physical, and distinctly realized expressions of a play. Students will be expected to both act and direct in scenes and short plays that will be presented as part of the Theatre program season. 

This class will focus on directing plays in the 20th-century canon, covering a range of styles and content. It will cover the whole journey of directing a play, with a strong emphasis on practical work. Students will be required to bring in design research for plays and to direct scenes from the plays, both of which they will present to the class for critique. The class will focus on how to use the text to inform the choices made by the director. Plays on the syllabus include The Three Sisters, Our Town, Top Girls, The Glass Menagerie, and Angels in America: Millennium Approaches. This class meets twice a week.

This class is a laboratory, where students will explore (on their feet) a range of methodologies, philosophies, and approaches to creating performance and theatre. How do you direct a theatre piece without starting with a play? Alongside a broad survey of artists and art movements of the 20th century that continue to influence theatre artists today, students will practice a variety of ways of staging with and without text, always in relation to being a “live event." Following a trajectory from the Dadaists to Fluxus, from the surrealists to John Cage (and beyond), we will wrangle with these “post-dramatic” artists and explore how their ideas can lead us in finding our own unique theatrical voice. Class will culminate in performances assembled from work made in class. Students will be given reading and creative assignments outside of class and will be expected to work collaboratively throughout the term. This class meets once a week.

DownStage is an intensive, hands-on conference in theatrical production. DownStage student producers administrate and run their own theatre company. They are responsible for all aspects of production, including determining the budget and marketing an entire season of events and productions. Student producers are expected to fill a variety of positions, both technical and artistic, and to sit as members of the board of directors of a functioning theatre organization. In addition to their obligations to class and designated productions, DownStage producers are expected to hold regular office hours. Prior producing experience is not required. This class meets twice a week.

For students who wish to pursue a professional internship as part of their program, all areas of producing and administration are possible:  production, marketing, advertising, casting, development, etc. Students must have at least one day each week to devote to the internship. Through individual meetings, we will best determine each student’s placement to meet individual academic and artistic goals.

The creative director of the Theatre program will lead a discussion group for all the directors, assistant directors, and playwrights participating in the fall theatre season (including readings, workshops, and productions). This is an opportunity for students to discuss with their peers the process, problems, and pleasures of making theatre at Sarah Lawrence College (and beyond). This workshop is part problem solving, part support group—with the emphasis on problem solving. This course is required for students who accept a position in the fall season.

This course focuses on the nuts and bolts of light-board operation, sound-board operation, and projection technology, as well as the use of Final Cut Pro^® and Pro Tools^® editing programs and basic stage carpentry. Students who take this course will be eligible for additional paid work as technical assistants in the Theatre program. This class meets once a week.

Students will spend all year constructing, developing, and rehearsing a single puppet production. This year’s production, Double Aspect by acclaimed experimental playwright Erik Ehn, is part of a cycle of 17 plays that “…look at America through the lens of its genocides.” Each of the 17 plays will be produced at various venues across the country during the 2011/2012 season, with all productions converging on La Mama, in New York City, in the fall of 2012. During the 2011/2012 academic year, students will be involved in all facets of Double Aspect, from researching the conflicts in El Salvador and Guatemala (the setting of the play) to the fabrication of puppets, choreography of puppeteers, and the final performance. Double Aspect will be given full production at Sarah Lawrence College in the spring of 2012 and will tour to La Mama the following fall. Audition required. Classes will meet for three hours per week.

This course will provide a critical and supportive forum for the development of new works of original performance, focusing primarily on where current dance and theatre combinations find inspiration. In the first semester, students will explore contemporary theatre-building techniques and methodologies from Dada to Judson Church and beyond. The majority of time will be devoted to lab work, where students will create their own short performance pieces through a multidisciplinary approach. Students will be asked to devise original theatre pieces that utilize such methods as solo forms, viewpoints, chance operations, and creations from nontheatrical sources. In addition to the laboratory aspect of the class, a number of plays, essays, and artists’ manifestos will be discussed. In the second semester, students will collaborate on a single evening-length work, utilizing theatrical and nontheatrical sources in an attempt to speak to our cultural moment. There will also be opportunities to visit rehearsals and performances of professional theatre and dance in New York City. Open to first-year graduates. This class meets once a week.

This course allows students to explore design possibilities in projection, animation, scenic design, and puppetry through a series of exploratory projects and group work. Visual sequences will be created using overhead projectors, stop-motion animation techniques, shadow puppetry, and video animation. The course will introduce basic digital-image manipulation in Photoshop^®, simple video animation in AfterEffects^®, and the live manipulation of video using Isadora^® media interface software. Individual projects in the second semester will challenge students to integrate these techniques into performance. Basic knowledge of Photoshop and the MAC operating system is highly recommended. This class meets once a week.

Taught by a rotating series of SLC faculty and guest artists, this course focuses on developing the skills needed for a wide variety of techniques for the creation and development of new work in theatre. Ensemble acting, movement, design and fabrication, playwriting, devised work, and music performance are all explored. The class is a forum for workshops, master classes, and open rehearsals, with a focus on the development of critical skills. In addition, students in Grad Lab are expected to generate a new piece of theatre, to be performed for the SLC community, every month. These performances will include graduate and undergraduate students alike. Open to graduate students only. Co-taught and curated by Shirley Kaplan, Dan Hurlin, and David Neumann, this is a required course for both years of the graduate program. This course meets weekly for three hours.

This is a performance lab open to actors, dancers, visual artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers, and directors. The class will form an ensemble where creative process, media crossovers, and global forms and styles are presented within an active media lab. The group, using shared performance techniques, will explore the development of personal devised work. Methods of vocal and physical work will add to interdisciplinary collaborations in order to explore sources of inspiration for new work. Investigating both traditional and contemporary performance, we will acknowledge new connections that are happening between videogames and text, science and technology. Crossing cultural and media traditions, the group will create and present weekly projects, as well as a final performance.

This course will provide a critical and supportive forum for the development of new works of original theatre with a focus on conducting research in a variety of ways, including historical and artistic research, workshops, improvisations, experiments, and conversation. Each student focuses on creating one original project—typically, but not limited to, a solo, duet, or trio—over the course of the full year. During the class, students will show works in progress. During conference, students and faculty will meet to discuss these showings and any relevant artistic and practical problems that may arise. Open to second-year graduate students only. Required for second-year graduate students, this course meets weekly for two hours, with 20-minute biweekly conferences.

This course will introduce students to the uniquely interdisciplinary performing medium of puppetry. Students will research and study a global range of ancient and modern puppet styles and forms: Western models such as toy theater and string puppets, as well as Eastern practices such as Indonesian shadow and Japanese Bunraku, among others. After conducting research, interviewing contemporary puppet artists, and visiting puppet fabrication studios in New York City, students will have hands-on experiences with each form, developing short original puppet works focusing on manipulation skills, contemporary construction methods, and creative problem solving. This class meets once a week for two hours.

This course is an introduction to the many aspects of costuming for students with little or no experience in the field. Among the topics covered are: basics of design, color, and style; presentation of costume design from preliminary concept sketches to final renderings; researching period styles; costume bookkeeping from preliminary character lists to wardrobe maintenance charts; and the costume shop from threading a needle to identifying fabric. The major class project will have each student research, bookkeep, and present costume sketches for a play. Some student projects will incorporate production work. This class meets once a week.

This is a more advanced course in costume design for students who have completed Costume Design I or who have the instructor’s permission to enter. Topics covered in Costume Design I will be examined at greater depth, with the focus on students designing actual productions. An emphasis will be placed on the students developing sketching techniques and beginning and maintaining their portfolios. This class meets once a week.

This is an advanced conference in costume design.

Lighting Design I will introduce the student to the basic elements of stage lighting, including tools and equipment, color theory, reading scripts for design elements, operation of lighting consoles and construction of lighting cues, and basic elements of lighting drawings and schedules. Students will be offered hands-on experience in hanging and focusing lighting instruments and will be invited to attend technical rehearsals. They will have opportunities to design productions and to assist other designers as a way of developing greater understanding of the design process. This class meets once a week.

Lighting Design II will build on the basics introduced in Lighting Design I to help develop the students’ abilities in designing complex productions. The course will focus primarily on CAD and other computer programs related to lighting design, script analysis, advanced console operation, and communication with directors and other designers. Students will be expected to design actual productions and in-class projects for evaluation and discussion and will be offered the opportunity to increase their experience in design by assisting Mr. MacPherson and others, when possible.

This course introduces basic elements of scenic design, including developing a design concept, drafting, and practical techniques for creating theatrical space. Students will develop tools to communicate their visual ideas through research, sketches, and models. The class will discuss examples of design from theatre, dance, and puppetry. Student projects will include both conceptual designs and production work in the department. This class meets once a week. There is a $50 course fee. Faculty: TBA

This class will further develop the student’s skill set as a scenic designer through work on department productions and individual projects. Students will be introduced to CAD drawing and computer modeling through Vectorworks^® and develop their ability to communicate with directors, fellow designers, and the technical crew. In addition, students will continue to have hands-on exposure to practical scenic construction, rigging, and painting techniques. Students in this course are required to design a department production. Faculty: TBA

This course will cover sound design from the beginning of the design process through expectations when meeting with a director, how to collaborate with the rest of the design team, and ultimately creating a full sound design for performance. The course will explain how to edit sound, as well as many of the programs commonly used in a professional atmosphere. Throughout the course, we will create sound effects and sound collages and cover the many ways that sound is used in the theatre. Skills learned in this class will prepare students to design sound in many different venues and on different types of systems. The class will focus on the creative side of sound design, while covering the basics of system design, sound equipment, and software. This class will meet once a week.

You have an idea, or vision, for a play that you would like to write. You have no particular idea for a play, yet you feel eager to explore and learn how to write in the dramatic form—which involves live characters interacting in three-dimensional space before a live audience. Either way, this course involves learning craft techniques, as well as advanced methods for dramatizing your ideas from initial scenes to completed rough first drafts. We incorporate freewriting and brainstorming techniques, acting improvisation, and audio and video recordings from your in-process work. Class texts will be selected from the white-ethnic, and African-American theatre canon. This class meets twice a week.

In this class, we will focus on writing “experimental theatre”—that is, we will experiment with theatrical forms that extend beyond traditional portrayals of time, three-dimensional space, language, character, and dramatic structure—and discover the impact that different types of onstage presentations might have on audiences. We are not interested in imitating the style of experimental playwrights but, rather, using their texts as influence, stimulus, and encouragement as we attempt our own experiments. We will also style experimental texts to ascertain the types of environments—political, spiritual, mental, social—that influenced such texts to be generated; that is, created. Our aim, first and foremost, is to investigate and explore ways to genuinely give theatrical expression to our personal-political-spiritual interior lives, values, observations, and beliefs. We will then strive to examine the most effective manner of communicating our theatrical experiments to an audience. Our experimental writing may include a multimedia presentation as part of the scripted, onstage play or performance. This class meets once a week.

This class is open to anyone with a full to almost-completed first draft of a play. Plays are not literature. Plays are meant to be heard out loud, rehearsed, and workshopped on their feet. Plays go through a development process before becoming a rehearsal-ready draft. Once in rehearsal, the work on the script continues into previews. Students will learn how to rewrite in the rehearsal room and how to work with actors and directors on new, unfinished work. This class meets once a week.

Over the course of a semester (or year), this class will focus on the relationship between playwright and director during the development of a new play. Playwrights must bring in a full-length play that is ready to be worked on. Over the course of the semester, we will work through notes—directing readings, staging, rewriting in collaboration, rewriting in rehearsal, cutting, learning when not to rewrite and how playwrights talk about staging—all in the building of an effective artistic collaboration.

This course is designed for playwriting students who have a basic knowledge of dramatic structure and an understanding of their own creative process. Students will be free to work on plays of any length and with themes, subjects, and styles of their choice. They may also work on more than one project at a time. Work will be read aloud and discussed in the class each week. The course requires that students be self-motivated and enter with an idea of which play or plays they plan to work on. This class meets once a week.

“You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club.”—Jack London

Writers Gym is a first-year creative writing “gymnasium.” Our focus is on weekly writing exercises that develop characters and stories—whether for the stage, screenplay, or fiction/memoir prose narration. In addition, we study theories about the nature of creativity and explore strategies for improving writing discipline and for working writing blocks. Our goals are as follows: to study writing methods that help to inspire, nurture, encourage, and sustain our urge/need to write; to concentrate on building the inner lives of our characters through in-depth character work, in order to create stronger stories; to explore—that is to say, investigate—and gain access into our spontaneous ideas; to articulate and gain a more conscious relationship to the “inner territory” from which we draw ideas; to confront issues that block the writing process; and to gain greater confidence in revision, as we pursue clarification of the work. Our yearlong class procedure will include weekly writing exercises, writing and revising multiple short pieces that the students generate—plays, prose fiction and nonfiction, or short screenplay. Students will be assigned selected readings from the aforementioned genres plus a variety of essay excerpts concerning the creative process. In addition, one class a week will focus on the history of theatre. 

This class is for actors who want to write and act in their own work. The work may be autobiographical or nonautobiographical. The genre may extend itself to music and spoken word. We will work heavily with text and really delve into the characters to make them fully realized in reference to the story that is being told. We will use Jungian and some Greco/Roman myth to get inside the characters and make them understood and universal. The atmosphere is such that students may try anything and experiment.

Developing original, issue-oriented dramatic material using music and theatre media, this course will present the structures needed for community extension of the theatre. Performance and teaching groups will work with small theatres, schools, senior-citizen groups, museums, centers, and shelters. Productions and class plans will be made in consultation with the organizations and our touring groups. We will work with children’s theatre, audience participation, and educational theatre. Teaching and performance techniques will focus on past and present uses of oral histories and cross-cultural material. Sociological and psychological dynamics will be studied as part of an exploration of the role of theatre and its connections to learning. Each student will have a service-learning team placement. Special projects and guest topics will include the use of theatre in developing new kinds of after-school programs, styles and forms of community on-site performances, media techniques for artists who teach, and work with the Sarah Lawrence College Human Genetics program. This class meets once a week.

In today’s world, theatre is increasingly defined as a commercial enterprise. This course will examine the use of theatre for social change, examining its practice, theory, role, and production. Discussions will include approaches to using theatre for creating personal and social change and the key elements of successful projects from creative process to performance to organization to impact. Interactive class sessions will include participation in a creative process involving community building, team building, conflict resolution, social analysis, and scene creation. Each student will be expected to develop a coherent theory of change, construct a viable performing arts-based project “blueprint,” and participate in a community event created from the creative process. Students will also visit one Saturday rehearsal of the City at Peace project in New York City, a nonprofit organization using the performing arts to empower teenagers to transform their lives and communities. This class meets once a week.

Weekly class meetings in which productions are analyzed and discussed will be supplemented by regular visits to many of the theatrical productions of the current season. The class will travel within the tristate area, attending theatre in as many diverse venues, forms, and styles as possible. Published plays will be studied in advance of attending performances; new or unscripted works will be preceded by examinations of previous work by the author or company. Students will be given access to all available group discounts in purchasing tickets. This class meets once a week.

The purpose of the course is to experience and examine present-day British theatre: its practices, playwrights, traditions, theatres, and artists. This is a two-credit academic course, and any student enrolled at Sarah Lawrence College is eligible to take the class. During two weeks in London, students will attend a minimum of 12 productions, tour various London theatres, meet with British theatre artists, attend regularly scheduled morning seminars, and make an oral presentation on one of the plays that the group is attending. Plays will be assigned prior to the end of the fall semester, and preparation and research for the presentation should be completed before arriving in London. Productions attended will include as wide a variety of venues, styles, and periods of theatre as possible. Seminars will analyze and critique the work seen, as well as discover themes, trends, and movements in the contemporary theatre of the country. Free time is scheduled for students to explore London and surrounding areas at their leisure.

Sponsored by Sarah Lawrence College and the British American Drama Academy (BADA), the London Theatre Program offers undergraduates from Sarah Lawrence an opportunity to work and study with leading actors and directors from the world of British theatre. The program offers acting classes with leading artists from the British stage. These are complemented by individual tutorials, where students will work one-on-one with their teachers. A faculty selected from Britain’s foremost drama schools teaches technical classes in voice, movement, and stage fighting. This intense conservatory training is accompanied by courses in theatre history and theatre criticism, tickets to productions, and the experience of performing in a professional theatre. In addition, master classes and workshops feature more of Britain’s fine actors and directors. Designed for dedicated students who wish to study acting in London, the program offers enrollment in either the fall or spring semester for single-semester study. Those wishing to pursue their training more intensely are strongly encouraged to begin their training in the fall and continue with the Advanced London Theatre Program in the spring semester. Acceptance is by audition only.

This is an experimental workshop. Among its objectives are exploring the participants’ impulsive response to texts (plays for theatre and screen and some poetry), as well as examining the power of intuition to more deeply understand these texts. The key elements require exercises in various forms of “active” meditation. The work is often strenuous and requires physical skill and agility and a passion for adventure. Our overarching objective is to enhance the participants’ ability to act, write, or direct for theatre.